Casual Raiding Evolution?

Back on Jul 14th Skunkworks, a two night per week raiding guild killed the Lich King on Heroic Mode. I mention this because it makes me wonder if more guilds, as its raiders lives change, will start cropping up that embrace a more casual raid experience. Only raiding a few nights a week, yet giving it your best when you do.

I remember blogging about how I felt I was pushing myself to enjoy a raiding environment which simply wasn't made for me. In the scheme of things it was always casual, usually only 4 nights a week when other serious guilds raided just about every night. I knew I would never be able to raid every night and was disheartened when I finally admitted 4 nights a week was too much as well.

Since then I've raided with two different, 2 night/week 25-man guilds. (I was pleasantly suprised to find out they existed.) We did alright but definitely nothing much to blog about when it came to success. We killed stuff but failed to clear Ulduar and to date, ICC. Overall you can say I'm content, but it stings that the results aren't there as we move from instance to instance. We move on not because we're done, but because we've done as much as we can do.

The reality is my current guild has a casual mindset along with a casual schedule.
Casual mindset you stroll along taking upgrades where you get them and are happy. Casual schedule you kill what you can and call it a day. Casual mindset + casual schedule = not setting a destination because you won't reach it anyway.

What I'd prefer is a middle-road mindset and casual schedule. I don't have to be the guild that killed HM-LK I mentioned above, but I would like to have at least killed LK on normal (25). At this point with a 30% buff we have no excuse for not doing so.

Hearing about guilds like Skunkworks proves what I'm asking for isn't far-fetched and in fact I'd like to believe more players will opt for this type of playstyle in the future.

How the other three-fifths live

Exhausting my string of tanks I've stepped over into a new area - dpsing! I'm playing a "pure" dps class, so I can't switch specs.

DPS and the Random Dungeon Finder have not been been as positive of an experience as tanking was. First of all, it's my own fault as I've never done much of any kind of dps in a group setting. So it's been a little shaky getting used to it. Second, doing it on a hunter comes with its own probability of hiccups. Turn Growl OFF!!! And third, so long instaqueue!

Why is it when the queue pops, there is always a dpser who doesn't click accept? I, just like I'm sure other tanks, have wondered this same thing. Well its because you don't have an instant queue. So instead of queuing up and hitting accept within seconds as most tanks are fortunate to do. As DPS, you queue up and wait. And wait. And wait. Annnnnd wait. And before long you step away from the computer for just a second and come back and see you missed the pop and have to get back in the queue. QueueQueue

I've had my share of tanks leaving at the beginning. Healers going afk. I was kicked out of a group that was mid-instance as soon as I joined. Tanks who nerdrage over mistakes. And for the time I carve out to run instances, I feel like a lot of it is wasted. I can run at least two or three instances in the time it takes for my dpser to run one.

Yet i'm still happy that I'm getting the chance to find groups. In the past I just soloed on my dps. So even with DPS at a disadvantage compared to tank/healers things are much better than they used to be pre-RDF.

A reminder for the remainder of Wrath

"If you don't have a plan for yourself...you'll be a part of someone else's."

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.