Ruby Sanctum - a bit of a let down?

I didn't think about it until now, but RS turned out to be a bit of a downer when you think of its potential to keep us engaged for a little while longer.

As far as I know, there are no 2n-slot bags, no Spyro mounts, no achievements (other than the kills themselves).

The loot ranges from i258 (normal 10) to i284 (heroic 25). So something for everyone except pugs. The trash will be pug-prohibitve. However at this point if you are in the average raid guild either the stuff you can tackle (normal modes) will give you sidegrades while the stuff that would be upgrades (heroic modes) you'll have to work for. Unfortunately, for guilds like mine "working for it" means wiping each week until we finally get it. And our guild doesn't have it in them to wipe for a week or three. Not now, not in the summertime when we don't even know where our officers are half the time. Not with Cataclysm looming.

If you are a hardcore progression raider, working for it means farming it on heroic mode until everyone has the 284 stuff they feel is necessary to start raiding in Cataclysm a week after its released.

But so many lost opportunities to keep the rest of us (who's pinnacle will be normal mode) showing up for a few more weeks:

Bags! Yes, I know four 22-slot bags are already available and even a 24 slot (who knew?!?!). Someone can always use more bag space.

And Barney mounts! Yes, I know there are purple mounts already in game, but another one wouldn't hurt, especially since getting a drake in a 25 man group is a slim affair.

And no achievements? So you kill Halion and you're done when it comes to doing achievements. No "Cutter Avoider" for no one dying from Twilight Cutter? No "Dee Curser" for allowing all marks to reach higher than 3 or 4?

Hmm. None of that would really make me look forward to Halion trash each week. I guess the developers were doing us a favor.

Alts in Progression Raiding

I recently decided to stop "serious" raiding because I noticed alts popping up in our raids. Coincidentally, Greedy Goblin posted about the No-Alt rule in his guild.

He explained why he thinks people play alts. I don't know if I completely agree with him on all points (alts used to grow epeen), but there is truth in it. If you are on an alt you are there to soak up gear, rep or emblems not help the raid progress. I've blogged before about why I think alts are a detriment to progression raiding. At the point our raid started allowing alts I knew our goal had changed from progression to something else.

I saw the sign

I'm not going to guild hop unless something drastic occurs in Cataclysm. However if raiding was important to me like it used to be, I would be jumping ship right now.

I'm guessing burnout, summertime, raid leader temperament and raid apathy has brought our progression long-skid.

Raid dungeons have usually taken the best guilds anywhere from 2-4 months to clear and most recently they are doing that even on hard-mode.

We have now reached the 7th month that ICC has been open. My guild has not cleared it on 25 and the recent events of the past month or so have shown our chances are slim.

1) Burnout. We had our first wave of roster disappear months ago. This coincided with our first 10-man LK kill. Which was right around March, 4 months in. I returned around that time and now, 4 more months in, it looks like its my turn.

2) Summertime. Vacations, weddings, relocations, concerts. Even the palest of basement dwellers find a reason to venture out into the sun.

3) Raid leader temperament. We usually have 3 raid "leaders", one who doesn't really lead much, one who if everyone else had his attendance attitude we'd never raid, and the third who usually leads but appears to be getting very annoyed with the other two's lack of input. And of course this is taken out on the raid. When things are good their dynamic works and we have a great time, lately not so much.

4) Raid apathy. We don't have enough willing to forego loot to lockout the raid for more tries on Arthas. Plain and simple. Our raid would rather farm bosses we already know how to kill.

Even with all that, in the past I've kept at it. I've been burned out but kept showing up. If my vacation wasn't spent out of town, I'd raid. If I had an annoying raid leader, I'd complain to friends, but continue to follow their lead. I even kept showing up to help my fellow raiders get loot. However recently I saw the sign I couldn't ignore. A few key raiders brought their alts.

I don't have a problem with it because they take loot that would normally get sharded. But while the other things I listed aid in slowing progression, alts actually hurl you to a halt. What it means, without them actually saying it, we've gotten as far as we're going to get progression wise.

I'm not going to farm another instance. I know from past experience it is one of my most hated activities. I'm heeding the sign.



Edit: Good lord I've said this before.

World of Dragoncraft?

I have defeated, among others,
a black dragon - Onyxia
a blue dragon - Malygos
a red dragon - Vaelastrasz
a green dragon - Taerar
a nether dragon - Netherspite
a twilight dragon - Sartharion
an infinite dragon - Aeonus
and most recently another twilight dragon - Halion.

I don't recall defeating any bronze, chromatic or plagued. There are no chromatics that have reached adulthood and I don't believe there are any plagued dragons that I know of. I have a plagued proto-drake so you could say I tamed it instead of defeating it.

Speaking of Halion, our group was shocked to realize using cc would make the trash easier. I'm betting we weren't the only ones.

Good news everyone

"...we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums."

Now we can get back to more important things like deciding whether to roll a worgen or a goblin in Cataclysm.

RealID in GearScore Mod

Perhaps the picture was photoshopped.

But what I saw was someone's RealID listed in the tooltip.

Now whether this is possible or not it's this type of fear, even if unjustified, people have.

It does make you wonder if they've tested all aspects.

I know the final response is don't opt-in to RealID, don't use mods and addons.

Update - according to WoW.com the picture was faked. Now conspiracy theorists can say "But how can you be sure?" and "WoW.com isn't official!" But I'm not a conspiracy theorist. /wink



My question is will Blizzard be able to reinforce a feeling of security for its users while playing their game?

As someone said "Five years ago I shared my info because I thought it would be used for billing purposes only." And that would be a reasonable and rational expectation wouldn't it?

What choices will the WoW gaming community make now that they will regret in 5 years? months? days?

Real ID on WoW forums

How far do you have to slide before something is a slippery slope?

Apparently there are plans to change it so you have to opt-in to Real ID to post on the forums where you real name will be displayed along side your posts.

The community could surprise me with enough players feeling okay posting with their real identity to keep the forums thriving.

I won't be one of them.

I need to regain my sanity

There is a saying that the "definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

I do not like raiding during the week. I work, so getting off work to raid feels like leaving one job to head to another. And you have less free hours in a work day so after raiding you feel like your whole day disappeared when it's over.

I had no plan to raid until the weekend, yet I fell for the trap that was Ruby Sanctum. RS will be here next week and the next. I had no reason to be in a rush, yet there I was inside a new dungeon that didn't look exceptionally interesting fighting a boss that didn't look exceptionally new and from what I understand drops loot that isn't exceptionally any better than what I already have. The fight seems to be another stand-out-of-this, move-away-from-that. Not exceptionally ground breaking mechanics.

I ended the evening irritated and annoyed that I bothered.

So why did I bother? The only answer is I must be insane.

Positional good

There's an economic concept known as a positional good in which an object is only valued by the possessor because it's not possessed by others. The term was coined in 1976 by economist Fred Hirsch to replace the more colloquial, but less precise "neener-neener".
~Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

In The Summertime

In the summertime when the weather is high,
you can stretch right up and touch the sky,
when the weather's fine,
don't have worgen and no goblins on your mind.

Have a drink, have a drive,
go out and see what you can find.

:)

I'm going to keep posting, just a little less.

Lord Ahune doesn't need a tank

I was in a group where someone said this. I find it funny, because if a mob is on you you're "tanking" it. Just because you may be ill-equipped for it doesn't mean for a brief moment you're weren't performing the role.

I think quite often people forget how hard things hit because they aren't usually the ones getting hit.

I secretly like when someone pulls something off one of my tanks and summarily see their health drop. The player usually watches their aggro the rest of the run.

A salute to addons

Every once in a while I see a thread about healing addons. Someone asking if others use them. Someone asking which one is better. Someone asking the developers to get rid of them.

Every single time someone responds they don't use healing addons and the default ui is just fine. Someone else responds they always use them. Someone else responds that addons are a crutch. And someone else says you can't perform as well without them. Every single time.

I love addons. I use them. I feel like they make me a better player in some cases. I admit I don't really believe players who only use the default ui perform as well as those who use it. For instance does the default ui keep track of HoTs and incoming heals from other players? However I'm sure they perform okay and for the majority of us that's good enough.

But my real reason for this post is I decided to accumulate a bunch of blossoms (fire festival currency) for one of the (current world event) Midsummer Fire Festival rewards. I didn't want to bother with figuring out all the places I should go. Several areas you visit give you blossoms either for "honoring" your faction's bonfire or "desecrating" the opposite faction's. I did it last year and kinda enjoyed it then, however I wasn't looking forward to doing it again this time. But I wanted that darn reward! For the past few days I tried to mount up and do a few and ended up logging off because I just couldn't get into it.

Enter "TourGuide - Alliance Midsummer Fire Festival Guide" addon! I consider it my Triple A triptik to visiting all the places I need to. Now what was going to be a chore will be a nice checklist to work off of.

I was irritated. I thought to myself if I'm irritated by this I know someone else out of 12 million (probably more by now) is too and has written a mod for it. Well maybe they weren't irritated but just wanted to be helpful. Either way I was right.

Thanks addon author Rahnlin! You made my day!

/salute to you and others

RealID - oh there you are!

I've given one person my RealID and I already feel I've given out too much.

I trust my friend. RealID is perfect for us - I play on different realms and different factions. He refuses to even try horde and says he doesn't have time to roll on a different server. We'll be able to keep in touch easier this way.

