A Second Half Team

Did they sneak in a Firelands nerf that I missed?  Seriously, I don't mean to belittle our raid group, but we waltzed in last night, standing at 4/7 and left 6/7.  We, what, three shot (?) Baleroc.  (I just had to sit in "brain freeze" pose for five minutes to come up with his name.  That's how much of an impression he made on me.  To be fair, it's totally a healer fight, and pretty much a tank and spank for me except for the whole crystal shard dance).

Domo was a bit more of a challenge, but we got him down with 15 minutes to spare in our two hour raid night.  Enough for a quick Jenkins attempt on Rag.  Considering how much we struggled on the early bosses, this was a cake walk.  I'm hesitant to feel happy about, because I'm sure someone is going to say... oh yeah, they hotfixed a nerf last week, or something.

Really, it was business as usual for us.  We aren't gearing any faster than we have been.  We've stuck to our two-hours per week schedule with very little deviation.  If anything, many of us are spending less time in game what with chasing non-internet dragons (Skyrim) in our free time.

So what's up with these two fights?  Are they just easier to learn?  Did we just have a... shhh... "on" night (don't jinx it)?

Okay, I'll ask.  How did you guys find the first three bosses (Shan, Beth, Rhy) of FL in comparison to the last three (Alys, Bale, Domo)?

I could fight Alys every day of the week (I'm the Starfoxer).  Despite the relative ease with downing Domo, I thought it had interesting mechanics.  I liked the idea of letting us dictate phase changes.  Bale was a nice respite from all the running around and dealing with crap of the other fights.

On the flip side, we two shot Shannox and then were stuck on him for like a month.  There were some minor strategy things we had to work out, but it was rough.  Rhyolith wasn't so bad, but it can still be tricky.  Beth causes us to shudder.  Still.  Just when you have her- unlucky spiderling spawn!  Yaaay.

What did you think?  First half of FL = annoying?  Second half = fun?  It's okay.  4.3 is almost here.  We don't have to tell 4.2 if you dish.  It can be our little secret.

QotD: Are You Taking The Year Sub?

There have been some good comments on my initial thoughts post the other day, some of them regarding the "Year Sub" deal Blizz is offering.  Mostly, I've seen folks talking about the motivations behind the deal, what it means, why they're doing it, etc... but not whether or not the writers are going to actually take it.  So I wanted to open it up... irregardless of the reasons behind the deal, are you taking the sub?

I probably will.  I've not interrupted my WoW service for, what, four years now?  What's one more.  And I get a free game to boot.  I wasn't planning to play Diablo (just have never really gotten into the series), but why not?  I've paid my way through content lulls before, so that doesn't really scare me.  I mean, how would it be any worse than any other summer right before an expansion?  Besides, there's still plenty that my guild has left to do.

On the flip side, if I wasn't able to play with all my friends, I might have second thoughts.  I suppose I could analyze it and worry that this means Blizz is going to completely ignore WoW until the xpac comes out, effectively creating the worst lull we've ever weathered.  It could well mean that I'm paying for sub-par customer service.

Let's be honest, though.  Hasn't Blizz always sort of set the standard.  Haven't they been above average consistently?  So even if they were to drop, might it be merely to "average," which is still pretty decent.  I guess my overriding feeling is: How bad could it get?  Seriously.  Toss the ethics or theories aside for a moment.  How bad would it be for you, personally, in your chosen game-play style.

I would wager there are two sorts of folks.  The kind that will cancel and re-sub as they feel the content merits, and the kind that simply pay another monthly bill and don't think of it too much.  I'm more of the latter.  Does this really affect my type of player?  Is it really enough of an enticement for the former type to give up their autonomy?  I wonder how many people it will swing.

Let me know what you think... not about why they're doing this, but rather, if taken on face value, who this is for.  Who will it sway?  Who will it remain unmoved?

QotD: Nerfage, Too Soon?

Well, we're still struggling on Shannox.  Two weeks in a row.  After a one-shot.  I hate it when that happens.  Also, I hate hunters.

I think we're having several problems.  Solving any one of them would probably mean success.  We were very close last night several times.

As a DPS, I know we're taking too much damage.  There's just a lot going on and we're not staying out of the bad likely as well as we should.  We've tried to keep Riplimb closer to the raid with the intent of utilizing the crystal traps to help clear debuffs.  We had been doing the ranged thing before, but we would either trigger the distance enrage or not get far enough to drop the stacks.  It strained the healers and relied on us getting slows down, which, in turn, made DPS slower.  Thus, we decided to simply have the tank make use of the traps.  The downside here is that the stupid spear throw tends to cause us more damage.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't here it seems.

Our healers are struggling, this I know, for the health plates tell me so.

Try and get that of out of your head.  Seriously.  In any case, we either run into dead people or mana issues.  The same things that bug our DPS wreak havoc on our poor healers.  We may try some different strategies, but one of the things that had worked well for us is to call out a "Mana Regen" phase right before Rageface goes down.  It helped to coordinate several cooldowns where the healers may be busy regaining mana and a couple of our off-healers can be aware if we get in a bind.

By the end of the night we were consistently getting to the very last phase.  The problem seemed to be that we just couldn't outlast the damage.  We'd lose a tank and then, swiftly, the raid.  And this was with our healers spamming (but usually out of mana).

The easy solution is simply to gear up.  However, all of this may be moot anyway.  Blizz has announced we're going to see a blanket nerf next week.  It seems quick again, but apparently we aren't the only ones who have stalled a bit.  It makes me wonder if they don't have some sort of measurement system that tracks progress and, when a certain percentage of stalling is hit... out come the nerf bats!

A good nerfing is as effective as getting more gear any day.  Easier too.  I have mixed feelings about the speed, but I guess I'll take it.  I suppose it's better to err on the side of "too fast" than "too slow."  What do you think?  Are you ready for a nerf?

QOTD: Legendary Tips

We finally downed our first Firelands boss last night. We had been working on Beth'tilac, but after two weeks of wiping (and much tweaking of strategies), we decided that we just didn't have the gear for it. Beth'tilac is a gear check, and we just weren't getting the adds down fast enough.

Most of us are over 359 average ilevel, but not by a whole lot.  Many have stopped running heroics out of sheer boredom with them.  We try to do a few a week, but we are definitely not capping VP (and we don't require that).  If we were less casual, that average gear level is probably enough. After all, I've seen stories of folks going in with that sort of gear and doing just fine. Being pretty casual, we probably need a bit more gear.  It was doubly frustrating because everyone else seems to think that this fight is cake.  Well, the cake is a lie.  If your group is struggling, feel in good company.

So, in the last half hour, we decided to swap over to Shannox.  The only reason we didn't do him first was because we didn't want to waste a bunch of time clearing the trash to get him to spawn.  We've done enough trash runs that most of the trash no longer gives rep, so there's little drive to do it.  Still, it was time to try another boss.  The hunter's horn sounded thrice, and then... 

We one shot him.  Yeah.  It went something like this:

/Ful starts reading strat over vent
/Shannox pats into range halfway through the reading
/We say "screw it" and pull
/yadda yadda yadda
/Shannox dies

I know, I yadda'ed over the best part.  Well, we killed one dog early.  The second dog we dragged out until Shannox had like 35% health left.  Then, we finished them both off.  We were just sort of winging it with only the vaguest idea of what we were supposed to do, and it worked.

