Travel for sub 40

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should I find a barrow den?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

750

750 badges.

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

Seems a bit insurmountable at the moment....

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

It drops me down to 615.

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

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

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

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

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

But will it keep me entertained?

"Can" versus "have to"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is it called

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armorying PUGs

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

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

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

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

Atari 2600

A more innocent age

As a commenter pointed out, I stand corrected.

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

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

WoW's April Fool's

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

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

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

PvP to be added to Hello Kitty Online

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

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

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

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

Do you agree or disagree with the change?

Unhealthy pressure

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

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

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

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

I guess I answered my own question. :/

How many dailies do you do a day?

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

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

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

SSO and Dailies

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

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

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

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

Removal of Attunements

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

Have fun.

Sometimes we need reminding.

MgT too easy? too hard?

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

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

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

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

Magisters' Terrace

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

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

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

Patch 2.4 today

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

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

Time is the currency of WoW

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

It was in the context of hardcore raiding.

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

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

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

Fury of the Sunwell

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

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

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

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

Principle of Progression

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

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

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

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

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