However I still feel as if my ability to do something on my own without someone knowing about it is gone. It's not about needing to keep something secret. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like some days I like to go to the park. Does that mean I'd like my friend to have me on gps following my every movement? There's nothing to hide but there's nothing that needs to be shared either.

Anyone else understand what I mean?

Saving us from ourselves

During this year's Midsummer Fire Festival you have a chance at getting a pet from the satchel you're given for completing the Lord Ahune event. You can only get a satchel once per day for your character. A pet collector friend of mine said they were happy about that because otherwise he would run the instance multiple times each evening. He said he was concerned he may not get it, but didn't seem overly so.

For Cataclysm the plan is to have one lockout for 10-man and 25-man raids. People are QQing about this saying they won't be able to raid as much. But apparently, through forums or some other method, the developers heard many complaints that players felt they had to raid both even when they didn't want to.

Limited attempts for raids led guilds to level multiple alts that would give them the tries they needed to stay competitive (and ultimately "win"). One high profiled guild said enough is enough I decided to quit raiding in the type of environment that required that. But apparently not enough followed suit and I don't think they are going to develop limited attempt raids in the future.

And almost forgotten by many, in PvP, you could play the game 24 hours a day at an attempt to reach High Warlord or Grand Marshal and Blizzard removed that honor grind because not enough players could control themselves to not do so.

"Remember to take all things in moderation (even World of Warcraft!)" is a tip that is sometimes displayed on the zone-in screen of the game.

I appreciate Blizzard's attempt to be responsible purveyors of their...craft. They may have to do so with us kicking and screaming but in the end let's hope we realize it was for the best.

Do the top guilds in the world do strict 10-man raiding?

I can't say why top guilds do what they do. For challenge? Glory?

I would suspect they like to be the first to do a thing.

I would suspect they like to perform at the highest level.

They couldn't do the strict 10-man raiding currently because they had to focus on 25-man. They couldn't be the first if they wasted time on side projects.

And are you performing at the highest level wearing subpar gear?

Would Paragon or Ensidia beat Phoenicis or From Chaos if they made it their goal to focus on 10-man strict raiding?

Plans for Cata

My plan for Cata is to not have much of a plan at all.

For Wrath I rushed to 80. I did so because in Burning Crusade I got...burned. I leveled at a good clip in BC, but I didn't take off from work to do so while some in my former guild did. They started raiding before many of us had even reached cap and I played catch up and didn't truly ever catch up for that whole expansion. I planned not to make that mistake again.

This time I don't have any lofty raiding goals. I have no reason to rush. Also if getting decent gear via heroics is possible in Cata, I'll have something to do that doesn't require raiding as soon as possible.

Playing the game in a relaxing manner? Like its a game instead of a sport?

This has me looking forward to Cataclysm.

10 or 25 or nothing?

With my recent decision to place limits on efforts I make in WoW it makes me think about Cataclysm and its changes to 10-man and 25-man raiding. Placing them on the same lockout and having them offer the same rewards (in varying quantities).

When I returned to raiding the last time 10-mans afforded the chance to get a few drops quickly and got me caught up to the minimal level. However it was 25-man that got me the most gear but only because my guild had been raiding for a while at that point and a large amount of gear got defaulted to me.

What do I prefer performance-wise? In 10-mans I feel I have more responsibility. My biggest personal triumphs have occurred in 10-mans. In 25s I do my part but obviously less falls on individual shoulders when 24 others are present.

On the other hand, sometimes I like showing up to raids not having to worry about being totally relied upon.

Success-wise? I still say accomplishing something in 25 is harder than 10. If I got something done in 10-man I would still want to get it done in 25 at some point because I feel 25 is the pinnacle.

But the developers are removing this. If I get something done in 10 I'll be done period. I won't be able to do it on 25 (at least not with some extra tangible reward tied to it) and vice versa.

I like taking extended breaks from raiding. 25s allow for this much easier than 10s.

And now with my new rule of not dedicating myself to any specific raiding goals, should I bother with raiding at all?

I just don't know at this point.

Some interesting things to read later

Adding this to take a look at later.

Hindsight is 10/25

I just have to link this again (How to Wipe on the LK) because it is so spot on and now, for me, it is so much easier to laugh about it.

I cannot remember a time where I was personally involved in a raid encounter where mistake after mistake were learned from and progress was made. This is exactly what makes a raid memorable and after you beat it you feel you've accomplished something.

The thing is this was only on 10 and only on normal...and with a huge buff. Easy stuff yes? Yet for our band of amateur raiders it was if we had performed like Paragon. From the very beginning where we tried to use someone who had never tanked before to a priest insisting they could do better if they were specced holy instead of disc we were faced with challenges "professional" guilds simply do not have to put up with.

We made adjustments in strategy all along the way and things got easier. We inched toward the end. Much to my chagrin, we ended up succeeding with the "necessary" classes. We had a warlock to cheat death, a paladin tank healer, a new priest (who stayed disc) and a shaman for heroism. Would we have done it without one of these? I'm not so sure. Actually, on the kill we pretty much had to take what we could get but it turned out to work in our favor.

In a way, like women forget the pain of labor once their baby is born, the encounter seems easy enough looking back on it. You move here for this and there for that. You do your best to do all the things you're there to do and you hope everyone else does the same. And you hope something screwy doesn't happen along the way.

However while I was in the thick of the learning curve several times I felt it was impossible. The biggest reason was because we simply could not get the same group to show up each time. So each time we had someone new and each time we went through the errors the rest of us had become all well too familiar with. A few times the "experienced" of us focused so much on new guys not messing up we took our own dives. It worked better when we trusted each other to do their jobs.

We lucked up on some players who either learned from their mistakes quickly or weren't put in the circumstances that would allow them a chance to fail. Better performers than us sell Kingslayer by telling the person to fall of the edge immediately and running it without them there to cause issues. We rolled the dice with some pugs at a chance of getting a dropper full more of dps or heals and instead I think they performed better than we did overall.

I doubt we'll giterdone on 25 normal. I'm okay with that. I'm willing to at least put some time in trying. But I have no delusions of doing this on heroic in any form. I'm a 3K Fun Run & Walk type of player not a world-class marathoner.

I'll end this by saying it was a time to remember, definitely up there in my top five. Thanks WoW.

The start of a new chapter

The time has come for me to start a new chapter in my book title World of Warcraft.

I'm not quitting or anything drastic like that. But it is time for me to become even more casual (at least raiding-wise) than I've ever been since I stepped foot in Molten Core. *shiver*

In order to accomplish the latest thing I did in WoW (Kingslayer) I had to specifically dedicate extra time on top of the extra time I was already dedicating to it. And along the way it ceased making sense to continue, yet I felt I had put so much time in I didn't want to stop.

I do not want to place myself in that type of situation ever again.

We need you so much we don't want you

The ratio of tanks and healers to dps is very lopsided. Tanks and healers are desired but its become resented (if my previous posts about pug attitudes is any indication).

I've seen these suggestions before:

1) Tank and healer NPC henchmen
2) And getting rid of tanks and healers altogether


The second one I find interesting because thenoisyrogue suggests players can alternatively be responsible for mitigating damage (no healers present) and "locking down" an enemy (no tanks present) while the rest dps.

Where I think this falls flat is this is what PvP is. PvP for all its arenas, battlegrounds and world crop-ups is quite often a one on one affair where the player is responsible for keeping themselves alive long enough to kill the other person.

Do you remember the complaints about the "PvP" portion of ToC and Magister's Terrace? I'm not sure what the specific complaints were but I imagine they had something to do with not being able to have stuff tanked while healers healed and dps dpsed.

As a healer you don't know how many times I've buffered someone's failure to be their own holy trinity. I've seen mages try to tank, rogues miss interrupts, hunters forget to feign death.


Very few people like the burden of personal performance causing success or failure placed on them. Controlling a cube didn't require tanks or heals (did it? I can't remember) but how many people failed at that.

Players do not want to do those very things that make healers a little less necessary. Even things like maximizing their dps instead of being happy at #9 could put many of us out of job.

And let's not forget since folks like to stand in fire I've been invited to things as soon as I log on.

I still don't get it

I cannot fathom why players feel like it's okay to be rude to one another.

I kinda get it when it comes to PvP, when tempers run high. Knifey Kniferson running off and doing his own thing and Bluddy Bludgeon not paying attention to the flag. (I feel like the next generation is all going to end up on high blood pressure medication at the tender age of 30 the way they seem to snap during battlegrounds.) But that doesn't make it okay.

I really don't understand what could make someone say the stuff they do in PvE. When we're all supposedly working together toward a common goal. There are some dps able to kill stuff so fast they don't need a tank. I can count on my fingers how many I've grouped with (one guy had Shadowmourne) that have that kind of dps. Even then they need a tank for most bosses.

So when you queue up with a tank, someone you need. Someone people have been paying gold to get. Why in the world...of warcraft would you treat them like camel dung?

I'm not going to take the abuse being given to me any longer. No, I'm not going to grow a thicker skin. No, I'm not going to laugh it off. I'm going to drop group. Yes, I feel bad for those in the group that haven't said a word. But I'm not going to continue to tank when apparently the person I'm tanking for thinks I'm a "retard" or their personal Alaskan husky in some Iditarod dungeon run with their "gogogo". An emblem is not worth being called "stupid" just because in this anonymous world its deemed okay.

