Northrend or Bust

I won't chat much today as I'm eager to get out of my work responsibilities so I can go join the rest of y'all in Northrend. Here are some blue posts that may be off interest to you though, courtesy of The Warlock's Den:

To ensure a smooth transition to Wrath of the Lich King, we recommend that players who have newly upgraded their accounts, log into the game and log out completely for a short period of time in order for their account to fully update.

And this:

As many players have noticed, there have been service issues which resulted in additional downtime over the last two days, and we would like to provide an update as to what the issues were as well as what we are doing to address them. During yesterday’s maintenance, an issue occurred which resulted in mail not displaying properly in players’ mailboxes. We have now identified the cause of this issue and are currently working on resolving it. Players should begin to receive the impacted mail over the next several days. Our customer service team will be unable to expedite the resolution for this issue. We appreciate your patience as the automatic fix is implemented.

In addition, an issue occurred last night where certain Arena and Honor items were displaying their costs incorrectly. The costs of the affected items have been corrected. Our in-game support department is currently working to resolve any problems that came with this issue, and we would like to ask that you please remain patient during this process.

We understand the frustrations and difficulties that you may have experienced surrounding the recent issues and extended maintenance. As such, we will be providing 1-day game time compensation for the recent events within the next two weeks. Please check the Account Management page after the two-week period to verify the game time has been successfully added to the account. As always, thank you for your patience regarding the recent issues, and we look forward to seeing you in Northrend!

Additionally, if you're taking a reading break from your levelling madness, here are a couple amusing posts.

The first can be found on MMO Champion and proves that Blizzard employees aren't all business.

The second is over at the Crave, and is some good photographic coverage of a midnight opening. Since I wasn't there in spirit, this post cheered me up a bit. Also, this post gives some good "box shots".

Additionally, if you're reading this anytime in the next two days, chances are you're stuck at work like me and unable to enjoy the awesomeness that awaits. I FEEL YOUR PAIN. :-)

Wrath's Eve

Okay, so its not quite as exciting as Christmas Eve, but I am getting something really cool tomorrow. It's not really a surprise, as Fuubaar gave me the box she pre-ordered for me. It's still exciting though.

I'm disappointed we won't be attending a midnight release shindig, but we have responsibilities and couldn't get work off tomorrow. Plus, Fuubaar pre-ordered at a store that will be closed at midnight. That's part of it too. I love her anyways.

/forgive

So it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to show up at a midnight release and wait... for nothing. Plus, its probably for the best anyways. If I went out tonight in the cold and was convinced to purchase a copy despite the pre-order, not only would I be wasting perfectly good money, but I would be at a high risk of developing an illness overnight.

/fakecough

No,no. I will do the responisible and honorable thing. I am a member of the Alliance after all. I mean, if I were a member of the HORDE it'd be different. That, or if I had any vacation days left. *shrug* I used them well so I can't complain.

So, all you crazy midnighters live it up and tip one back for me (if you're tipping things, Tauren maybe?). I will be the loser getting some last minute gold from dailies tonight (if the servers are fixed). And then I will hurry through a boring day at work to pick up my copy and join y'all.

I'll have to remember to pick up some adult beverage for what I'm sure is going to be a long night of "catch up" :-).


Oh, and if you're curious what spec I'm going to be using, I already posted about that here. One change to be noted, however, I will be removing my one point in Improved Healthstone (previously entered to enable multiple stones in a raid, but that has been patched out). I will probably use this point to fill up Nightfall, as I'm really enjoying my shadow bolt machine gun tactic on trash mobs.

See you in Northrend!

Vampiric Warlockery

So my little sister turned me on to a little group of books called the Twilight Saga. You may have heard of them. There is even a movie coming out soon.

First, aside, a little known fact about me: I love Vampires. I just have always loved the stories, myths, lore, everything. There are so many good vampire tales out there. From TV series (yes, I was a Buffy AND Angel fan!), to movies (who wasn't sort of in love with Kate Beckinsale in Underworld?!), to classic books (Dracula anyone?). Maybe its just me.