So, I have to say: Shannox is far easier than Beth'tilac... especially if you're not high on the gear curve.

The side effect of an unexpected one-shot is that we got out first chance to see one of the BoP embers needed for the caster Legendary.  As one might guess, we found ourselves ill-prepared to deal with it.  I don't know if you've ever been in a casual raid group before, but it's been my experience that whenever something special like this drops, there's this moment of mini-panic where everyone is thinking "oh shit, now what do we do."

You see, casual folks tend to have a wide array of different opinions when it comes to gearing.  And Legendaries can cause guild-stress even for the prepared.  It's just one of the truths of the game.

Fortunately, rational heads prevailed and after a few moments of collective flailing, we had it narrowed down to three people who both wanted the opportunity (not everyone wants the responsibility... you're pretty much saying you'll be there for every raid and then some) and could make good use of the resulting item.  The three rolled and, well, yours truly came out on top.  So, if our ragtag guild somehow manages to construct the Legendary, I will get it.

I'm super-psyched about this.  I don't think I've ever had a shot for anything cool in the many years I've played this game.  Generally, there hasn't been a whole lot unique and cool for casters, but also I've never been in a position where it was really possible.  I hesitate to get too excited, because actually being able to do this is a long way off, and could never happen, but it feels nice to even have the chance.  I've been a dedicated guildy for a lot of years now, and my current guild-mates are some of my very best friends, so though they may give me crap about it... I'm thankful nonetheless.

Which brings me to my question of the day.  Now that I have a shot at the Legendary... does anyone have any tips?  Is there anything I can do to be ready for it?  Are there any other Warlocks out there rocking this bad boy?

QOTD: Meaningful Decrease is Meaningful?

Is there such a thing as "too much" meaning? I've been paying only divided attention to the information coming out about the whole Deathwing patch thing. After all, I still have plenty to do in the current raiding patch. We've yet to down our first boss.

Still, one of the things I keep seeing repeated is the following line:

"The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions."

Maybe it's just me, but when I read this, several red flags go off in my head.

First of all, we're getting the Deathwing patch already.  Doesn't that seem fast to anyone?  I hardly feel like we've gotten rolling.  I suppose I expected to visit other elemental planes first.

I keep seeing comparisons to Ulduar.  Shouldn't we be making comparisons to ICC?  Isn't this raid supposed to be this expansion's ICC?  We're basically going, Naxx (The three initial raids), Uld (FL), no ToC, ICC (Deathwing).  Does anyone else feel like we're missing a step?  Not that the ToC step will be all that missed, but it did sort provide a chance to catch our breath and set up for ICC.  I wouldn't it mind it sped up, but having fully expected "steps" removed bugs me. 

Maybe that's an unfair comparison though. 

Another red flag is that they keep strongly hinting that we're going to get another expansion a lot sooner than in years past.  I think it's pretty safe to assume that they mean to announce it at Blizzcon and then perhaps release it next year.  That's almost a full year early.

Does that mean we're going to get a break on price?  Before, I was paying a large amount of money (in addition to a monthly fee) for (essentially) two years of content.  I'm okay with that, but is it fair to the consumer to expect them to pay the same amount for essentially one year of equivalent content (on top of a monthly fee), with no real explanation (other than: hey, faster is better, right?)?  At what point is this worrisome?

I'm not usually one to cry wolf around here.  I don't really like to complain about being "nickle and dimed" or anything, because I've generally felt like we've gotten good value for what we pay.   Lately, however, the cost per hour seems to be going up.  Drastically.  A strategic change like this would represent a 100% increase in expansion pricing. 

Maybe they plan to give a discount, though.  Or give some bonus, neat swag with the purchase (discounting the swag-free digital release, since isn't that just another patch?).  Maybe the quality will be completely superb, even better than we've become to expect (however, I think one could make a valid case that quality has been declining.  Still great, but perhaps a bit of a slide from what once was).  

At what point should red flags be waving?

I only ask because I've not see this asked elsewhere.  We all seem to be taking this projected news in stride without blinking an eye.  I'm not trying to be a cranky old-timer here, I just think I have some valid concerns about what seems to be a major paradigm shift.  Change can be good, but I'm always wary of it.  I'm willing to adapt and I'm not going to sit here and glorify the olden days, but when something is wrapped up with a "this is what you want" package, I find myself having to ask:

Is it really?

You tell me.  Surely, this has piqued other minds. 

QotD: Has Anyone Tried Real ID Grouping?

Saga has a good post over at Spellbound in which she talks about feeling Torn. She is referring to the general feeling I think many of us can sympathize with where we have friends or relatives on other servers that we'd love to play with, but we can't ditch our "home," so to speak.  I've been relatively fortunate over the years to be involved enough in my guilds that people have come to me to join up. 

Still, I do have a cousin on another server that helps run a guild as well, and we are always sharing raiding stories at family gatherings.  We've rolled toons on each other's server, but rarely get over there.  We have active guilds and generally not a lot of "free" gaming time; we're always working toward some goal or another. 

Also, I can't count on two hands the number of bloggers I would like to play with from time to time.  There have been several blogger guilds that have sprung up over the last half-decade, and we've generally tried to at least pop in.  They've always been a blast, but short-lived.  I think a lot of that is because people have a hard time being away from "home" for any sort of extended period, no matter how fun the company.

Alleviating this is, I believe, a big reason for the whole Real ID invite option.  I've read some about it, but I've not had an opportunity to try it yet.  It appears to be installed, I think.  When chatting with my cousin once, I was able to right-click her Real ID name and shoot her an invite.  She was busy with a group in a rated BG at the moment, so she couldn't accept.  Thus, we really didn't get to try, but it seemed to be there and functional.

Is there anyone out there that uses this function on a regular basis?  Have you discovered any caveats?  It works with raids, dungeons, and BGs, right?  I've only had a passing curiosity about it, but am looking for some practical experience.  I can't help but think that if the function is smooth and effective, it should do quite a bit to alleviate feeling Torn.  You should be able to have your cake and eat it too.  Unless the cake is a lie because I'm missing something here.  Let me know.

To Progress Or Not To Progress

According to WoW Insider, Blizzard has announced that they will be reinstating Valor Point rewards for downing "old" bosses.  That is to say, bosses of the previous tier of raiding.  This will be to the tune of 35 VP/boss on 10-mans and 35VP/boss on 25-mans.  This is big news.

Personally, I'm all for the change.  Why not?  A large amount of QQ has been directed toward "trollroics," and I think this provides a slick answer.  Is it perfect?  No.  Haters gon' hate.  But it is a pretty solid idea.

Raiders were complaining that you simply could not earn enough VP through raiding.  It was perhaps a valid complaint.  If raiding is what you want to do, why should you be forced into an ancillary activity in order to cap your points.  Still, as some have mentioned, it's sort of a choice that goes with the territory.

This change should help alleviate some of that concern.  Now you can go back and raid the old stuff for gain.  I think it simply makes sense.  If the trollroics give VP, why not old raids.  And I think the point level is tweaked accordingly.  It's not a "get geared fast" scheme, but provides some raiding benefit to, you know, raiding.