And you tell two friends and you tell two friends

This is a blog post spawned from another blog post spawned from another blog post. Does it stop there? I didn't go any further to find out because I imagined it never ended as I'd jump from link to link to link.

Anyway. Reading about individual performance mattering over at pwnwear made me think about what I'm facing currently.

Basically talking about a type of raid/raider and what makes its difficult. For instance I'm focusing on Type C.

# Type A: challenging the strongest. Example is tank and healers, everyone else could screw up and it doesn’t matter so much (Patchwerk)
# Type B: challenging the average, where everyone needs to pull their weight, for example due to enrage timers or to stay alive (Heigan)
# Type C: challenging the weakest, where one person can wipe the raid, for example flame wreath in Kara, the Bomb on Geddon, or Thaddius or the Lich King himself

This is why I've always said 25-man raids are inherently harder than 10.

The odds that your average 25-man raid is going to consist of weak links is high.

The odds that your average 10-man raid is going to consist of weak links is lower. Because since the individual responsibility for better performance is higher, you usually pinpoint the weak links and start removing them as you move along.

25-mans manage to progress in spite of weak links. 10 mans don't fare as well and as a result end up stronger and more capable of moving forward.

I'm going to tape a four leaf clover to my headset

First of all I'm glad I had something to make me laugh.

I'm going to try really hard to maintain a positive outlook for the Lich King fight.

Although this isn't Algalon and we're not fighting far away out in some celestial plane, I do feel as if the planets *must* be perfectly aligned in order to defeat this guy.

People have done it. People have done it when it was more complex. People have done it when they were weaker than anyone else.

But I am not fathoming how I am going to get it done. I'm not going to think about it anymore until closer to our next attempts because it has taken up to much of my brain space.

Profession reflections

As I slowly level up leatherworking on an alt, I think about how fun (read profitable and useful) Jewelcrafting was.

JC didn't seem to be any more expensive to level up than anything else, I was able to craft trinkets to use the whole time while I was leveling and then you can make enough gold to carry you from day to day - not to mention make tons of gold if you actually put extra effort into it.

And if you read the Profession forums for a while you would think Engineering is the worst thing ever. Apparently you can't please folks, because I leveled up engineering and found it useful the entire way.I was able to make a helicopter mount (cool!) very easily and plan on saving up to make my very own choppa. I was able to craft some incredible 80 level goggles that you can wear at 72. And HELLO! an Auction House in Dalaran?!?!? Why didn't anyone tell me about that? I think engies were trying to keep it a secret so they could keep whining about how engineering needs improvement.

But leatherworking? Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what helpful things you can make while leveling and Northrend had this thing, one material - borean leather (Tailoring is worse - one material - frostweave cloth) that you make everything with that makes crafting even more simplistic than it already is. And since I'm using bgs to level I don't come across much leather, so I purchase it off the warehouse, which leads me to believe the only people leatherworkers (well skinners) make money off of are other leatherworkers.

While JC makes money off of everyone, as does Inscription to an extent. And engineering is just plain useful. I feel like professions like LW and Blacksmithing need an upgrade.

When someone takes up a profession if its fun enough it doesn't have to be profitable (engineering) and if its profitable enough it doesn't have to be fun (enchanting). But why not make them all both?

Add the ability to make mounts from each. Players have come up with some great ideas, although I see they are as stuck as I am when it comes to what makes sense for a leatherworking mount -(Alchemy : Potion that creates glowy sparkly wings,Enchanting: Flying Broom,Leatherworking : Hot Air Balloon,Inscription : Hang-Glider or Paper Airplane (as suggested above),Blacksmithing : Ground Tank ). Maybe a saddle for a special horse?

And I think other professions should be easily recognizable just as engineers are in their goggles. The models are already available for alchemy because of Royal Apothecary Society and their ilk. Chefs have chef hats, once again I'm stuck on what leatherworkers could have...

But anyway! I think non-gathering professions, unlike races and classes, are a place where it's better when they are homogenized. I should have as much fun and profit leveling any profession I choose.

RDF or how I learned to be an a-hole

Random Dungeon Finder, my blessing has become my curse.

I've noticed a change in my pugging personality and it isn't a good one.

I thought of myself as patient and also the one willing to explain what's going on in an instance if someone was new to it. Are the Wrath instances faceroll now? Yes, however players bring their ICC-geared-hundreds-of-runs mentality to every instance they do regardless of who they may be running it with.

They are experienced and impatient so everyone else gets sucked into this rush-skip-don't-stop-to-breath vortex.

The answer to both sides of the coin is to run with friends. Like running fast? Run with friends. Like running slow? Run with friends. Want to skip bosses? Run with friends. Want to do the whole thing? Run with friends.

But that goes directly into contrast with the massively multiplayer aspect embraced by LFD. LFD putting random players together to do something many of us were missing out of before. A chance to quickly put together an instance to have fun in.

Now what I hear "Let's get this over with", "skip this boss so we can leave".

I think a big part of my problem is I've found playing a death knight to be less forgiving as a tank. This leads to me trying to go fast as I can on my warrior and paladin but when they ish hits the fan I don't have the fall backs I have on the other two.

I've grown irritated with not being able to go as fast as groups would like and yet going too fast for healers. I've grown irritated with groups wanting to do bosses and wanting to skip them in the same instance. I've grown irritated with players dropping Oculus and those that know how to do it not being patient enough to show others how.

This irritation manifests itself by me dropping groups for something as simple as someone looking at me funny.

I need to get back to how I was so I can wear my "the Patient" title without being a bold-faced liar.

Vicious Cycle

While looking up "vicious cycle" to help flesh out this post I found wikipedia's "Vicious Circle" entry and along with it "Virtuous Circle". I don't recall knowing of Virtuous circles, perhaps they were mention in some economics class I've long forgotten about. Vicious cycle is cliche, virtuous not so much.

I was thinking about vicious cycles in dungeon running.

Because on the forums tanks complain about dps and to a lesser extent healers and dps complains about tanks and to a lesser extent healers, and healers complain about tanks and dps seemingly equally.

DPS have long queues, so by the time they get a tank they want to tank to hurry. Not all tanks are equipped or comfortable with massive chain pulls so they feel pressured to rush. Tanks get inured to this and start biting off more than they can chew. Healers end up stressed because they aren't given the chance to get their mana up to a comfortable level and have to learn to keep up. Tanks and healers don't necessarily enjoy this so they stop queuing. DPS queues grow longer. The cycle continues.

DPS have long queues, but no one wants to give lesser-geared (with cheap crafted defense items you shouldn't be under-geared) tanks a chance. Tanks queue up as DPS to get tank gear adding to the DPS queue. The cycle continues.

What would be a virtuous cycle?

For me, I queue up with a group of random people and they laugh and joke and appear to have a good time. They act like they actually want to be there. They are better geared than me, way better in some cases, but they try to watch their aggro. The healer lets me know I can try bigger pulls and when someone inadvertently dies no one is blamed. The corpse laughs that he has made his "sacrifice". I want to keep running with these guys. And I do.

Dungeon queues

My DK tank reached 80 and I've started running a few heroics. I don't feel the same desire to do as many heroics as I did previously on my other tanks. Maybe its because for once I really do feel a bit squishier as a tank. Feeling that as a priest is okay, but feeling that way as a tank is weird. Instead I already want to level up other characters, try out dpsing a bit, but losing access to non-existent queue dungeon running is hard to bear.

I've said in the past a 20 minute wait isn't long. But I've grown extremely spoiled. I'm used to deciding I want to run an instance and immediately being able to do so. Not to mention just because you finally get in an instance doesn't mean it will actually get ran. I impatiently waited 20 minutes on my shadow priest only to have it fall apart before completing the very first pull. Then somehow with the group wiping and people dropping, our group was unable to re-queue correctly and when I left the group I was stuck with a 30 minute debuff (or was it 15?)either way I ended up logging off.

And yes, as a priest I'd have more luck as a healer but I'm not sure if I feel up to it.

In trade I see people putting together groups for chain running heroics and I also see tanks offering to run groups for a fee. Obviously I'm not the only one impatient. That's what the achievement title should have been.

Wasted effort

Does serendipity describe coming across a blog about death knight tanking only to find a comment about raiding that hits home to me?

Whatever its called, I like when it happens. Here's how Artie feels when a raid is cancelled:

*comments snipped about all the stuff Artie has to shuffle in order to raid in the first place*

"So consider that all of the above planning has taken place… and poof! Cancellation!

You know what? When that happens, I’m pissed. All that effort to be available is wasted. All of the real world stress is pointless. At that point, I’m done with the game."

No I don't have to juggle as many balls as Artie to raid, but the feelings I have when a raid is canceled are nearly the same. All the prep work is for naught.

/facepalm

Like being bonked with a whac-a-mole mallet it suddenly hit me. I don't want to raid.

Well, I do.

Kinda.

I remember back in BC doing arenas. My 2s and 3s partners all ended up fuming after our ten matches were over each week. I'm embarrassed to say how long we kept at it before finally giving up.

And here I find myself trying to figure out what to do with raiding when part of me wants to give it up as well.

Why is it difficult to just take a break from it?

Death Knight tanking revisited

I've started tanking on my death knight again and this time I'll probably carry it on through to 80.