So I got turned on to this series in which Vampires play an essential role. Needless to say, I love the books. Very engaging, well written, fun reads. I'm a decently fast reader, but I started the first book yesterday and will probably finish it tonight; I can't put it down. Then again, being a bibliophile, I'm that way with most books. Who needs crack, right?

In any case, as I was doing my daily dailies last night, I got to thinking: I wonder if there is a link between my love for Vampires and my choosing a Warlock. I mean, if you're going to pick one class in WoW that is most like a Vampire, wouldn't it be warlocks. Even more specifically, wouldn't it be affliction warlocks with our "damage you, heal me" mentality?

I think one of the things that has always drawn me to Vampires is the moral ambiguity presented in a lot of novels. Vampires are not always pure evil. Sure, they have a strong disposition for evil, but the best Vampire stories seem to involve a misunderstood Vampire who is inherently good and must fight the evil temptation; the internal struggle of being exceedingly powerful yet compassionate; Good vs Evil personified.

Could not the same be said about Warlocks? We are most certainly morally ambiguous. I mean... I love dotting squirrels and watching my puppy eat them. That's evil. However, I'm also not down with letting the Horde pick on lowbies or the scourge infecting all the NPCs (yes, I fought the zombies). Also, I fight alongside a freaking Paladin!

I also love my little vampiric batling I got from the recent holiday Kara boss.

There really isn't a point to this other than I thought it was an interesting parallel and those are good books. Read 'em if you're looking for something, or check out the movie when you get burned out from a weekend of levelling. I believe it comes out in 9 days, so like next Thursday. We'll all be 80 by then... right? Right?! *sigh*

Why did you pick the class you did? Crazy insatiable thirst for blood? It "just looked cool"? BRRAAAINS? Wait, we found the cure for that last one. Sorry, forgot.

Take It To The Bank

Chances are you've heard about this expansion coming out on Thursday. I know, I know, "Crazy!" right? I think we've all read up and done a heck of a lot to try and prepare ourselves for the "new world" coming our way.

One thing we often overlook: banks. From what I understand, it seems that people either take one of two approaches:

1. Throw it all away! All this will be WORTHLESS, lets get rid of it.
2. HORDE HORDE HORDE... or is it hoard? Either way, I want it ALL!

You may fall somewhere in the middle, but you get the point. This is all well and good, but for most of us we're still overlooking a very useful part of the game... Guild Banks.

What do we do with these monsters? Spring.... er Fall cleaning?

If your guild bank is like ours, it probably is home to dozens of worthless items. That is to say, items that someone at sometime just wanted to get out of their bank, but didn't really want to throw it away for various reasons. Maybe it was tough for them to acquire, maybe it isn't worth anything to AH, or, my personal favorite "the vendor does not want this item".

If only I could display that message in our Guild Bank.

So I ask the masses, what do you look for in a guild bank? With the impending doom of an expansion, now is the ideal time to freshen up things and try to make our banks more useful. Do you throw away stuff to make room for the new items that are sure to come? What is worth keeping? What do you find useful about a guild bank? Are you organized or a pack rat? Do you want that to change?

The way our Guild Bank is set up is with four tabs. The first two are for general purpose goods and gear. Everyone has access to these and can take out a stack a day. Right now, we have a lot of "leveling" gear that does not seem to be used ever. We also have things like "essences of water", which used to be valuable, but I don't know ever were used in recipes later on. We have various levels of pots and common glyphs and gems. In short, a lot of crap that may or may not prove useful.

The other two tabs contain crafting materials for the most part. These are used by officers to stock up the first two tabs with useful items and to supply our raids. We have TONS of shards since no one is really "gearing up" right now. Most of our recent raiding has just been for fun and the occasional badge. On one hand, it is nice to just experience content. On the other, its rough seeing so much gear sharded. We also have a good variety of herbs for pots, but most of the commonly used ones are not stocked. People have grown lax on the farming with the certain change looming on the horizon. That's fine, but makes me question the usefulness of the items that aren't "sold out".

I'm of the mind to just convert a lot of things to straight cash and put that in the bank. I mean gold is gold, we can always buy things we find are useful/needed. Also, I think we're going to need room when everyone starts the leveling process again for items that can really help. Plus, who wants to wade through a bunch of crap for that one nugget of usefulness?