The question, now, for guilds in my situation is this.  We've not cleared all of the previous tier's raid content.  We're working on Nef right now and have a couple more bosses in the other instance... maybe 4 left all told.  We should be able to steamroll them after we get Nef down, and were just sticking in one instance for simplicity sake.  The question becomes: should we continue and down all of the bosses, maybe even farm a bit on old content, before starting Firelands? 

There are many ways to answer this question.  Before the VP change, it was a little simpler.  It was far better to make trash runs and beat our heads against early bosses.  If we down one, we get VP.  Work on trollroics on off nights for gear.  Why spend time in the old raids?  Sure we may net a few of the hard-to-get drops that have eluded us, but is that really the best use of a cramped schedule?

Now, the VP throws a new dimension into the argument.  Not only can we go back and get to see that content, but we can also collect VP for our time.  It's raiding practice and VP rewards and the chance at elusive drops.  I know some of us are still sporting the odd blue, and it feels wrong to me to go into Firelands less than epic'ed out.

It's a question we're still discussing as a raid group.  We want to see the new stuff, but don't want to beat our head against a wall when we've got other, easier content that still needs cleared.  How to balance gearing with progression on such a limited time budget?  How to not burn out on trollroics?  I wonder, what are your raid groups doing.  Does the VP announcement change any of your plans?

Skim 'Locks

Now that we're on the cusp of the next content patch, I feel like I can go ahead and ponder my more immediate warlocky future.  I'm wading through somewhere around 400 blog posts that I missed in four days of vacation.  I'll be honest, even if you wrote a Pullitzer, I'm probably only going to skim your post.  Sorry.

In my skimming, I noticed some vague feedback from the devs.  I believe Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street wrote about it on the whole water-cooler thing.  Basically, Warlock changes were boiled down to a two things:

• We nerfed the Glyph of Soul Swap to reduce the ease of applying multiple DoTs in PvP.
• We nerfed Drain Life because Affliction was forsaking Shadowbolt in PvE, which wasn’t intended. We want Drain Life to be for utility, not primarily for damage, and we want all casters to have to hard cast at least some of the time. This was done via hotfix and players won’t see a change in 4.2.

I guess we should be thankful that we have only two things to begin with.  This serves to reinforce my belief that Warlocks, in general, are in a pretty good place right now.  In fact, I can't help but groan when I see our name on the list.  Last patch we saw buffs.  Of course we're going to see nerfs this time.

I'll reproduce the patch notes proper when it goes live, but we can assume we're simply going to see a version of the above.  I don't like that SS keeps being mucked with, as I really like the spell and am afraid they are determined to make it un-useful.  I'd almost rather take nerfs elsewhere and keep SS badass.

I'm not very surprised about the DL hotfix.  The explanation aligns with what I had thought about the spell's purpose.  Still, it was nice having it as a option to lose and not feel like your damage was suffering.  I was never fully on-board with any DL filler spec, so it's not going to be an issue for me.  I'm not sure if I like that it was a hotfix.  Hotfixes just scream "stealth nerf" to me.  I don't like it when rogues creep around and I don't like it when nerfs are slid beneath my robes.  It just gives me the heeby-jeebies, and I'm supposed to be the one doling those out.

I guess what I'm saying is just... why the rush?  It would seem to me like hotfixing is adding another variable to the change pot, and it's one that, by nature, isn't communicated very well.  Why not just wait until, like, the patch?

Anyway, Warlocks of the World... of Warcraft, what do you think?  Are you, like me, generally happy with our class?  What would you see changed?

QotD: Has E3 Coverage Made You Think?

With E3 going on, we've seen a lot of talk and news about other games in general recently. Since Blizzard only does Blizzcon, and we're in a holding pattern for 4.2, WoW is sort of taking a back seat.  I mentioned the summer slump last week, and it's already begun to color our raiding schedule.  Basically, we can expect from now until September to have at least one household away on a trip any given raid day.  This tends to hurt us more than your average raid crew on account that we have a good smattering of couples.  Thus, the absences tend to come in pairs.

Fortunately, we've not had to cancel any raids yet.  We've been able to find subs.  Which brings up the traditional question of whether to learn new bosses when you're down a regular raider, or to simply farm content with the subs.  So far, we're farming.  Changing a group make up even slightly can totally throw a new curve to old strategies.  Like Maloriak.  Hunter is on vacation, so we have no frost trap.  I suppose we didn't realize how hard it is to kite without a frost trap.  We'd had that fight down pat, but the removal of just one person saw us spending a few wipes on it.  Nothing major, but enough to be moderately annoying.  Still, I'll be extremely happy if we simply don't have to cancel any raids this summer, even if it means we don't progress very far because we're just gearing up.  If you're able to weather the summer slump, you stand a good chance of hitting the fall in full stride and closing up a lot of content.  I think we experienced that in ICC (coming off ToC during the summer slump).

Other than raid woes, WoW isn't really a full time job right now.  I think even the more casual among us have had plenty of time to exhaust the content on a single, or even two toons.  If you have a stable, you might still be working on stuff.  The one thing all this E3 coverage does, especially in a lull, is whet your desire to "see other games."

There are several games on my to-play list that I'm not sure I'll get to (our summer is quite busy with weddings and travel).  First, I'm extremely anxious about Star Wars: The Old Republic.  I plan to get in on the ground floor there.  I'd love to play with some other readers/bloggers, so when it hits, let me know what servers you're on.  Fuu and I would love the company. 

After that, Portal 2 is high on my list.  It's probably sacrilege that I've even waited this long, but I want to give the game justice if I'm going to play it.  That is to say, I need a good string of several days to immerse myself in it, because I suspect I won't want to come up for air. 

The announced Assassin's Creed expansion is supposed to come this fall.  I'll be awaiting that one as well.  I'm a huge fan of that franchise and look forward to experiencing the next part of the story.  It's another one where I'll want to have significant free time to spend with it.

Finally, right now we're actually playing a bit of Aion.  Crazy, I know, but Aion has a free 10 days going on right now.  Good timing on their part seeing as how I'm in a mini-lull.  Can't beat free for some casual play.  Fuu is loving the new pet system they put in.  I've appreciated a good smattering of added quests.  I don't think we'll be re-upping a sub, but it is nice to be able to dip your toes back in the water and see how things are.  They seem to have fixed a lot of problems since we last played.  (For example, bots seems to be all but exterminated, at least in the areas where I'm questing.  And I love what they've done with the map interface.  WoW should take some notes there). 

My experience with Aion makes me wonder: maybe MMO's should shoot to release on a smaller scale.  I think part of Aion's problem was trying to release 50 levels of polished content to immediately compete with the large games.  What if they'd just started with 10 (the initial ten levels were awesome!) and then released another 5 levels every month?  I've talked about being a fan of quicker, shorter patching.  Maybe there's a lesson there for a new kind of MMO.  Instead of large patches, what about very small, but very focused patching.  More like a "serial" story than an epic adventure.  From what I know of software development, I would think that such an approach would yield better results.  I don't know, just a random idea.

Has E3 elicited any random general gaming thoughts from you?

Done with Four One?