At first I queued up as dps because I was still cautious about tanking on the DK due to previous attempts, one with my health going up and down like a roller coaster and another that got me a "WTF You're not holding aggro!1!!11!!" that left me slinking back to soloing and then parking my DK for a while.

Well queuing up as dps when I'm used to queuing as a tank or healer, well it simply sucks. I used to say 20 minutes isn't long, but I'm sorry, it is!

The first time I queued I tabbed out and came back to find I missed the queue.

The second time I logged out to character screen to turn on some mod and realized it takes you out of queue.

The third time I noticed in the time I had wasted with all of this I could have already done an instance on my other tank.

No, I'm spoiled, I like it when I decide to group I can group. And yes, I wish dps had that luxury.

So I bit the bullet and queued up to tank. It went very well. I had a few deaths due to not turning a boss away from the group. An eventual wipe due to not moving the mobs away from being feared into other mobs. But none of these things had anything to do with being a death knight tank. It could happen with any tank.

What clicked? I'm not sure. I definitely don't have a handle on exactly what I'm doing, but I'm finally getting experience with it. And hopefully things will keep improving.

Now one thing that really helps is I end up being higher level and possibly a bit better geared than dps while leveling up. It probably helps with my threat. When I hit 80 I won't have that luxury, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

But for now I have a new tank to level and I'm actually looking forward to this new project.

Kindread Spirits Pt 2

I have a few things I purposely didn't do in WoW I've since regretted. I have a few other things I put off and have since regretted doing so. Should gaming leave you with regrets?

For instance I could have stuck with a retired character and had a few of the retro achievements that are nigh impossible for me to get on the characters I play now. But I had grown tired of that character and the new characters have been overall more fun for me. Isn't that what its all about?

Recently I've come to the realization my guild, without anyone really coming out and saying it officially, seems to have given up on clearing ICC.

Now where I stand is:
*I can try to find another guild to accomplish this goal/achievement

*I can keep showing up hoping it will just happen

*I can give up and become very lax with it

To be honest I want to do the third option. Down the road will I regret it?

This is where WoW may not change but I have to. I have to not care that I got Achievement X or Y. Or I'll end up with the biggest regret of all. Knowing none of this means anything all the while making it mean too much.



One time I got a perky pug on an alt. Not because I grouped up with 100 random players on purpose, but because I was enjoying tanking heroics and I queued up over and over again because I was having so much fun with it. And one day "Ding! Achievement unlocked!"

Kindread Spirits

I couldn't find a place to put a comment to Leafy's "Taking A Step Back From Hard Knocks" post on his blog, so I'm placing it here.

It's almost like I wrote the post myself. I started to pick out the things I've felt at one time or another and even as recently as last evening and I find I'm quoting pretty much the entire post:

"but the other thing on my mind this week has been WoW. And, more specifically, Achievements. And they've become a problem.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, Achievements have become a burden to me - especially the ones around the World Events. A set time limit to do a number of pretty complicated tasks? That's pressure, especially in a life where I only get a few free hours to play WoW every week.

Now, I'm not doing badly. I am all but two achievements away from Long, Strange Trip. One of them is to do with Children's Week. Yes, it's the 'orrible School of Hard Knocks. And it's actually stopped me logging in this week. I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to feel obligated to do it. So I didn't. Children's Week ends tonight, and I don't care. I'm letting go of Achievements, and I'm letting go of WoW pressure. I really enjoy only two things in WoW: questing and doing dungeons or raids with my guild.

I have come, in the last few weeks, very close to quitting WoW for good. I found myself feeling bad that I didn't have time to do the things that I was working on, and then steadily realising that I didn't want to do them. I'd been sucked in by the time sink spiral that makes MMoRPGs so compelling, chasing Achievemnets and emblems from daily randoms and all the rest of the distractions built into the game, and it was twisting my life around in ways that I didn't find comfortable. Instead, I've chosen to work on my photograph, or to spend time with my wife, family and friends. It feels good. And, maybe, tomorrow I'll do some dailies and some quests on one of my lower level toons. That'll be fun.

"But WoW can't be a chore, because life has enough chores. It's a game, and games are fun. It's a pity I need to remind myself of that from time to time."

I finished up the achievements for Long, Strange, Trip a while back, thanks to WoW removing the monthly brew requirement. But I remember dreading certain achievements that required luck or competition against your own faction. The stress involved with knowing you had a very short period to get something done or you'd have to wait another year to try again. Now when each world event that comes around I'm actually relieved to look at my achievements list and know that I've done them. There are some achievements here and there that aren't part of the meta and I'm either doing them at my own pace or not bothering with them at all (I'm looking at you 'A Mask for all Occasions') Isn't it funny that I'm relieved to basically not play the game?

More on this later.

Seclusion mode on

I don't get excited about betas of games I'm already playing. In honor of full disclosure, I don't play betas to help the developers improve/test their game either. I play betas to get a free taste of what a new game is like. So the news of the alpha of Cataclysm being available doesn't feel me with giddiness.

I got in the beta of the Burning Crusade and I wish I hadn't participated. I know I will, after all, purchase expansions. Why see it in advance when I can savor the moment and see it for the first time once money has changed hands. It's not like they let you keep any progression you've made and carry it over to release.

I went to MMO champion and peeked at some of the Cata screenies and wish I hadn't done that as well. I don't need to be sold on Cataclysm, so I don't see what I could gain by immersing myself in all the Cataclysm news beforehand.

If there's one thing WoW does, is take their time releasing expansions. We get bored and start complaining about lack of content. Why burn out on the next one before its even begun?

Wiping Threshold

Our 25-man raid spent maybe several tries to no avail on an ICC boss one evening and the next time we raided someone mentioned not wanting to go through that again. If you wipe in a heroic its the end of the world.

I remember wiping in instances, one was probably Shadow Labyrinth, so many times our gear broke. But nowadays you better not slip up and wipe or the heroic group disbands or the raid doesn't show up the next night.

I have to admit I like wiping less myself and do sub 15 minute runs. But as far as raid instances are concerned I don't want to one-shot things I've never seen before.

Well let me explain that better. The other night our group wiped, made adjustments, wiped, made more adjustments, wiped, said we were close and going to give it another try, then nailed it. It felt great! Not the level of say a Lich King kill Finnish nerdgasm, but we cheered.

EQ2 3 day pass

I wish I could remember what blog I read this on, but EQ2 is offering inactive accounts a chance to play for 3 days for the low, low price of five dollars.

I took the bait and I want to let others know if you've ever experienced the mother-of-all-downloads before getting to dive in to EQ2....it's gone!

Instead of downloading the entire game before letting you play now you only download what you need to get started. It seems areas are only downloaded as you visit them now. I'm so glad they changed it, one of Hardcore Casual's most popular posts can disappear now.

10=25 Why bother?

There are several reasons why players raid but I want to focus on a few:

1) Challenge
2) Loot

Except for the hardcore guilds, none of us can say with a straight face we raid for the challenge. You know why I know we (the majority of casual guilds) don't? Because if we did we wouldn't bail on unfinished existing instances and run to the new ones. Why not continue to work on Yogg or Alganon when Icehowl awaits? Is Icehowl more of a challenge than Yogg? No, but better, shinier loot awaits.

Loot. It's why we raid. I don't care what anyone says, everyone raids because of loot. Even guilds able to be realm first and worldwide first, complain when the loot isn't as great as what they expected. For a long time people on the forum qq'd about being able to do smaller raids because "We just want to see the content!!!!" How long was it after 10-mans were introduced did they same people start qq'ing "Why is our gear inferior??? Why can't we get legendaries???" Loot.


If loot is more important than challenge, I'm just guessing it is. If 10- and 25- man are supposed to be at the same level of challenge (doubtful) and you can take your best players out of a 25-man and form a 10-man squad while getting the same loot why would you bother with doing a 25?

10=25 difficulty

I think the biggest question regarding this change is how exactly will WoW pull off making 10 man = 25 man difficulty?

I have been in situations where people dying have made things better. When Player D, with bad situational awareness, was better off face-planted on the floor instead of blowing up a bomb melee range. When 3 dps unable to stay out of frost patches died and the tank and healer finished off the boss because they healer no longer had to waste their mana healing stupid. Where having more room to spread out and not chain some horrific damage to 4 other people was beneficial.

In other words, I've always leaned towards 25-mans being more difficult than 10 simply because of logistics.

How will they counter this?

10=25

"...we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters."

See the whole post here.

Unlike a friend of mine, I don't despise running a 10-man and then running the same version on 25. He's happy about this change. I'm...skeptical about whether this will be a good thing or not.

When I decided to start raiding again my gear was behind my fellow raiders. I took the opportunity to run a few 10-mans in addition to 25 to get caught up. It worked out well. In the new system I can't do something like this. But the rush to get caught up was of my own doing so maybe the adjustment wouldn't be drastic.

In my experience, 10-mans are easier. In two guilds I've been in the 10-man groups cleared instances faster than 25. 10-mans consist of choice picks. That one dpser that who always lingers at the bottom of recount in your 25-man raids? You wouldn't pick him to go to your 10-man.

I foresee 25s being full of players who can't make the cut. Just like 40-mans decreasing to 25 separated the wheat from the chaff, the same will happen here.

In my current guild before this was even announced our 10-man raiders would mention now and then "We've already done it on 10." with a hint of smugness when it came to us doing things on 25.