There are a couple problems with maintaining a Guild Bank though.

First, it is a communal space. That means everyone has some opinion/say on what to keep and what to toss. What I may value as a Warlock is a lot different from say... a crazy Paladin named Fuubaar. There are also those that just *can't* throw anything away. Face it, most of us in this game are pack rats. Some more than others. Thus, how do we approach getting rid of stuff without causing people fits of OCD-inspired panic?

Second, we don't really *know* what is going to be useful. We all have our guesses, but until we all have played in the new world for a while, we won't really know where the "important items" are. Some items that we think are going to be hard to find, will end up being easy. Other items it will seem just the opposite.

These issues make it difficult to answer the question "How can I make my bank more useful." Even if you're only dealing with your personal bank, the second problem exists. So I guess what I want to know is: What's in your wallet? Or bank...

Such a Good Dog

Blizz recently posted this on their forums:

We recently changed the way defensive stance works for pets. In the old design, the pet would not attack a target that you were attacking until it did something to generate threat - typically attacking you. In the new design, as soon as you attack a target, the pet will attack the target too. Our thinking was that this made defensive a little easier to use and you still have passive to override that behavior.

However, we have heard from some players (hunters mostly, though this isn't just a hunter issue) that they prefer the old defensive stance. We wanted to get a little more feedback from players on the issue.

Personally, I have enjoyed the new design, as I have been able to not worry about adding or deleting a "/petattack" line in my macros. I primarily use my Felhunter, and in raids he seems to be pretty smart. He doesn't die a whole lot on AoE attacks and such, and if its a problem I just have him sit next to me like a good boy. What do you think? Better let blizz know if us Warlocks want to keep it this way... those pesky hunters...

As The Guild Turns

I have posted before about some of my views on guild drama and the challenges of being an officer. A recent post over at Mystic Chicanery inspired me to relate my own recent story.

First of all, GJ to Nibuca over there for sticking to her guns. That can be a lot more difficult than it seems sometimes. On one hand, you hate to lose people or be the cause of drama. On the other hand, rules are rules. You made them for a reason. You have to enforce them. People are not always going to agree with this. The bottom line is that Guilds are NOT democracies. We're spoiled into thinking we always have a "vote". The truth is, when it comes to WoW guilds, you just don't. Good officers and GMs will listen to their membership, try to be fair, and try to make everyone happy. However, they don't have to.

As officers, we are appointed, not elected. Usually by the GM. This means we absolutely do NOT have to cater to whiners and asshats. They don't get a vote! However, it also challenges us to separate those who truly care from those who truly wear a rear-end as a hat. Sometimes that is more difficult than it sounds.

Which brings me to my recent personal story.

To set the stage, member 1 shall be related to members 2 and 3. Until very recently, all members had been pretty decent. Member 1 had shown some good leadership qualities and really helped pull raids and events together. In short, member 1 had shown caring for the guild. Members 2 and 3 played nice for the most part and attended events. They weren't going to pull stuff together for us, but they would do their job. A guild needs those people too, and so all was well.

I have recently developed a saying that I believe has truth to it: Want to see adults act like children? Just add politics.

This is not a judgement on either party or any side or whatever. There are just people that feel very so strongly about their politics that they lose rationality and composure in discussions, and feel the need to degrade whomever does not agree with them. The concept of a "difference of opinion" does not exist here, that other person is obviously "ignorant and stupid".

(Aside: I find people often are called both ignorant and stupid, which makes me chuckle. In my experience, it is hard for one to be both ignorant AND stupid. Stupid implies you know better, but choose not to acquiesce to rational thought. Ignorance implies a general lack of knowledge. Thus, it would seem to be one or the other... not both. Also, if you don't like where this article is heading, stop now, I would hate to upset you, and check out these shoes).

This sets the stage for what I'm sure was a common occurrence in the last few months: a political brawl. This one just happened to take place in guild chat. While we're on a raid. Lovely.