The honeymoon was sweet while it lasted, but I think I'm already back into a holding pattern waiting for new content.  I've run Zx enough that they're "just another heroic."  Don't get me wrong, I could still cash in on a ZA timed run or gather some more maelstrom crystals for the big enchants down the road, but, to me, that's sort of like "topping it off."  Those are the random things I'll knock out in the meantime.

Overall, I liked 4.1.  When we were on the TNB roundtable, I said that I wanted to reserve my judgement until later, so as to see when they drop 4.2.  I'm going to go on record now and urge a 4.2 drop in the next month.  If I'm sitting at my keyboard at the end of June and 4.2 hasn't dropped, I'm going to be a little peeved.  With the information already flowing, I have high hopes.  My point here is just that 4.1 didn't have a whole lot to do, but they assured us that they were going to follow a more aggressive release strategy.  Let's see that put into practice, Blizz.  4.1 is pretty much cashed at this point for a lot of people I think.

One of the big things I'm waiting on is a PvP incrementation.  Even before the 4.1 "speed up" of honor gains, I was pretty much PvP geared.  Now, I have every piece "Bloodthirsty" and all that remains is to try in vain to save up Conquest Points for the occasional epic.  That's another "topping off" activity in my eyes.  I'd like to be able to epic out my PvP toon now with PvP gear. 

That, and I'd like my TNB suggestion to come to fruition: Make the daily random PvP reward weekly just the same as the PvE stuff.  That'd help ease my Conquest woes, and I don't see why it can't be done. 

As for raid gear/content, I'm okay with waiting a bit for that.  Our group is making slow but steady progress.  I'm actually not one of the ones itching for the new raid content, but I wouldn't mind the gear boost.  Still, I think 4.1 did a great job of helping some of the more casual among us of filling our gear out with epics.  I've gotten a lot of upgrades in the past several weeks.  I actually have a good number of Best In Slot items, which is something I could never say before.  I've really enjoyed the gearing path in Cataclysm.  It has felt well tuned for PvE. 

Still, I'm done with Baradin's Hold.  Exalted with everyone (including Gilneas), and pretty heroic'ed out.  The guild challenges have helped push us to do some, but really they've also pushed us to do regulars on other toons.  To check out some alts and stuff.  So I'd say that's a positive and unexpected side effect.  It makes "alt runs" feel a lot more rewarding.  Still, I'm ready for a new set of dailies.  (I actually don't mind dailies).  I'd also like to see some of the BH token rewards get offered for gold.  Or maybe you could just buy tokens.  They can be hella expensive, that's fine, I just want another option besides doing those same quests for the billionth time.  I mean grinding them to exalted and then getting your one or two pieces... that's fine.  That's the purpose of dailies.  But I what about some of the nice, fun items?  They're so expensive and I'm sitting on a stock pile of gold simply from doing those dailies.  I'm not a AH player.  I'm not a gold hoarder.  But it would be nice to be able to cash some of that in for tokens.  You could even put a daily limit on that if you wanted, I don't care.

Anyway, those are just some of my ideas for the future.  Looking back is only good insofar as you use it to learn.  Mostly, 4.1 was fun and well done.  I'm ready for more fun and well done, even if it's not raid content.  Is it weird that I'd like to just have more "major" patching, quicker, but not necessarily with added raids?  I feel like they've done a great job of making the "rest" of the game fun again, and I'd just like more of that.  I'm okay with regurgitated five mans.  Hell, it could be fun if they all had a heroic, top level option, released in pairs monthly or something.  (It'd only be worth it if it were quick and didn't preclude the eventual release of true new stuff).

Until 4.2 drops, I'll be topping off my toons.  Valentis, my Worgen Druid might get some love.  Also, I'll dip back into the addictive timesink of Civ V.  My goal is to "beat" the game by winning on all difficulty levels.  I'm one away from that (only have Immortal left). 

What did you find you desire in 4.1?  Are you ready for 4.2?  Do you "top off?"  This inquiring mind wants to know.

The Difference A Day Makes

Our guild has struggled with raiding in Cataclysm. I've mentioned it on here before. So we've been scrambling to find solutions. A lot of us are former officers in large guilds, which means we have a lot of potential ideas with a lot of merit. We're facing problems many of us have faced before.

A little background on my guild for anyone who is a newer reader. We have perhaps twelve active people in our guild. Most of us have been playing since TBC (and before), but we have a few Wrath babies as well. We're close knit. We're friends. Most of us have met in real life.

We also only raid for two hours per week. No more, no less. Two shall be the number of the raiding hours and the number of the raiding hours shall be two. Five is right out.

You see, when we coalesced from the smoldering embers of various other big guilds (which imploded as big guilds are wont to do), we had very specific goals in mind. We shared views of where the game stood in terms of priority. A couple people have bowed out over time, and we've picked up a couple more. For the most part, though, we're all on the same page. No one (that I'm aware of) contemplates quitting guild when we struggle. For us, it just means more to get through it together. It's about the people, not the content.

The problem, then, comes when real life starts being uncooperative. Someone has to work late or travel (hotel internet sucks!). Someone's kid gets sick. Storms knock out power, electricity, and internet. A router decides to throw a hissy fit. You pick. With only twelve possible raiders (many of whom live in the same vicinity or even the same house), it doesn't take a whole lot for us to find ourselves undermanned and out of luck. Such has been the pattern for us so far in Cata. For every day that everyone can make it, we have a day where we're missing a couple of people. It's not usually the same people, either. It's this person today, that person tomorrow. We've all been guilty of it. And we've done a great job with finding subs, but that's always a suboptimal route. You simply raid better with the people you know, and consistency helps with learning.

One of the other things we tried was to move our Monday time to Thursdays, in an effort to hit more people. Mondays were bad for a bit. Last night, we went back to Mondays. Thursdays became bad. It seems like every two months or so we have to re-evaluate the raid day due to seasonally shifting schedules. Perhaps we should just accept that that is how it goes.

(Which we are, and our wonderful organization Queen, Jessabelle, has recently gotten us going on a new tool, Doodle, that has really worked well for us. If you're looking for a simple way to poll your members, it's pretty straightforward. And Free!)

In moving the day back, I noticed something. We all seemed more energetic on Monday. We seemed more relaxed, less stressed. We were even short one person and had to call in a late sub. It didn't seem like as big of a deal. When we finally got around to giving Magmaw some good learning attempts, we struggled, but we stuck with it and got him down before the end of the night. There were frustrating moments, sure, but at least to me, it no longer felt like we were just spinning our wheels.

I'm not sure how much is just me. I'm not sure how much of it is 4.1. But I do find myself wondering how much difference the day of the week makes. For us, it seemed like people tended to be more tired later in the week. Since most of us work full time jobs, perhaps there's something to that. A full week certainly takes a toll on people. It may be harder to drag yourself around to face the stress (and there will always be stress) of raiding later in the week.

Mondays can be sub-par because of the reset schedule, but they seem to be one of the better days from a human standpoint. I think it's easier to look forward to on a Monday. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just as simple as the usual wear and tear of a week. Or, since Mondays suck anyways, you're already starting low, so it's easier to put a positive spin on wiping. After all, any success at anything on a Monday makes it a good Monday, right?

I do know that without weekends, most of us would probably go insane. Perhaps there is something to raiding earlier in the week then. I'm curious, for those of you out there with multiple raid nights... do you find earlier in the week better?