Which one do I want to raid in? To be honest, 10-man gives you more of a feeling of accomplishment because more is riding on you when you don't have 4-5 others to back you up. By the same token, I'd feel worse about needing to take a break now and then in a smaller group.

Hybrids should feel pretty good about now. Hybrids shine in 10-mans. Ones that can do either of their many roles well are the ones you want in your 10 man. Paladins should be the happiest of all.

A thread over at MMO champion was about making a composition that covered all/most of the buffs and 7 of the 10 were hybrids (Balance and Feral druid, Ret and Prot Pally, Enh and Rest Shaman also Demon and Afflic Warlock , Combat rogue and Disc priest). Of course you're going to end up taking whatever you can get. But don't doubt when someone drops the guild is going to recruit with more specificity.

What this means is players are going to have to get better at what they do. I think players got better when we dropped from 40 to 25. You no longer could hide like when people went afk during raids for long periods of time and just put themselves on auto-follow.

No more "main"s?

For the first time ever I feel as if I don't really have a main. Yes, I have a character I raid on and try to get extra achievements on, but doesn't really feel like my main anymore.

I have as much fun playing "alts" now as anything. It just so happens my raiding character is the one who had access to raiding and I wanted to see the insides of ICC, so that is what I'm playing now. But I never miss a chance to do a heroic on my latest tank.

You don't have to pour exorbitant amounts of timing gearing up anything anymore, so you don't have to choose one character and spend all your time on it. I'm raiding with so-called "alts" that have better gear than my so-called "main".

If achievements were account wide, I'd truly no longer have a main.

On the subject of mounts

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." - Spock

Every now and then I see someone on an Amani war bear I get a small pang of envy. Most likely I could have obtained it myself, but I felt it required too much of my time. And sometimes I take these personal stands and rail against something in WoW doing that to me. Raiding ZA around that period was one of those times.

I have some of the other rarer mounts but I swap them out for they fairly easy to get war tiger. Would I really ride the Amani war bear around all the time if I had it, or would it be just as trivial as all my other mounts at this point?

A good fit

Bender: "...what's Peter Parrot's first rule of captaining?"

Fry: "Always respect the chain o' command ... captain."

Recently I've come across three blogs about leading raids and guilds. Different perspectives but each making a point of the difficulty in leading people who want to go the opposite direction of whatever it is you're trying to do.

One thing I've learned about guilds is - unhappiness is hoping a guild will change to fit you. I raided for what felt to be a long time with a guild who's times didn't fit me. I raided too much and too long into the night. The guild I'm in now doesn't progress as fast as I wish it would, but I never risk raiding too much because they limit the days they raid and I never risk raiding to late because they have never once gone past raid time. For me, shorter raid schedule counts more than progression, so it works for me.

I've been mentioned to a friend the areas of improvement I see with our guild, but I don't complain to the guild leaders because so far this fit is one of the best I've had and I don't want to screw it up. Especially when I'm unwilling to take up the mantle to fill in the gaps. Why give guild leaders grief to make things perfect (in my mind) when things are 80% alright?

Why Tobold stays on my list

Tobold on WoW's Celestial Steed Sale:
"We started out with a game in which people played and were rewarded with virtual goods for playing. That over time evolved into a situation where we valued the virtual rewards more than the gameplay leading to it. People began to minmax, to "optimize the fun out of playing", trying to get to the reward in the fastest possible way, regardless of whether that way was fun to play or not. And the developers saw that, and said: "Well, if you want only the virtual reward and not the gameplay, we are quite willing to sell you that directly!". In short, the players are as much to blame for this than the developers or "greedy" managers."

I see this quite often as a tank in heroics. People want to get through the instance as fast as possible for their two Emblems of Frost. The immediate retort is "I've ran this instance hundreds of times, it is boring and I want it over with as quickly as possible".

What a sucky part of gameplay! Doing something you don't want to do, but you do it anyway for a "sparkly".

I can't remove myself from this as I was part of it myself in the form of raiding. I raided Molten Core long after it was fun to do so. I "needed" gear, my guild "needed" gear and my guild's alts "needed" gear. I've raided several places since then, but give MC a special mention because at its core, pun not intended, it was a big boring lava cave. Killing Ragnaros for the first time, ranks as one of my, if not number one, best memories of WoW. Killing it again and again and again and again? One of my worst.

Basically I told Blizzard, I'm okay with crappy gameplay as long as Tier 2 legs are a reward. I shouldn't have put up with it, but I did. I feel like I've learned from the experience. But is it too late?

Celestial Steed

For, as I understand the thing,
'E went to sell this steed —
Which is a name they give a 'orse
Of some outlandish breed —,
And soon 'e found a customer,
A proper sportin' gent,
Who planked 'is money down at once
Without no argument.

From "The Arab Steed" by Arthur Conan Doyle

$25 for a in-game mount that you can use across all of your characters provided they have appropriate riding skills.

I don't have to search for $25 in my budget. I don't have to forgo a month's worth of lattes or rationalize it as a special present to myself. However, even though I like the mount, I cannot bring myself to purchase it.

I'm not above spending money on WoW beyond my subscription fee, but I feel as if I need to draw the line somewhere. For now my line is drawn at the Blizzard Store.

On the other hand, I don't understand why some people are upset with Blizzard about this. If you don't like the fact they are selling things like this - don't purchase them! Vote (or don't) with your pockets.

Now I do feel it will affect new players. How would you like it if you just started the game and they give you your underwhelming (in comparison) mount and you see a fellow player with a glittery glowing gelding? You'd probably ask them how to get that mount. I know I would be disappointed to find I have to pay extra after just paying to purchase the game. Hm.

Anyway, I do care about slippery slopes. I don't want them to introduce something to the game that is annoying or tedious then "coincidentally" offering a paid alternative that makes things less annoying and tedious. For example, I think I'd be upset if we only had so many bag slots and they sold extra bags slots for real money. Or if you had to purchase access to new quests.

As it is now, I have 30 or more mounts I can spend time getting in game before running out of mounts to acquire. When I reach that point maybe then I'll think about purchasing a Celestial Steed.

Within my grasp

As mentioned before, I had written off getting the chance to see any of ICC. During the Burning Crusade expansion, my computer became dated and I found myself unable to raid an instance when it would play like a slide show. I resigned myself to the fact I wouldn't get to see BT. This time I did the same thing with ICC. I've gotten a new computer since then so performance wasn't an issue. But something unexpected came up right around the release of ICC and I pretty much gave up on ICC as well.

But with ICC being out 4 months (?) now, the raid-wide buff that gets greater as time goes on, and main raiders I guess burned out after playing 4 months, I've found myself getting a chance to see the majority of ICC very quickly (basically being carried in -25 but at least able to contribute in -10).

In my first run with a pug we made it up to Dreamwalker and in the second run with the guild's "B Team" we made it up to Sindragosa. In other words, only one boss away from the Lich King.

So now, instead of not getting to see an instance until another expansion is released and a group decided to go back and zerg it, I'm actually getting to experience it while having to put forth some effort.

The debuff is another smart idea on Blizzard part. I remember when some casual players just wanted to see instances not raid them. But I think those players are like me, they had written off being able to raid them, due to time, performance, what have you. So they begged Blizzard for a bone to just be able to see the instance even if loot wasn't part of it.

But I believe if these same people were given the option to fight through ICC as it was intended, albeit watered down with the buffs, they would do so. I know I've appreciated the chance and I can't wait to get to actually fight the Lich King now that he's actually within my grasp.

This is what normal-modes are for. I suggest any casual players who have shied away from raiding to give it a try.

Fun to an extent

I hit 80 on my prot warrior and have slowed down playing it. I haven't tanked all of the heroics yet (I've been dreading the ICC ones), but once I do I'll probably park my prot warrior just like I've parked my prot pally.

Since I don't want to raid on them, there's little else for them to do except farm for Emblem of Frost gear. Which at 2 badges per day, given the way that I play, and an item costing upwards of 95 emblems... *carry the two* *ponder* No. I have no desire to do that.

I'll spend a little time getting what I can with Emblems of Triumph, maybe replace my last green/blues, then let my two tanks relax until Cataclysm.

I have had a blast leveling tanks. The instant queues. Being proactive instead of reactive as I'm used to doing on a healer. The defense loot that no one usually rolls against you on. :)

As a tank, I also have to know what is going on in an instance. As a healer, I've been known to auto-follow the group.

And then there's the feeling I'm getting tougher. One complaint I've had as a healer is the small window where you feel your gear makes you better. Especially when others around you get better your heals even mean less. DPS definitely knows how it feels each time they get an upgrade they can see their DPS tick up more. As as a tank I get to enjoy the feeling somewhat as well. Every hp extra I get means something. More threat means I can pull more, and the extra hp means I won't get destroyed by doing so.

So inevitably my fun wanes. Because at some point my gear is good enough I can pull as much as I need to pull without any feeling of risk. It's the point I work toward but its bittersweet when I reach it.

Normal mode ICC 10 and 25

I had written off seeing any Icecrown Citadel raid zones. However recently I've gotten the chance to do some of ICC 10 and 25.

I haven't really got a chance to marvel at anything, because with it being my first times there I wanted to focus on not standing in fire...or in this case ice.

Death knight tanking

I cleared my first instance tanking on my death knight last evening. I don't feel like I really have a handle on it.

My health went up and down more often than on my paladin or warrior ever has. If that's how its supposed to be its going to take a lot of getting used to.