Member 2 was offended by a remark that was not in any way racist, but this member chose to let us know that we were ALL racist and promptly left the guild. I find this humorous on one hand because, well how can I be racist in this game? First of all, the majority of the membership was raiding at the time, and thus not participating in guild chat. To call EVERYONE racist is just unfair. Secondly, even if I've heard your voice on vent, I'm pretty sure I don't know what race you may be. I could guess, but I don't really know; I can't see you. I guess if I were complaining about how Night Elves's voted in the last election, I could understand.

Member 3 decided that they were going to "stand up" for their relative and put an ass on their head, sending a hateful message and immediately /gquitting. For the record, I really dislike this method of confrontation. If you're going to be an asshat, at least be an asshat to my face and let me respond to your asshatery. Spam and run is the WoW equivalent to calling someone a "doo doo head" and then going to hide in a closet. It just does not scream to me "I have a valid concern". I don't know what people who use this method expect to occur: "Oh well in that case, please can I change every rule to cater to you?"

See paragraph too about WoWocracies.

This brings us back to member 1. Member 1 is not caught between a rock and a hard place. I mean, we all know family members can do stupid stuff, but they're family. You can't just cut and run on family, at least not in my opinion. Thus member 1 was obligated to follow the family as they left. Member 1 did not agree with the family, but had to go anyways. Were it up to member 1, this person would remain friends with everyone and continue to help.

This presents a dilemma as an officer. On one had, I'm not gonna deal with asshattery. Members 2 and 3 saved us the trouble and removed themselves. Thankfully, the rest of my guild didn't take the bait, and we just said "kthxbye". Don't let that door knock off your hat.

The challenge for officers then is to separate the feelings toward members 2 and 3, and see that member 1 still wants to be friends. This can be extremely tough on both ends. Thankfully, in our case, member 1 sent apologies to those involved and has really made an effort to remain friendly, despite the family members. Hopefully, this will allow us to not lose a good friend while getting rid of drama.

No one likes a nighttime soap opera while raiding.

The point of all this is just that things can often be a lot more complicated in the World... of Warcraft than we admit to. A lot of people spend a lot of time on here. We must all take care not to "throw the baby out with the bath water".

I posted before about the importance to not burning bridges and fostering friendships in our diverse community. Remember that just because someone runs with a group that chooses to wear a funny hat, they might not subscribe to the same sense of style. For officers, this is extremely important to separate the chaff from the wheat... the good from the bad. You may miss out on a good friendship because you looked only shallowly at a problem.

Clear heads and calm hands almost always prevail over knee jerk reactions and condemnations. Don't ever be too quick to judge, and hope that if you ever get caught in a messy situation, that you may be shown the same compassion.

More Dead Bosses

Because I like to keep things colorful around here, here are some more screenies of first time kills I've had recently (yes, we're flying through things with the nerf).

Fathom Lord Sent to the Deep

This is a rather difficult fight, but reminded me a lot of when you're first learning Moroes in Kara. There are a lot of adds with this guy, so a large portion of your success is going to be determined by how you set up fight. The pull and positioning is really key in this one. This can be the test of a good RL and add management.

Defeat Your Inner Demon

This is a very fun and different fight. Great for a warlock as you'll be looked to to tank (?!). I did not do that on this particular run, as I don't really have the stamina gear for it. You probably need about 15k health (raid buffed) and some fire resistance doesn't hurt. Giving each class a chance to solo DPS a mob is pretty cool too. Make sure you clear out the room first as this whirling dervish will spin all over the place.

Boss In The Bank?

Or just an epic glitch. I turned around from a vendor and... What do we have here? Bring it!

Yay X-Perl!

I also thought you might like to see my screen in a raid environment. I like X-perl for the ease of customization. As you can see, it keeps things decently clean.

Random Thoughts

I did some more raid testing on my sequence last night and found that I don't really like Immolate in the sequence. It didn't seem to affect my DPS all that much one way or the other, but made it more of a headache to keep up my rotation on bosses. I pretty much just substituted where I would hit some shadow blots earlier, and used it instead of UA on most trash, but Corruption and Shadow Bolts were still my top two spells at around 26% and 21% of my damage done. Immolate was a distant 6th on the one boss fight I used it (Lurker). With the rumblings that Blizz may remove Immolate from being useful in our sequence, I'm inclined to just do without it for now. At least until they settle their minds on what they want to do with it.