On Botting

Rivs over at High Latency Life wrote an interesting, if brief, article regarding his feelings about bots in video games. He ends it with a question for our feelings about bots, and I feel inclined to take the bait and turn it into a post.

Personally, "bot" to me in any video game is a dirty word. It's not exactly rational either. Rivs makes some good points about the pros and cons of bots being allowed to exist in virtual worlds, but at the end of the day what does it for me is a simple Rage Against the Machine. Games are for playing. Therefore, anyone not "playing" is Doing it Wrong.

Things are rarely so black and white, though. I'll be the first to admit that the opinion expressed above is based more on prejudice than actual rational thought and due consideration for the problem. In other words, it's ill-formed.

So here's my attempt to rectify my mistake, remove my blinders, and think outside the box. If we toss aside the notion, even if just for the length of a post, that "bots" are inherently bad because they're non-human, what do we have left? I think most of us can agree with the sentiment expressed by Rivs that "PvP bots are where to draw the line." His analogy is an apt one. If I'm engaged in sport of any kind (say football), and one of my teammates goes AFK, or worse, runs around jumping randomly, slamming into obstacles and not contributing at all to the goal of the game... well, I'd be pretty pissed and rightly so. Too bad we don't have a coach that can sit your PvP-botting ass on the bench.

However, in the case of gathering, there is a bit of a different paradigm. To some extent, you could argue that allowing bots to collect items is beneficial to other players. It drives down costs and makes things plentiful that otherwise might not be. In the end, it only negatively effects you if you were trying to make money off of said items. For people that don't play the AH game, it's predominantly win. The only downside I can see then is that it may be hard to find a node if you find yourself in need of one.

It also might be useful to know how much time and energy Blizzard (or any game company for that matter) spends combating bots. How much more content would we have if they did not exist in the first place? Would the game potentially be better off if they just ignored bots and concentrated on other things?

Or, if we'd like to get even more radical: What if Blizz just gave us all the ability to have our characters "forage" when we're not online?

Yeah, I'm asking what would happen if they made "botting" part of the game. What good, then, would third party bots be? Wouldn't this give them more control over the problem? And might this benefit everyone in the form of cheaper mats, etc? It's sort of like taking a page out of EVE's book and morphing it to WoW.

They could even still encourage and support "normal" gathering by limiting how afk-gathering works. Say you can only get volatiles from real gathers. Also, maybe our characters don't afk-gather from nodes, but from where ever in the nether they go when we're not giving them life. Thus, node competition could be negated. There could be some really clever ways to implement this that help people and still support an economy and what have you. I suppose the downside is that the more you limit it, the more bots would come back. It might be wasted effort as well.

At the same time, I've always wondered what my characters do in my absence. Why not be able to pad the bank or something? Maybe you could set choices where they "gamble" or "invest" or do other things besides gather, based on your personal needs and goals. Maybe they actively try to "hone their skills" so that you get a slow trickle of VP (if you're max level) or experience. It would have to been terribly slow compared to actually doing the activity, but it would provide another hook to keep paying, and maybe encourage people to take time off at the same time.

I don't know, maybe it's an awful idea. Maybe we should just keep doing what we're doing to limit bots. Like I said, I was just trying to think outside of the prejudice. What do you think?

QotD: Weekly Caps, Perfect?

There's a planned change in 4.1 that I feel is safe enough to talk about. It is the change to the daily dungeon rewards. Basically, instead of having a daily cap of one, they're changing to a weekly cap of seven. For a casual guild like mine, this is all the difference in the world. We don't always get five people online, but when we do, we like to run. And, being a fine tuned raiding machine (or at least attempting to be), we're getting to the point where we can actually knock these out quickly.

Obviously, our mileage varies based on the random draw, but assuming we get a few of the quicker ones, this change is most welcome. A big part of the casual raiding scene is maximizing the time you can spend. What we lack in time, we make up for in preparation and planning. If your casual, two hour a week guild is going to be successful in raids, that means you're going to have to do a lot of gearing on your own. We're not farming things. That's one of the raid steps that we cut out in order to be more efficient.

Thus, this change is great for us. Life tends to ebb and flow and so we can't always squeeze in a daily dip in the VP pool. With the simple change in mechanics from a daily cap to a weekly cap, we can now organize a second, "optional" day where the main goal is to spend a couple hours running 5-mans. Maybe we'll get in the occasional BH, but the point is to collect VP (and have a chance at epic drops in the new five mans). We're all pretty much JP'ed out, but the trickle of VP has been abysmally slow. We're only just learning the first few bosses, we don't farm, and we can't consistently do dailies. We'll probably still not hit the weekly limit, but our VP intake should see a definite uptick.

As things stand, I can't see a downside to this change. Is there one? How do you guys feel about it? Is it just me, or would you like to see more of this type of capping (as opposed to daily capping)?

At What Point Do You Give Up?

Here's a question for you PvPers. At what point, in your opinion, is it "okay" to say: F-it, there is no way we're going to win this BG, might as well fight in the middle? Is it ever okay to park your toon at a flag and turn your attention to the television program that had been running in the background, essentially "waiting it out" until the pain ends? When do you throw in the towel?

Obviously, this is going to vary from BG to BG, but an easy one to look at is probably WSG. For me, there is a point where we get down by two flags and the opposition is quite clearly toying with us, that I alter my strategy. Where before I had been trying to actually play the BG, now I retreat to the area of highest Allied concentration in order to score a few HK's. If that doesn't work, if we're still getting our butts kicked, I'll play a little game of keep-away.

You see, normally when you're getting thoroughly trounced (and we've all been there), four rogues, a DK, and a really badass healer will camp your graveyard. Maybe they'll throw in a Mage for flavor, just constantly AoE'ing your spawn point. Good times.

In that case, I'll figure out a way to rez away from the GY, perhaps by a body run, and then play hide and seek. At that point, the game becomes denying these farming bastards of as many HK's as possible. I find that I derive intrinsic amounts out of such a cat and mouse game.

I guess I should point out that I rarely, if ever, desert. It's not that the buff bothers me, it's just that I feel it's the cowards way out or something. I mean, I know sometimes it's not even worth the measly honor you gain by sticking it out through a loss. It's the principle of the thing.

Generally, the breaking point for me is when you've been beaten down to a point that it is extremely unlikely you'll stage a comeback. And, in any case, the rest of the group has already degenerated to such strategy "fighting in the middle" and "blaming others" and "de-identifying with their faction while advocating re-rolls." I guess I find I'm generally one of the last ones to throw in the towel. Usually this means I've tried to get to the objective on my own, and utterly failed. Probably because the opposing team just happens to be really good, or at the very least, operating cohesively. Or in the case of most of my Alliance trouncings: they had several healers and we have none.

What is your breaking point? What do you do to pass the time and get to that next BG? Is it ever acceptable to desert?

Pebble Approves!

Hey Gang!

So, back to live action! Our vacation was a great chance to unplug from all things interwebs. Which is really odd for Ful & I because we have smart phones, our jobs require us to be on the computer constantly, and we play an addictive MMO. Telling me that I can't do much more than play Plants verse Zombies for an entire week was pretty brutal. I mean, it's hard to pwn newbs when you're in the pool catchin some rays.

Anyways....