I'm a few levels higher than the instance I tanked so I thought my health wouldn't be an issue. I was more worried about keeping aggro on everything, and that definitely is something I'll need more practice with.

While I understand its way to soon to judge fairly, tanking on my death knight is my least favorite so far.

A collection of tanks

My foray into warrior tanking has so far been a success. So much so its got me thinking about my death knight again.

I'd been soloing a DK with plans to tank on it. I jumped into an instance a few month ago, was unable to magically hold aggro, and hadn't played on it since.

Obviously I should approach it the same way I did with my warrior by doing a little research first.

I've heard they've buffed DK's threat so maybe its time for me to dust it off and give it a go again.

Since I don't have plans to raid on any of my tanks I don't have to spend time focusing on one or the other to get it to endgame.

Glutton for punishment

I went ahead and started tanking on my 70 warrior. I'm 74 now. I'll blog about it later.

A challenge

What I really want to do is level a warrior tank (and deathknight tank). I already have a 70 warrior that I've only really solo'd on. So while I think it would help to start a warrior from scratch I can't bring myself to do so.

Leveling the same class again???

Tanking on a druid is easy enough and I enjoy it, so I find myself leveling up another druid through LFD.

I would never expect to find myself leveling an alt that's a class I already have an 80 of. In fact it seems a bit insane.

But I like it.

One thing "hardcore" and "casual" have in common

And that is a level of what we are willing to do to progress. It just so happens hardcore players' thresholds are much, much higher.

I saw that one of the world wide top guilds, Last Resort, has decided to call it quits. From what I can tell one of the reasons is they don't want to level up alts and practice content in 10 mans (because of limited attempts on raid bosses one way to get more attempts is to have another character to run it through with).

When I first heard that some (all?) Ensidia (arguably the top guild in the world) players had 2 of the same class so they could get extra practice in, I thought to myself "Now *that* really highlights what sets them apart from everyone else". This was a while back that I heard of this, apparently since then more guilds are doing the same - which I imagine you have to if you want to stay competitive.

So it's not surprising to see someone who is different playstyle from me in just about everyway say something I would say. "Okay this right here? This right here?!?! It....is....not....worth....it.".

Stay the same or improve?

I've found since I've quit raiding I don't have much desire to hope to be the best, let alone try.

I read somewhere that professional athletes quit participating in their sport once they retire because just like us they didn't particularly like working out and practicing but they knew they had to do it to be the best.

Sometimes I think about getting a tier piece of this or that and what all I need to go through to acquire it, then I say to myself "Good thing I'm not raiding, who the heck cares?!?!".

So if you're like me, stop reading now. The things I'm about to list will be of no interest to you.

If you want to improve how you play here are some suggestions from the official forums:

*Coordination and Teamwork, don't group with "idiots"
*Timing
*Skill
*Practice
*Dedication, play seriously, persistence
*Gear
*Adaptation
*Be born with the gift (?)
*Good hardware, computer and connection
*Attitude
*Time
*Communication
*Attentiveness
*Situational awareness
*Patience

Whew, that's a lot of stuff!

Good thing I'm not raiding, I can continue to be my mediocre self.

My Near Perfect WoW Experience

As I was enjoying running through a low level instance via LFD I thought about what if my whole WoW gaming experience only included the fun times?

My leveling experience would be like my very first time.

I wouldn't raid on a schedule.

If I did raid it would consist of learn it, kill it, move on. Not farm it, farm it, farm it.

I would play to spend gold, not play to make gold.

I would LFD with people who enjoy it.

As a healer I would include dual specs.

I would level a druid and paladin but only in their post-bc and wrath forms.

I would level JC/mining and not enchanting.

How about you?

gogogo

Something just dawned on me about 5-mans pugs.

For this discussion afk can mean a true "away from the keyboard", something else distracting you (like a guild discussion) or even just zoning out (not of the instance but your mind) for a second.

So...what happens when a healer goes afk? The group can be more cautious about pulls, even incorporating the lost art of cc and keep going until they get to a point where the healer is necessary.

And what happens when a dps goes afk? Depending on the rest of the dps, the group can possibly keep going and clear the whole place, perhaps at a slower pace. You may not even notice until someone posts recount.

But what happens when a tank goes afk? Unless there is someone else there that can assume the tank role (boomkin can probably take a few hits, rogue can evasion tank a few) you're dead in the water.

And maybe that's what makes "gogogo" so frustrating. As a tank you are not afforded the time to respond to a whisper, get up to let your dog out or simply have a brain fart.

If you aren't 100% there, someone starts poking and prodding you with the "go" stick.

It's annoying and you wouldn't treat healers and dps that way.

Supporting Slacking

Gevlon over at Greedy Goblin brought up an interesting point that the LFD function actually encourages slacking.

I know in the pug groups I've been in, there is quite often one person in the group you could do without. Obviously it's not the tank or healer. So there usually is one dps not "doing their part".

But I assume, except for the new ICCs, these are instances meant for characters in blues and a smattering of purples. I can't expect them to always out dps me, now that I'm wearing all epics.

However, I don't necessarily want to carry people through dungeons either. If I was more of a goblin, maybe I'd be quicker to kick them. Instead I check their gear and suggest they gem, or get something crafted, etc.

For once I actually agree more with the goblin way. If DPS knew they had to perform well and not just auto-follow maybe they'd put in some effort. And I'm only talking about the DPS that make me think I'm at the point I could 4-man instances.

WoW Successes and Failures

Adding the new LFG interface (I call it LFD) was a resounding success. There have been complaints about it (decreased social interaction, ninjas, the enchanter debaucle) but I haven't done a Deadmines run with similarily leveled players in years.

Now there are some things however that were real stinkers.
*Sithilus Sand PvP
*EPL Towers PvP
*In-game Voice Chat

So as good as LFD is for 5-man instances, it seems to be less helpful for raids.

Maybe its just me, but LFD has let WoW evolve with the way I want to play. Never say never, but I feel like I might never raid on a regular basis again.

Someone on the forums came up with an idea to not be locked to raids after you've killed one boss, but be locked to the boss itself. The point is to be able to pug the instance with different groups if you need to. Someone else countered this would be a logistical nightmare.

But I supported the idea that WoW should come up with a more casual form of raiding. This isn't a light bulb of an idea, but it has become time for something to happen.

I wonder if new players are still coming to WoW. If they aren't that means many players are (some up to 5 years) older than they were when they first started. Time and the freedom to do what you want with that time is inevitably more precious.

I don't have any good ideas about what they could do to enchance the raid portion of LFD, but let's hope it doesn't end up on the list of failures.

I wasn't expecting you!

A recent commenter Tauhid, mentioned he came across my blog after a 2 year break from blogging. I should have cleaned the place up! If I was blogging like I used to my place my look more like Ardent Defender. Check it out when you have time.

I don't know how much I'll have to blog about until Cataclysm. I usually don't jump on new games as soon as I hear about them, so I'm a little behind when I say I may try out Torchlight.

As much as I want to try out Star Trek: Online when it gets released I feel, not necessarily burned by titles like Aion, but that no new MMOs are going to be worth playing past the initial newness of them all.

Nothing to talk about?

This is probably the least amount of blogging I've done since I started. I'm not sure why that is.

I'm still playing WoW a lot, so I imagine I could find some things to at least rant about. What's been going on?

For one, I've stopped raiding. Something came up where I had to take a break from it and now I have no desire to go back. I found myself dreading the idea.

Looking back on things, I think I got off on the wrong foot with one of the raid leaders in the very beginning and never clicked with him. I didn't realize it until I got the opportunity to raid without him. The experience was so much more enjoyable I really started taking notice of little things when he was around.

With the introduction of LFG, I have the opportunity to play in a group setting and not have to stick to a schedule.

I had so much fun with LFG I sadly am experiencing burn out with it as well.

Maybe it is time for another WoW break.

LFG - putting the F back in Fun

Like the achievement system, LFG has proven to be a winner when it comes to keeping me sucked into playing WoW.

As a tank, I absolutely love being able to find a group almost immediately. If I don't get one right away I always have something else I can do while I'm waiting.

The only problem is I've now got my tank decently geared to where I can handle just about every heroic there is and I don't have as much incentive to keep running them.

But that's actually not a bad problem to have because now I'm thinking about trying out tanking on a deathknight.

LFG has made the idea of leveling alts fun again.

He's making a list

and checking it twice;
Gonna find out
Who's naughty and nice.

I'm still enjoying being able to log on the game and find a group within a few minutes.

What I really appreciate is if someone turns out to be a jerk I can put them on ignore and never group with them, at least on that character I guess, again.

It makes me feel like players' actions have consequences. A feeling that is sometimes hard to get in WoW.

LFG's effect on raiding

Tobold's post on whether raiding is obsolete got me to thinking about my own experiences.

One of my reasons for raiding is as far as PvE is concerned it is the only way to have a ready made group for doing things.

I quit the game on my very first main because at 60 there weren't many raid groups and there was nothing to do at cap if you didn't raid (leveling an alt was a foreign concept to me at the time).

Before the LFG tool, I could log on - and playing tank/healer I didn't have much trouble finding a group - it often took time.

But by raiding with a guild, I knew when I logged on the group was made for me. All I had to do was show up.

The same with PvP battlegrounds, I could just join the queue and a group would be put together for me. Not a good group, but a group nonetheless.

Now with the LFG tool, groups are put together for me and everyone else for PvE. I can play an alt get it reasonably geared, play another alt and do the same.

I can stay out of the raiding scene altogether, because I don't need it to fulfill my multi-player need.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop raiding. I'm just having a lot of fun using the LFG tool on my alt at the moment.

LFG: Tank

Like anyone else playing WoW for PvE, I've been busy instancing. The LFG tool makes it easy to find groups and as someone who hasn't had too much trouble finding them in general I can imagine this is a whole new ball game for those who did.

I have to share a funny comment someone made when asked "How many bad tanks have you had? (Lfg tool)"

They answered:
In lower level instances, it's about 50/50. Most people trying to tank seem to be tank specced at least, but some have horrible gear and/or don't understand basic principles of tanking.


Okay....a tank in a lower level instance, in horrible gear and doesn't really know how to tank?

Quelle surprise.

I heard someone say tanks should group as dps, in essence spending twice as long getting gear - because you need dps gear first then hope and pray the tank will let you roll alongside him for loot.

Of course if you spend time dpsing, you're not really getting any experience actually tanking.

Groups want experienced, knowledgeable, well-geared tanks. But how do you think they get that way?

Good buzz for LFG

I haven't heard so much good buzz around the blogosphere and forums in a while.

The LFG changes appear to be a success. Nice job Blizz!

My personal experience with the new 5 man heroics has been good, I've only done the new 3. But I've done them on a character that outgears it.

That said, I can't find fault with anything that allows you to get a random group going in less than 30 minutes.

Everyone is participating in part because of the new stuff, new loot and Perky Pug.

I wonder will it continue to be so active as things die down?

I'm not able to do too many during the week, but I plan on testing the waters more over the weekend with my sub 80, much less geared horde character.

I haven't had much luck finding lots of people wanting to do normal Northrend instances, so I'm hoping LFG is hoppin' for non-heroics too!

Patchy patch

Patch 3.3 is glitchy but that was to be expected. I honestly do not get upset when MMOs like WoW for having shaky expansions and mini-expansions.

I got the familiar Additional Instances cannot be launched, I got the random disconnect, and punt back to Dalaran.

Yous takes your chances playing on patch day.

Patch 3.3 : BoA cross faction

My horde paladin is almost 80 now, so it won't help that character any.

But I have another alt I want to level up just for the profession and I'm happy to hear with the patch I'll be able to send over all of the BoA heirloom items I have to it. Actually I think I only currently have 3 that would be useful - shoulders and some weapons, looks like there are 12 items total!

I doubt I'm going to bother trying to get all 12, but a stronger character will be easier to level and the xp increase would be sweet! Not to mention the hit on some of the items, you normally don't get hit on low level stuff.

Ah achievements, how thou doth vex me

I found out with only 2 days to spare that an achievement, Proof of Demise is being changed to a feat of strength due to the new LFG cross-realm system.

I have three left so if Patch 3.3 is released Tuesday there is no possible way for me to finish it up.

I've had more than a year to do them, but always felt I'd get around to them just like the nine other ones.

It bugs me enough to blog about it, but I'm going to let it go because if it really meant that much to me I'd go ahead and try to finish it on the chance the patch isn't released. And I really don't feel like it.

I hate to feel in some way punished for simply not choosing to do some things in game. It bugs me to see Hand of Adal titles and Amani War bear mounts, because if I had just played more than I felt comfortable I probably could have gotten them. But I'm not being punished, I'm really just not being rewarded. It feels kinda like when a buff to one class is a nerf to the rest.

In the end, I continue to try to work on playing the game because I *want* to not because I *need* to.

So if Tuesday comes and Proof of Demise is moved? I can at least consider it as an achievement I don't have to bother with.

Hitting a sweet spot

I think I may have hit a sweet spot with WoW.

I have an alliance main that I raid on twice a week max and an horde alt I'm leveling that I have no plans of raiding on.

As a raider in a less-than progressed guild, raiding gets very dull because we've reached a place where I don't think we're going to down any of the remaining bosses. People are starting to bring alts and that's a sign we've done all we're going to do.

I could chase after achievements but I'm at the point the achievements I could get take grinding. They don't give me a bite of the carrot on the stick that makes them fun.

But an alt does. Every time I play my alt I feel progression. I found out I could purchase a blue tanking libram with just 20 or so minutes of playtime and did just that last night.

Playing my alt is filling in for the lack of progression my main is missing. I'm hitting a sweet spot and it feels good!

Leveling as a tank

I decided to pretend I am a tank with my horde character. I say pretend because leading groups doesn't come naturally to me. Being a healer I spent vanilla WoW not really knowing what instances looked like because of "stay back here and I'll pull" thing.

I have no plans to become a raid tank. I raid on my alliance character and that's more raiding than I feel like doing as it is.

I just plan on tanking for the random 5-man pug, get a few upgrades and admire how my character turns out.

Killing stuff is slower, but I like that I'm able to do some group quests without a group.

I'm only tanking instances that are below my level which makes it easier on the healer and all involved. Don't know what I'm going to do when I hit 80. Maybe I'll stick to the easier instances. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Yane the Pilgrim

I got Pilgrim on two characters. I vowed I wouldn't chase after world event achievements on anything but my main alliance character. But the ability to level up cooking on my newer horde character was too good to pass up.

The "hardest" parts were sitting at enemy tables on both factions. Undercity and Stormwind weren't pleasant. I also wasn't sure how to easily get to the Alliance cities via horde.

But I'm going back to my vow and try not to pursue too many achievements on my horde character. Sounds crazy, but my horde character is my hobby, while my alliance character feels more like my workhorse. My alliance one does raids and tries to get more achievement points. My horde character "pvps" and is happy when a quest green is better than something I'm already wearing.

Leave the nest

Greedy Goblin's blog is changing focus a bit. He's covered just about everything there is to be covered on making gold. I imagine there is nothing you can ask that you can't just do a search and find the answer somewhere. I feel like he is saying "leave the nest little birdies and find your fortune. I've given you the tools its up to you to use them".

As a horde reroll in need of gold I recently followed his advice to level my mining up to the point I could mine ore in the areas I was questing in.

This was a rough, "I want to play not mine!" I said. But each time I went back to an area to quest I heard GG's voice (it sounds like a goblin) "Don't be a M&S!". So for several hours I mined ore in lower levels, riding round and round until I got my mining up to my quest level.

The great thing is now I'm actually able to mine mats to have some armor crafted. Win-win.

Pilgrims Aplenty

Thankfully, pun intended, this Thanksgiving world event can be reasonably finished without worry of RNG screwing you up. Of course, this event doesn't count toward a meta, but I'm sure it won't stop you from trying to finish it all. I know I plan to.

Pilgrim's Peril - sitting at the dinner table in enemy territory was indeed perilous. I managed to get it done, but not without losing a few of my nine lives.

The Turkinator - has surprisingly only got one long thread of responses on the WoW forums. It's definitely one that you may be worried you might not complete, but I always feel if I can do it anyone can.

It will probably take some time for me to find all of the rogues, but that and a visit to Sethekk Halls is the only thing I have left.

Also if you have alts (or a main) that needs to level up their cooking - get it done with the quests. All you need is some coin and ability to travel to the major cities. They provide the food and the fire!

Alterac Valley

It's unbalanced in favor of Alliance.

What?!?!?

No!!!!!!

Gasp!!!!

Shocking!?!?!

We never knew!!!!

Okay, okay this isn't news to anyone. But it didn't really see all the little things until I played Horde for myself.

But the biggest Aha! moment for me was realizing it is more fun to go on offense than to stay on defense.

Now this concept isn't new either. I'm one of those players who try to defend a flag in Arathi Basin even when I'm not equipped to do so. I realize being able to just keep someone from flipping the flag for a few seconds can make all the difference.

However the entire map of Alterac Valley is made for Horde to have to defend. Guess how tiring that gets?

I know that more people can easily switch sides for the cost of 25 bucks I imagine more won't be able to deny what they already knew.

Are they going to change it, at the point how many years has AV been out? I doubt it, but I do wonder if more alliance defectors complaining about it will make a difference.

They must have had my guild in mind

"In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time."

So maybe now instead of abandoning an instance before its finished with the only hope being to go back and outlevel it in the next expansion, maybe my scrub guild will actually clear something for a change.

Life as an alt

I have no idea why, but I hope the trend continues. My first 70-79 AV was more organized than any previous ones I've been in.

A friend of mine has also found renewed interest in playing from being on an alt just like I am.

He's actually finding it easier to get in pug groups than it is guild groups. Makes sense, you have a much larger population to pull from if you use lfg than our smallish guild. He was suprised by it though, and I'm happy he's having fun again.

And I think Blizzard is once again hitting on the pulse of what at least its customers like. Getting loot fairly easily.

I read reviews of Torchlight and the same comments kept popping up, you get lots of loot (so much so you have a pet that can run errands of selling your loot for you).

It is impressive that Uber Guild X got the Glowing Saber of Superiority. But in the end more players are happy to get their hands on the Slightly Inferior Fist Weapon.

Some players complain getting loot is too easy. But that's why players enjoy.

And before you say it will get old. As soon as you've easily geared up one alt, you can easily gear up another. Blizzard gets this. A lot sooner than we actually do/did.

Leveling through Vanishing Azeroth...battlegrounds

I continue to level my horde character in battlegrounds. Sometimes I do pve quests to mix it up, but when bg queue times are low I just jump into whatever I can get into first.

I failed at seeing all of the horde side I could possibly see. I should have leveled up 1 horde and 1 alliance at the very beginning of release. Back then it would have been fun to do pve with other players. Now you see a few people now and then, but I have more "player" interaction in Dragon Age: Origins than I do leveling up in WoW.

So battlegrounds is where I spend most of my time. I'm high enough to mix in Alterac Valley and Eye of the Storm.

For the first time since I starting playing horde, I'm at the point I wish I was max level with the hopes players starting cooperating more. Because last night I heard my first "I'm just here for the xp".

I want to win every bg I enter, even if it makes it last longer. I don't like rolling over and playing dead.

I haven't kept a tally, but it seems horde wins more Arathi Basins than it loses as expected. It wins more Alterac Valleys than I expected it to (when I played Alliance it seemed like we always won). And Warsong Gulch has been a surprise. Alliance side at least at 80, horde seem to always win, but leveling up it goes both ways. Eye of the Storm for the sake of equality being a symmetrical map is proabably the most boring bg of them all. I think horde loses more than it wins, I can't really tell.

Being the underdog I like playing AV. It's one of those bgs horde can win, just by playing smart. Of course there's the rub. Alliance can win by playing dumb. Guess which side wins the most.

I'm looking forward to hitting 80, although I heard the 70-79 bg is sparse. I'm, to my own surprise, am not looking forward to questing Northrend if I have to. So at this point I don't know if I'll ever hit 80 anytime soon.

Gearing up alts does not help progression

I felt this topic deserved its own post.

I'm going to give my reasons why gearing up alts (while fun for those on their alts) does not help progression and can actually hurt it.

1) As soon as you bring one alt in you are immediately handicapped.
The alt while familiar with the fight, is probably not familiar with the fight on his alt.

2) Alts can potentially take gear away from mains who can swap specs for you.

3) An alt will require more support because they'll have less health, less hit, less everything.

4) In the end, when new content is released, mains drop their alts like a bad habit anyway.

5) If you have the chance to gear up and alt, you may not focus on gearing up your main to its fullest potential.

6) One person bringing an alt just makes 5 other people want to bring theirs. If you are handicapped by one alt, what are you by bringing 5?

Doing what's right for me

I'm stepping back from raiding with my guild a bit.

There has been some mention about running old content to help new raiders get gear. There is also mention of alts running with mains to get gear.

This is a red flag to me. I can feel the heat from the burnout before it even reaches me. When we start farming placing like Naxx and Ulduar while there is still new content we haven't downed I know I'm in the wrong place.

It's not that we can't work on the new content, but we have just enough people not interested that we never can get ahead. It's easier to do old content, no risk of wiping, and pass out gear and those getting gear are happy campers. However those of us, who don't raid on alts, are bored out of their skulls.

And I don't care what anyone says, gearing up alts does not help with progression. I'll save this for another post.

I'm not going to look for a new guild, I'm just going to cut back on raiding.

I realize this is where I should suck it up and keep raiding for the good of the guild. However I know for a fact, I will get sick of raiding the same stuff to the point of quitting altogether.

Mini-transactions, Micro-transactions, Micro-payments

Other than initial additional purchases (Collector's Editions, etc.) I have had the willpower to not spend money on games other than their subscription fees.

I tried Wizard 101 and Free Realms and Runes of Magic, and when, with greater frequency, I started to meet up with things that required a purchase I didn't pony up, instead I quit.

I admit the randomness of winning something through the Trading Card Game made it easy for me to not spend money trying to get a turtle mount or spectral tiger or even one of the easier things to get - various tabards. But I also give credit, on pun intended, to the fact I simply don't want to spend more money on a game I'm already spending money on.

I played City of Heroes a few months ago and was tempted to purchase the additional costume packs, because the original costumes had become dated since I first played. A big part of CoH is the costuming. It would be like purchasing additional quests in WoW. It felt wrong to have to pay for something that should be free. So I didn't give in to temptation.

Now Blizzard will be adding a store where you can buy a non-combat pet directly from them.

I don't think I'll spend any money on those either. There is a crack in my willpower but its sealed by the fact there are pets I still don't have in game. I'll just spend time trying to get those instead if I want a new pet.

I pay $15 a month for WoW. It's cheap entertainment but that doesn't mean I want to throw more money at it to keep it fun.

Another Life

I've started another blog titled "Life in Ferelden" since I started playing Dragon Age: Origins. Perhaps starting a blog about it is overkill. But I've gotten somehow revitalized by the fact I'm embarking on a journey that will end in the foreseeable future.

I wondered why I was so giddy given DA:O is a fantasy with elements just like every other fantasy, and I've decided it was because of that one thing - "an ending".

MMORPGs have worn me out. It is hard for me to enjoy them anymore because I have this nagging feeling that whatever I do is only a grain of sand on a beach and the game expects me to move that beach elsewhere using a bucket. Do you know how babies are content when wrapped tight in swaddling cloth and uncomfortable when they are flailing about naked? That uncomfortableness is the feeling I get when thinking about playing another MMORPG.

Thanks to the intarweb I was able to easily find an article that describes what is wrong about MMOs for me now. This article is about the series Lost. And how at first it was extremely popular, but as each season ended, you started to feel drug along and drug out.

The author suggests shows like Lost be "reimagined". Instead of a regular television series make it a limited-run show from the get-go.

When it comes to how I feel about MMOs, I couldn't have said it better myself - "Puzzles are meant to be solved, not prolonged. You can only tease viewers so long before they feel like they’re being mocked."

I know DA:O is going to end and I'm all the more engaged in the story because of it.

Edit: Here is a link to an opinion that is just the opposite of mine. The Angry Gamer doesn't want to play a game where what he does won't be lasting. AG says "The problem is that MMO’s have spoiled me to the point where I feel like if I play a single player game I am getting NOTHING accomplished."

When achievements were introduced, I too felt as if I weren't on my main "achieving" I wasn't getting anything done. But what I and AG are both doing is painting ourselves into a corner.

If AG is truly having fun "getting SOMETHING accomplished" by playing WoW that's what its all about.

But if AG is avoiding doing something else fun, at the risk of doing more of the same I say free yourself!

What classes can you "just not get into"?

This is a topic from the WoW forums. It's easy to say you don't like this or that class because it owns you in pvp, but I thought it was interesting to see why other players who have actually tried other classes and found out they didn't like them.

No surprise, pretty much every class was mentioned. Least mentioned was druid. The class that kept coming up early on was rogues (warriors seemed to be mentioned a lot too).

Here are some of the reasons given for not liking rogues:

*I can't get into 'em. Maybe I just don't have the manual dexterity to play one efficiently :)

*I can't play anything that doesn't have a blue bar.

*I haven't been able to get a rogue/warrior past 20.

*Never got one past 15. The Combo Point 90s Fighting Game mechanic just leaves me cold, as it always has.

*I've created three or four of them thinking, each time, that I'd totally enjoy it. I'm wrong each and every time.

*warrior/Rogue/priest/mage are a pain in the ass. Rogues and warriors only got bandages and pots

*I cant play a non caster.

*Rogue...I've tried and it's just too stupid. They're faceroll at everything.

*Rogue. Sneakily and skillfully filling your target feels horribly slow and boring after the 3rd mob or so. I've had one that has moved from level 35 to 42 over the course of 3 years.

*Everytime I am absolutely murdered in a BG by a rogue I think "wow, I really should create a rogue, it looks like so much fun....." I think the highest I ever got one was 18 before I cleared bags, removed gold and deleted toon swearing I'll never create one again.

*Rogue's cause of the missmissdodgemissparrymissmissdodgeparymissmissmiss after the get duel-wield.

*That pretty much nails down my views on Rogues as well. Tried many times, each thinking "It'll be different this time", only to approach lvl 20 & find myself painfully bored with the class...just like all the other times.

*In theory, I should love playing rogues. but the fact of the matter is that I simply can't get into it. I blame combo points, to monotonous.

*I can't play anything that can't heal themselves.

*Rogues. I tried leveling one like three times thinking I can finally open those damn lockboxes myself, but I could never get one enough to leave the newbie zone. Just not really my style I guess.

*Rogue. They are fun, but just not my style. I don't like to sneak up on things.

*I just can't seem to have fun playing a Rogue.

Just as someone mentioned, I've often dreamt about playing a rogue and sharing the sorrow inflicted upon me by one. I also wish my druid could play like one, but then it wouldn't be a druid would it?

Nothing much

Nothing much going on lately.

I finished all of my Hallow's End achievements for the meta last year. So what was left for me were masks and a Headless Horseman mount. I had no desire to log on every hour and trick or treat the innkeeper for a chance at 20 masks and while I did a few days of HH runs I grew tired of finding a group or putting a group together and traveling to SM. It's not that much effort at all, but I wasn't really in to doing it, so I said "meh".

Our raid has reached somewhat of a roadblock. We have to sit people for regular mode, but then immediately following we have a lack of signups for hard modes. Once again I don't care enough to go shopping for another guild. But with this lack of participation, we run out of things to do even with our extremely limited raiding schedule.

Over the weekend Ensidia managed to clear the entire place without a single death and we can't muster up enough enthusiasm to kill Beasts.

It makes me want to quit raiding until Icecrown is released.