So, last night I got a chance to flex my tanking muscles in our weekly guild Heroic run. We were lucky and drew The Lost City of Tol'Vir. Which, by the way, if those stupid cat people can find it, how the hell did we lose it?! Harrison Jones must have been drunk: "Now where did I put that damn City....hic!"

So, we sauntered in, marked up the kitties, threw in the cat nip... wait... I mean the Frost Trap, and ripped it up. This place was rock solid. We downed the bosses with little issue. There was still a challenge but it wasn't eye bleeding pain. We zoned in and zoned out within an hour. It was a blast! Our clothies & hunter got a few upgrades, we all got a decent chunk of Guild XP/Rep, Faction Rep, Justice & Valor Points, and a Chaos Orb for our time spent. All and all, it felt like we had accomplished something. Something that we could have felt in Wrath long before now. Hell, by now, we would have ROFLStomped everything that Blizzard offered us and then we would all quit because we were bored out of our minds, sitting in Stormwind on our Welfare Epics on the biggest mount in the game blocking the Sun.

Cough*

Excuse me....

So, last night was the first night that I actually felt like we had mastered that Heroic. It felt really good and I believe that we've been able to hurdle the gearing issues that a few of our guildies have run into. As of right now, we have (from what I remember) four more Heroic Achievements to get for our guild. That would mean that we've, atleast, seen all of the new mechanics and all of the bosses once.

I've come to the realization: Our Small Guild could not have achieved this feat of strength individually. It was only achieved with the help of everyone collaborating and pooling there resources to assist everyone to get over the "Gear Wall". This was only possible with:

-Multiple Tailors using their cooldowns
-All unneeded Greens & blues disenchanted and donated back into the guild
-Buying Gem cuts for the masses & keeping the guild bank stockpiled
-Alchemists converting Volitle Lifes into needed Airs & Fires & making Flasks
-Blacksmiths making belt buckles that are still extremely expensive
-An ocean of Fishers catching and stuffing buckets of mats for our cooks
-A metric ton of chefs cooking up a storm for everyone's food buffs
-An extensive & organized Guild Bank full of useful mats for every walk of life (Leveling, Professions, Raiding, etc.)
-An entire guild full of people who are ready & willing to run anything with you (Dailies, heroics, regulars, Achievements, etc.)
-Alts that have turned into mules for professions that we're using for Guild Mains (Poor Abigora only sees the Jewelcrafter Daily & the occasional Mt. Hyjal to pwn some elementals)

I could sit here & swoon all day about my guild and how incredibly awesome they all are but I wont because, well, that's annoying. <3

TL;DR The New Changes to Guild Stuff is Awesome!

Pebble Approves!

yeah, I'll bet you were trying to figure out where the title came from.... whelp, there you have it.

Question for you dear reader: Has your guild changed & evolved with the introduction of the Guild Achievements? Has it proven to be a good or a bad thing?

<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar

My Most Hated Heroic Bosses

I was woken up by an earthquake this morning. I mentioned this because I live in central Indiana. We don't do earthquakes... until recently. My very first quake experience was two years ago with a 5.2 quake that was the strongest here in 40 years. Point being, we're pretty much quake newbs over here. We're like a shaman virgin, quaked for the very first time.

Okay, that was awful.  Don't lie, you groaned.

Maybe because quakes are so uncommon for us, there is phenomenon that happens whereby we take to the social media outlets, cell phones, and the like, calling everyone we know with the same damned question: "Did you feel that?"  I wonder if this is the same out on the West Coast.  Do you guys all call each other up and have a mini squee-fest?  Or are you more chill?  If I called you would you be like: "Yeah, it was a damn quake.  We all felt it.  That's sort of how these things work.  We don't live in Cloud City."  And then Lando would pop out, calling me a pirate and telling me how great it is to see me. 

Another groaner.  Get over it.  I was woken up by a frigging earthquake.  I'm a bit rattled.  (/groan)

In any case, I feel that this relates extremely loosely to WoW, in that we sort of react this way to the new heroics.  We're all calling each other up right now, saying: "Hey, did you see the tornado boss?  Yeah, that guy sucks.  And those snakes in Halls of Origination!  Why did it have to be snakes?"  To which I reply, "I don't know, Harrison, but I felt it too... in my repair bill!"

Okay, so that's a ludicrously loose lead-in.  I warned you this time.  Remember, I'm still a bit shaken.

So, today I wanted to start a "most hated" list for bosses in the new heroics.  We can call each other up, squee, swap survival strats (hide under a sturdy table!), and then get on with life.  After all, these will become trivial in like two or three months, right?  I mean, I've had two quakes in two years and I'm already starting to get used to them.  Fuu and I looked at each other in bed and said, "WTF was that?"  Then I replied, "Probably and earthquake," and rolled over.  I would not have given that answer two years ago.   In Indiana, that'd almost be like saying, "Probably an alien spaceship hijacked by terrorists and triggering an avalanche down the mountain.  The TSA hasn't gotten to inter-stellar flights yet."  And we'll be doing heroics far more often than once every two years.  Thus, they'll be old news in like... a month?  (Personally, I sort of hope they stay challenging for longer...)

Here's my two Most Hated:

1. Altairus in Vortex Pinnacle - Despite wanting to call him Altair (like form Assassin's Creed), this guy is no stealthy assassin.  He's just a straight-up killer.  With all his crazy tornadoes and shifting winds.  Ugh, what a fight.  Definitely my number 1 most hated.  It doesn't even matter that I can pull down a ridiculous 12-15k DPS by standing in the right wind location: we can't live through the fight.  I must admit, so far I've been successful in not getting knocked off the platform, but I can't say the same for my poor guildies.  Usually, it looks like an LSC (our guild) confetti storm about halfway through the fight.  We're getting better though.  Just... any tricks for this one?  Or do you just have to not fail?  Yeah, I've got nothing here.
2. Temple Guardian Anhuur in Halls of Origination - Or Snakes and Levers as my wife affectionately calls it.  Seemed easy to pop down and trip the levers on regular.  On heroic? Not so much.  10 seconds of lever pulling.  WTF is wrong with these levers?  We need to bring along some Lube of the Whale or something for fel's sake.  And those damned snakes hurt.  I actually have two suggestions for this though.  We started off where I jumped down, grabbed all the snakes, ported and ran like hell.  Problem was, the lever puller kept getting killed in between lever phases.  I think our healer was constantly playing catch-up due to splitting. So we took the whole group down, tank gathered the snakes, we nuked them, and then two of us stayed behind for lever duty while the rest busted ass up.  Worked well and we got by this guy.  Still, it was a pain.  

Those are my two most hated bosses right now.  What are yours?  We've been doing these and a guild and are all only slightly above the heroic "gear line", so I imagine this is as hard as it gets.  As we gear up, I'm sure we'll find these infinitely easier, but for now they're quite the challenge.  We also seem to get these same instances when trying to random.  Go figure.  I want to go back and visit Squidward in Throne of Tides. 

Do You Feel That?

The Morning After Pill

Well, we binged yesterday. I find it's good to indulge in a true binge every now and then.  Generally, we're quite responsible about our gaming hobby.  We keep it to a few hours a night, depending on other obligations.  We still go out in the world and interact.  We know our neighbors, we're involved in our community, etc etc snore snore.

Yesterday I ate at least two dozen Pixie Stix, downed a good sixer of caffeinated beverage, ate pizza at the keyboard, and played from just about 8AM till 11PM.  We took an hour break for a shower and a quick trip to a nearby brewery for grub and beer, then came right back to it.  The result is that I now have a level 13 Worgen Druid (balance) and my 'lock is halfway to 82.  The DK, sadly, has been untouched as of yet.  PvP will just have to wait.

Personally, I think binging is good to do every once in a while.  It sort of get's it out of your system.  I feel a lot less antsy today at work (though admittedly still pretty antsy) than I otherwise would have felt had I not put in a marathon day yesterday.  Also, I'm a firm believing in experiences that you can talk about later.  Who doesn't love "back in the day" stories... even if you're supposed to "know better".

Anyways, I wanted to relate my reflections from the morning after the one day stand.  I'll keep the thoughts brief, because work apparently collapses if I'm not here for a day (aka, I'm swamped).  Here we go:

• Spawn rates are ridiculously high.  Sometimes, it can be frustrating as you can't get the mobs to leave you alone.  It's great when you're in a highly populated area though.  I assume they'll crank it down eventually, so if you want to avoid frustratingly high spawn rates, give it a couple weeks.
• Lothar went through the transformation completely stable as a server.  We've had no queues and no crashes as far as I'm aware.  Really, just about all you could ask for in a launch.  Flawless.  Never seen anything like it.  Maybe a bit of lag here and there, but totally playable.
• Starting zones are crowded, as expected, but the extensive use of phasing really hides it from you.  Sure I see a bunch of people, but it's only really the people that are within 10 minutes of the same place I'm at in the storyline (especially Worgen-wise).  I love what they've done here.  Sure, there are some natural chokepoints, but for the most part it feels populated without being overwhelming.
• My first Warlock point was spent in Bane.  I'm filling that up first.  I already had Shadow and Flame filled.  Then I'm getting the Improved Soul Fire talent.  Haven't looked to see when I get my new spells, probably should do that.
• I'm levelling as Affliction for now.  With Fuu and I working together, stuff still seems to die pretty fast.  I may switch to Demo eventually, but I want to get more comfortable in the new-ish rotation.  I'm also trying to weave Soul Fires in as if it provided a haste buff, just to try and get used to what will be.
• We started in Vash'jir.  Beautiful.  Well designed.  Tons of fun.  I love the 3D environment too. 
• Sadly, I've already gotten greens to replace a lot of my raid gear.  I've broken up my 4 piece bonus and don't even have it enchanted yet.  Apparently higher end raid gear doesn't last very long.  I'm way under hit cap, which is cool because I'm 81 now, so we can still raid old stuff and I don't have to worry about misses.  Plus, you shouldn't be facing anything more than 2 levels above you if you're instancing either.  Keep an eye on your hit value, but you should only need to cover two levels which isn't really all that much.
• I feel like I'm missing something with enchanting.  I got a few new patterns and the mats are stacking up in my bags, but I can't enchant anything with new mats that is under ilevel 300.  The drops are only 275 right now.  So I basically can't level it unless I use old mats, which I'm getting none of.  Seems kinda dumb to me, but eventually I suppose I'll be fine.  And there's always vellums.
• Fighting over Herb nodes is ridiculous! When you first catch a glance of a yellow dot on your screen you better drop what ever you're doing and gather it or you'll be out of luck. Funny story: (This is Fuu btw) I saw a node so I swam to it. Well with our "lovely" High Spawn rates, I had two Naga chomping at me when I finally arrived. Normally, if there is just one, I can Hammer of Justice it, Gather, then continue to kill the mob. With two, you don't have that luxury. I knocked one of them out and attempted to gather. The other took a potshot at me before I finished gathering. To my dismay, a druid watched this entire thing waited until I got interrupted and then sneaked in and picked it before I could do anything about it. TL;DR Don't meander over to a node thinking that 5 others aren't frantically fighting over it already ;-)

That's all for now.  Gotta run.  You guys got any informative or entertaining reflections?

QOTD: I Need 5k, No Donations Accepted

That title sort of rhymes if you say it out. Unintentional, I assure you.  I'm going to keep today's post short and spec-free, as I work to update my guides and try to get some time with my DK so I can talk somewhat competently about that.  I have a rather simple question, but I will need to tack on some modifiers after I ask it.

The question:
What is the best way for me to get to 5k gold?

I want to purchase the 310% riding and need about 3k to get there.  Now, I've never been a money maker.  Crafting, Auction Housing, and Farming is not my thing.  I've always simply made my money through questing.  I'm pretty frugal, choosing to gather whatever I need for upgrades and then coercing guildies to help me out.  It's a big help that my wife enjoys the whole profession scene, so she's got just about everything I don't have.  Personally, I have max level Tailoring, Enchanting, Mining, and Engineering across two toons. 

However, like I said, I'm not a farmer.  Nor am I a crafter.  Nor am I an AH playa.  I would much rather kill 15 Icecrown mobs than farm 5 pieces of ore.  Currently, I just hop on every day and do the ICC dailies.  It nets me a little over 100 gold, plus crusader tokens, and I'm not unhappy with it. I mean, it only takes me about a half hour to make 100 gold.

So why ask?  Well, generally I shoot to play for about an hour each night.  Some nights are more, some not at all, but when I play it's usually at least an hour.  I think that's the ideal amount of time to just be able to knock out something simple and unwind.  If doing the ICC dailies takes me only a half hour, what do I do for that other half hour?  Thus, my question.  I'd like to make 200 a night or more, averaging about 100 every half hour.  Is there a better way for me to do this? 

I want the money to be pretty steady too.  Recently, Fuu took me on a farming trip into Zul'drak, which could be pretty lucrative if you want to sell the coins from there.  We pooled out loot and she put it up on the AH.  Then the bottom dropped out of the price over the weekend, so most of them still haven't sold.  She's keeping on it, but even if they sell for a couple hundred, the aggregate time involved in both farming and selling these has begun to add up.  Plus, if she weren't doing it, I would hate every moment of it.  I'm just not a big fan of trying to do rudimentary market analysis in a video game, even with addons.  I'm not saying it's awful, it's just not my thing.

So I guess what I'm asking is:
What are some fun ways of making money?  Have you found a lucrative quest hub apart from the ICC dailies?  How are you planning to get to 5k (if you don't have a 310% mount already)?

Americanized Entitlement

Entitlement is a term we hear thrown around a lot these days.  It's such a bad word isn't it?  Entitlement.  Like Newb.  Or Casual.  Or Elitist.  Or Moron and Slacker.  Or Huntard.   Or Mage.  They're all of the same ilk, aren't they?  It's all about labeling, negatively, other players.  It's about how the attitudes of others are obviously disillusioned or wrong.

We hear all the time about how this overblown sense of entitlement is ruining the game.  About how Blizzard has cultivated a crop of gamers in Wrath who feel entitled to things.  Every time I read it, I can help but think we're misusing the term a bit.  It has such a pejorative cast to it right now, that calling someone "entitled" is like calling someone an asshat.

Yet, entitlement is what America was founded on.  Americans, after all, are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It's right there, written on aged, yellowy paper.  I can't speak for the other countries that make up the WoW-iverse, but I would assume they have similar statements of entitlement somewhere in their government documentation.  Entitlement is essentially synonymous with "rights", though usually a bit more personal and perceived rather than a global truth.  In that regard, we have a whole Bill of Entitlements.  Right or wrong, that's how the government I'm most familiar with (and live in) started: with a sense of entitlement.

Now, I'm not saying entitlement can't be overblown.  In fact, an exaggerated sense of entitlement is one of the key characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Entitlement, when taken to extremes, can certainly be bad. However, I can't help but want to ameliorate the term.  There can be such a thing as a healthy sense of entitlement.

So I ask you, dear reader, to think about the things in WoW that it is appropriate to feel entitled to.  If we were to make a Declaration of Co-dependence to send to Blizzard, what would our inalienable rights be?  If we were writing an Azerothian Bill of Rights, what would be contained within?  Or, if you're more comfortable in a Constitutional Monarchy: if you were writing An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown, what might be writ therein?  Or, if you're living in Soviet Russia: what would Bill of Rights write about you?  (I'm being facetious, of course.  Current-day Russia is no longer a Soviet Union, it is a Semi-presidential Republic.)

Here, I'll get the party started first:

We, the denizens of Azeroth, in order to form a less arbitrarily insulting society do ordain and establish these points of entitlement:

1. We shall be provided with a playable game, without having to put up with an unreasonable amount of downtime.  We get Tuesday maintenance, but if your shit crashes on a Saturday night... it's on.
2. Taxation by subscription only.  If you start nickle and diming us for content, there will be hell to pay.  Sparkly ponies are, apparently, okay.  Be careful though, we wouldn't want to have to go all Tea Party on your ass.  Alternatively, we're not completely opposed to other business models, it would just be tough to switch horses in midstream, if you will.  We could always pull a Prohibition on this one if you come up with something wickedly cool that we've never even heard of.  Then we could go back when it doesn't work.
3. There shall be varied raids.  Facelifts on old raids are okay so long as they play well at the current maximum level.  Complete reuse is only permissible in the case of Onyxia, because she was an awful awful bitch.  And maybe Ragnaros, you can do him too.  I like his yelling.
4. There shall be levels, and we shall be able to gain them.  Leveling is important too, mmkay?
5. PvP is optional, but you already got our hopes up, so you'd better make it good.
6. Trees and abilities shall be roughly balanced.  One class shall not be exorbitantly greater in prowess than another by design.  We shall term this being "OP" and it shall be unacceptable.  We reserve the right to complain, loudly, when we perceive imbalance, however we acknowledge that we may not be right, and/or it was not done intentionally.  In that case, it shall be fixed... pronto.
7. The environment shall be poly-climatic.  We want to be able to explore and see different things.  Don't George Lucas us and give us entire planets of only one ecosystem.  Though, if you give us multiple planets, we may not complain in that case either.  Just mix it up, ffs.
8. Communication shall be enabled and convenient. This could fall under article 1, since communication is key for an MMO, but we made another one just to be sure you "got it".  In addition, we shall have the right to "block" certain unsavory characters from "spamming" our chat fields.  You should probably ban those gold sellers too.  They're bad juju.
9. There shall be some degree of challenge to the game.  If a one celled organic player, we'll call him Parameciumlol, can clear all the content, then you haven't lived up to your charter.  Similar to the "OP" clause, we reserve the right to submit varied opinions as to the current and future potential levels of "challenge".  We will probably submit them in the form of vitriol and ragequitting, but we might surprise you and be loquacious too.  In either case, you need only make sure there is something challenging in the game to satisfy this article.  
10. Our personal information shall not be shared with "creepy" collectives or individuals.  Creepy shall be defined on a person by person basis as "anyone who we strongly do not wish to have show up at our front f-in door or send crap in mail, both electronic and snail."   Investigative committees may be formed to help define key terms "personal" and "information" and "shared" and "be", but just be careful because this one is impeachment worthy for a lot of folks.  

What's on your list?

QotD: DPS... wtf is wrong with you?

Hey Gang!

Since there is almost nothing else to do in the game, many people are going back and finishing up a few things while they have the time.

Since Fuubaar is my "Achievement Whore", she's been going back and grinding reputation with a few random factions and FINALLY finished up the Argent Tournament Cities last night. THANK THE LORD! The only other reason to return now is for grinding out the Champion Seals for rewards. I would like to pick up the Squire Pony so that I'm able to access by bank or what ever he allows me to do. I think that this might be helpful for the 80-85 leveling grind coming here shortly. Also, with the interesting news that has just hit the fan "aka MMO-Champion.com" regarding the Portal Replacement Operation: Make Travel Inconvenient, I might have to go ahead & get the Travel Tabard as well that teleports you to the Argent Tournament grounds. It's either that or pay a mage every time I want to go to Dalaran, or buy that rediculous Teleport Ring. Come to think of it though, how often did I go back to Shatt after Wrath came out? Not all that often. I did hear that they are keeping the portal to the Tenaris instances though so, that might actually come in handy if you need to get down there quickly. We shall see I guess :-/

Many people are also trying to get their mid to high level alts to level cap for what ever reason. I have been slowly working on my level 70 Hunter because might as well have 3 level 80s when Cata hits. I've been leveling her professions while queuing up for random dungeons.

Now, queuing up as DPS is always slow. I've finally witnessed this first hand. That specific topic has been hit on many times and I'm not intending to discuss it in great detail. What I did find interesting though was that there was no jump in queue times from lower levels to Northrend LFG. It all seemed roughly 30-45 minutes each time as DPS. If I'm on a toon that can help not queue up as DPS, I'll do it in a heartbeat. My Priest will queue up as a healer even though I rarely ever PvE on her so she wears her PvP DPS gear to heal in. Fuu obviously only queues up as Tank. Yes, I'm quite spoiled with wait times on healers & Tanks.

So, here's what I'm curious about. If DPS have to wait for 30+ minutes to get into a dungeon, why do tanks only see them as drooling idiots that wipe groups because of their impatience or randomly drop group because it's taking more than 10 minutes? WHY?! I just don't get it!

Here's my story from last night:

My hunter was running around mining waiting for a queue and 28 minutes later, it pops, so I accept. It's Utgard Keep and everyone seems ready to go. I throw my hunters mark on one of the targets, we kill the two mobs at the front door & one of the DPS drops. A few seconds later, the tank drops. It's just me, the healer & the lonely warlock left behind completely confused and unsatisfied. We wait next to the front door for probably 10 minutes with nothing. Finally, the other two drop group & I leave. It was by far the most depressing thing I've ever seen. I just wasted 45 minutes for two mobs worth of XP.



This is how my hunter felt when everyone left ...


You would think that having to wait that long, DPS would beg the tanks & healers for forgiveness & grovel at their feet to stay around for another dungeon or two. I would never dream of acting up in a Dungeon as a DPS for fear I'll be kicked out and have to sit in the queue again for 30 more minutes. I just don't understand it...

Perhaps you could help me out?

Question: Why do DPS act up in Dungeons when they must wait so long to get in in the first place?

Bonus Question: Do you believe that this is what makes DPS bitter towards Healers & Tanks because they don't have to wait as long?

Just curious...

<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar