I admit, I have done against my better knowledge and against what I have ranted. I have found out that BG's can be pretty nice pass time. With a disc/holy priest, of all toons!
Two nights this week I have logged in to my priest, Pupunen, whom I plan to be holy specced till the end. Healer to the max. She's also my AH wizard, being the former mule, so to speak. (Which reminds me, I don't have one anymore...)
I have liked the healing earlier, and as a Shadow priest, she was a blast to level, too. Then came the 3.0.x and I decided to switch her to more healing.
Boy what a surprise: the levelling is just slightly slower, but the ability to take a level or two higher mobs down has remained! I think the mana efficiency is even better than with pure shadow spec at this point.
With the shadow specced Pupunen I was the super-squishy in the BG's, and that was the reason I decided to stay out of there. Granted, 10-19 bracket is not the easiest for a priest anyhow, and the hunters rule the 20-29 bracket in WSG anyhow. You can imagine my immense surprise when I entered 30-39 bracket with Pupunen, lv30, disc/holy, and found myself
a) in the game where Alliance won
b) Pupunen scored kills (!) with Holy Fire
c) Pupunen, being the lowest levelled Alliance, was actually in the middle of the roster!
Healing pays, it seems. Loads of HK's, loads of cheers and even a couple of remarks on the heals at difficult spots from warriors and pallies.
I think I liked it. /scared
That was the first evening. The game took about 30-40 minutes to complete and it was won by a slight margin (3-2), so it was tight and to my surprise both sides tried to win the game by capturing the flag!?
The next games yesterday were similar bliss: first AB, which was not so tight this time, but as rewarding as the earlier. I got a couple of disbelieving whispers about my toons level ("You might want to level first" was one...), but still scored to the middle of the roster. Then the WSG, which was a bliss even though we lost. That was pretty easy running for Horde, really, as they were this time pretty much overlevelling Alliance, our highest being 37, their... team was 39.
Just read Hudson's report on levelling a plate in Outlands today, and I'm thinking if I should respec my Tauren druid and make him resto... that would help to level in the instances and raids. What can I say, I like healing more than sneaking. Then again, I'm trying to launch my guild tonight, so that will eat my time pretty surely for the time being. It's not easy to have so much to do... on both sides of the Horde/Alliance faction split!
Anyhow, wish me luck. I'll keep posting about the proceedings.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Incoming: plans for a Guild
Ok.
I've had enough with the 'progression guilds' and 'alt garages'. I've read Sydera's excellent guild forming guide in the World of Matticus (thanks Sydera for this continuing series!), and I have made up my mind. Even though the guide is mainly focusing on raiding guild and it's requirements, I have seen that most of this applies to any kind of guild or internet community with common goal.
And I'm not flying high and fast not to understand that as a real person with real life I could cope with everything by myself.
The following is my view on things, which I will refine as soon as I get some input from my brothers about it. Naturally, they will be the rest of the Guild Council, making it in the beginning easy to handle things on the fly. I'm focusing on having this guild around so, that I'm not needed to run it anymore. Really, that should be attainable!
Please comment.
I've had enough with the 'progression guilds' and 'alt garages'. I've read Sydera's excellent guild forming guide in the World of Matticus (thanks Sydera for this continuing series!), and I have made up my mind. Even though the guide is mainly focusing on raiding guild and it's requirements, I have seen that most of this applies to any kind of guild or internet community with common goal.
And I'm not flying high and fast not to understand that as a real person with real life I could cope with everything by myself.
The following is my view on things, which I will refine as soon as I get some input from my brothers about it. Naturally, they will be the rest of the Guild Council, making it in the beginning easy to handle things on the fly. I'm focusing on having this guild around so, that I'm not needed to run it anymore. Really, that should be attainable!
Please comment.
Charter
Basics
The Order will focus on PvE, especially unlocking
the content that is widely neglected by the players who have been in the game
for longer. The aim is to provide a platform for players to proceed from
instance to instance at around the right level range and provide support to
achieve this. The Order is not an alt garage: we accept only one –two in special
cases like the council- character per player, which should be the main of that
player. We also are actively looking for people who are newcomers to the game to
help them advance and understand the game better.
PvE
The Order
is PvE based, though nothing prevents it’s members taking into the
Battlegrounds. In fact, PvP is encouraged especially as a group effort, because
there are nice rewards and achievements available in the PvP. But the main
emphasis of the arranged activities of the Guild is in PvE and especially in the
Dungeons and Instances. The Order will not boost players through instances
unless necessary due low attendance, but even then the toons in appropriate
level are more likely to be made to play to get through rather than guided
through by higher level toon killing everything. This doesn’t teach anything,
only shows the scenery.
Casual
We all have real lives. Real life
comes first, Guild second and the game is in the third place. Even though we
might not be able to play the game regularly, everyone is required to follow the
information in the Forums, and make it their habit to follow the forums and post
in there. It might be impossible to inform the Council or the officers about
issues in game, but the forum will be available to all, all around the clock.
The Order doesn’t require the members to have certain gear at
certain point. However, it would be wise to invest time to gathering information
about the best possible gear and consumables for the instance which one is
attending to: this is merely courtesy towards the others, because no-one wants
to have a wipe.
How ever, because we are all newcomers and playing
casually, there will be wipes. Be prepared to die, and to die a lot. The main
thing is to have fun, no matter what!
All Content for All
The
main focus of the Order is to unlock and open all content to all players in the
Order. This requires from the members certain devotion to know their character
class to be able to tackle the unexpected situations certain instance bosses
pose. No-one is required, however, to be able to raid and play any more than
their real life and will permits.
Due to the common courtesy that
one should make every precaution not to result a wipe by not preparing for an
encounter, it would be advisable for everyone to try to find information about
the class they are playing and about the instance and boss they are going to
face.
Learning and teaching
The Order isn’t a progress guild in
the sense that we will not boost and help people to get to the level cap as fast
as possible. Instead, we try to learn the game and teach each other the things
we learn. In a sense I would like to think the Order as a boot camp for
newcomers: we teach the basics to everyone, so they can continue to a raiding
guild if they want to.
Everyone is welcome to ask questions and
comment on others, but mature mind frame is expected: there shouldn’t be any
flaming, calling names or degrading others in the game nor in the
forums.
Maturity
Maturity isn’t dependant on age: it’s a state
of mind which some reach earlier than others, and then there are some who will
never be mature. This means that members of the Order should refrain from using
excessive foul language in the chat and in the forum. Be civilised and treat
others as you expect to be treated by others. Fair
enough.
Raiding
The Order isn’t a raiding guild. Sure, we have
to form raids teams to tackle the larger instances (10, 20, 25 and 40 men
instances), but our main interest is not in beating the bosses but learning to
play the class in a team of people. This will prepare us all for the real
raiding game at the level cap, level 80. Our aim is to be able to visit all
instances at around the appropriate level in the range of the
instance.
Loot is given by loot council if need be. In lower
dungeons the need-greed-looting is the norm, but if you need, you should make
sure that you use it right away: no transfers of gear to your alt.
This charter is subject to change whenever the founders, Guild
Council or the officers assembly see that there is something to be changed. The
founders have the final say.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Crash course
I started reading World of Matticus just a few weeks ago, and already I have gained a huge amount of information about priestly raiding and guilds from this site. Incredible how someone have the stamina and will to pour out all the information in such a beautifully concise format.
As I'm also following Matticus' Twitter, I have been very much following his thoughts about this and that and all I can say is that I like his way of thinking about the game and all, even though he has commented here in my blog that he wants to rip the content and raid it to the fullest. Which contradicts my view of playing the content and stories to the full.
When I wrote him a personal email (through their contact form at the site), I didn't expect the kind of response my mail got. Sydera, one of the three regulars writing in there, took my main question and wrote a full blog entry of it, answering the question very nicely. I would say that the post serves as a crash course to the newcomer on how to become raider fast. Even though my initial concern was about the lack of skill of the power levelling newcomer at the raid level, the post covered that very neatly.
However, the concept of passing the story and content in the void parts of the game (Old World and Outlands) left me cold. I'm having too much fun on my own and on my own pace, even though I'm severely missing the company and grouping for instances with a steady group. The guild I'm currently in is dying, and this has been going on for some time now. I think the Wrath killed most of the alt-garages because there is now something more important to do with the level capped toons.
There is no way to enter the Old World instances anymore, except very severely overgeared and overlevelled. No-one wants to take the effort to even visit the sites anymore and the same is happening to the content in Outlands. It's not about Blizzard neglecting the content, but the players putting more effort on the capping and level cap raiding. I'm actually putting more of the blame on the player base for trying to achieve the cap as if that was the main achievement of the game.
I'm seeing the Achievement system as a starter for activating the whole content. It would be nice to see the raid instances in one form or another, and the only way to activate the capped people to visit the 'old instances' is to generate incentives to do so. Achievements are one way. Variable difficulty and loot tables would be another.
Never the less, I'm following the pace I'm feeling comfortable and I hope to see new players who do the same. The World of Warcraft is such a huge and beautifull place to explore that it's such a shame to see it go to waste by power levelling through it all.
Stay tuned for more on the subject. ;P
As I'm also following Matticus' Twitter, I have been very much following his thoughts about this and that and all I can say is that I like his way of thinking about the game and all, even though he has commented here in my blog that he wants to rip the content and raid it to the fullest. Which contradicts my view of playing the content and stories to the full.
When I wrote him a personal email (through their contact form at the site), I didn't expect the kind of response my mail got. Sydera, one of the three regulars writing in there, took my main question and wrote a full blog entry of it, answering the question very nicely. I would say that the post serves as a crash course to the newcomer on how to become raider fast. Even though my initial concern was about the lack of skill of the power levelling newcomer at the raid level, the post covered that very neatly.
However, the concept of passing the story and content in the void parts of the game (Old World and Outlands) left me cold. I'm having too much fun on my own and on my own pace, even though I'm severely missing the company and grouping for instances with a steady group. The guild I'm currently in is dying, and this has been going on for some time now. I think the Wrath killed most of the alt-garages because there is now something more important to do with the level capped toons.
There is no way to enter the Old World instances anymore, except very severely overgeared and overlevelled. No-one wants to take the effort to even visit the sites anymore and the same is happening to the content in Outlands. It's not about Blizzard neglecting the content, but the players putting more effort on the capping and level cap raiding. I'm actually putting more of the blame on the player base for trying to achieve the cap as if that was the main achievement of the game.
I'm seeing the Achievement system as a starter for activating the whole content. It would be nice to see the raid instances in one form or another, and the only way to activate the capped people to visit the 'old instances' is to generate incentives to do so. Achievements are one way. Variable difficulty and loot tables would be another.
Never the less, I'm following the pace I'm feeling comfortable and I hope to see new players who do the same. The World of Warcraft is such a huge and beautifull place to explore that it's such a shame to see it go to waste by power levelling through it all.
Stay tuned for more on the subject. ;P
’twas the night before Wrath...
The Three Stooges got together for a rerun through Scarlet Monastery. Because of the lack of flight points any closer than Hillsbarad Foothills, the meeting at the Monastery was ‘postponed’ by a half an hour, including the late arrival of yours truly. Real life meets virtual commitments.
The three Stooges stood at the doors to the inner parts of the Monastery. “Where to, oh brothers”, asked the Priest, all in Shadowform. “I dunno”, responded the warrior, honing his sword and axe in anticipation of slaughter. “I have an appointment with the Marshall in the Cathedral”, stated the rogue, who was nervously smearing something vile on his daggers, which quickly lost their luster under the rag.
We decided to check the Graveyard first, however, because of the fact that I had seen the Scourge there earlier. Of course we were late, I should have known, reading Hudson’s report on the Herald of the Lich King earlier that day. But we went in, looted the chests and downed the boss.
“Are we there yet?”, asked the rogue, more or less anxious to make closer acquaintance with the Marshall and his lieges. “No, dear brother”, answered the Priest, quaffing a potion. “We’re in the next door. Just wait and see.”
So, to the Cathedral we went. Directly to the yard before the Cathedral doors we went and cleared the yard for the pulls from inside the glorious building that had fallen to the wrong hands. At that point we noticed that not all mobs were grey anymore: we started gaining exp from the kills! Rogue, being lv44, got some and Laiskajaakko being lv45 a bit less.
Then the fun began. We did pulls in twos and threes, clearing the passages and the back rooms. Some nice drops came from the mobs and the ‘mini-bosses’ until Marshall himself. Bishopgeorge, the priest, had severe connection problems from time to time and we had to rely on alternative healing methods, but the encounters went nicely and Förgelös got his quest completed.
“Oh, wait! I have to retrieve a tome for a dwarf in Ironforge from the Library”, yelped the Warrior, as the three Stooges stormed out of the Cathedral. “Ok”, said the Rogue grumpily. “Why didn’t you remember that the last time we were there?”. “I met the dwarf after that, dunce”, replied the Warrior and led the way to the corridor leading to the Library.
We were already running towards Undercity when I noticed that we hadn’t gotten the Achievement for the Monastery! We were lacking two boss kills: Herod from Armoury and Archivist Doan from Library. And I had one quest in Library, which I had missed earlier. We all knew we had killed both of them, as I had a weapon from Herod and we had the Scarlet Key. But then again, the Achievement called us back to the foray.
Library was even less interesting because of the lower level of the mobs. The tome was found easily, as the game’s dumbing down had it’s effect on the quest items: even a blind player would have seen the blinking book mile away! Archivist Doan was a quick hit in the dark and then it was off to Herod.
Herod lost his head and we ended the trip in laughter: as his disciples entered the scene (yea, the lots of them running in lines, swarming the ‘arena’), Bishopgeorge dropped into the middle of it and blasted them away with his Holy Nova! He in fact one shotted the whole lot. Hilarious.
Off we went, all on our separate ways and that was the night. I still put the BoE stuff on sale in AH, visited Stormwind to see if the Herald was there causing havoc, but was disappointed. King Vrynn had disappeared, though, but there was nothing else to see except the beautifull sunset in the Harbour.
I thus logged in with my Horde toon to see if there was any action in Orgrimmar, but nothing there either. What a disappointment, though you could see something was brewing up: both in Stormwind and Orgrimmar were swarming with high end people, as if waiting for something. What on Azeroth could they have been waiting on Wednesday 12th at 22.00 o’clock?
Not the Lich King, for sure?
The three Stooges stood at the doors to the inner parts of the Monastery. “Where to, oh brothers”, asked the Priest, all in Shadowform. “I dunno”, responded the warrior, honing his sword and axe in anticipation of slaughter. “I have an appointment with the Marshall in the Cathedral”, stated the rogue, who was nervously smearing something vile on his daggers, which quickly lost their luster under the rag.
We decided to check the Graveyard first, however, because of the fact that I had seen the Scourge there earlier. Of course we were late, I should have known, reading Hudson’s report on the Herald of the Lich King earlier that day. But we went in, looted the chests and downed the boss.
“Are we there yet?”, asked the rogue, more or less anxious to make closer acquaintance with the Marshall and his lieges. “No, dear brother”, answered the Priest, quaffing a potion. “We’re in the next door. Just wait and see.”
So, to the Cathedral we went. Directly to the yard before the Cathedral doors we went and cleared the yard for the pulls from inside the glorious building that had fallen to the wrong hands. At that point we noticed that not all mobs were grey anymore: we started gaining exp from the kills! Rogue, being lv44, got some and Laiskajaakko being lv45 a bit less.
Then the fun began. We did pulls in twos and threes, clearing the passages and the back rooms. Some nice drops came from the mobs and the ‘mini-bosses’ until Marshall himself. Bishopgeorge, the priest, had severe connection problems from time to time and we had to rely on alternative healing methods, but the encounters went nicely and Förgelös got his quest completed.
“Oh, wait! I have to retrieve a tome for a dwarf in Ironforge from the Library”, yelped the Warrior, as the three Stooges stormed out of the Cathedral. “Ok”, said the Rogue grumpily. “Why didn’t you remember that the last time we were there?”. “I met the dwarf after that, dunce”, replied the Warrior and led the way to the corridor leading to the Library.
We were already running towards Undercity when I noticed that we hadn’t gotten the Achievement for the Monastery! We were lacking two boss kills: Herod from Armoury and Archivist Doan from Library. And I had one quest in Library, which I had missed earlier. We all knew we had killed both of them, as I had a weapon from Herod and we had the Scarlet Key. But then again, the Achievement called us back to the foray.
Library was even less interesting because of the lower level of the mobs. The tome was found easily, as the game’s dumbing down had it’s effect on the quest items: even a blind player would have seen the blinking book mile away! Archivist Doan was a quick hit in the dark and then it was off to Herod.
Herod lost his head and we ended the trip in laughter: as his disciples entered the scene (yea, the lots of them running in lines, swarming the ‘arena’), Bishopgeorge dropped into the middle of it and blasted them away with his Holy Nova! He in fact one shotted the whole lot. Hilarious.
Off we went, all on our separate ways and that was the night. I still put the BoE stuff on sale in AH, visited Stormwind to see if the Herald was there causing havoc, but was disappointed. King Vrynn had disappeared, though, but there was nothing else to see except the beautifull sunset in the Harbour.
I thus logged in with my Horde toon to see if there was any action in Orgrimmar, but nothing there either. What a disappointment, though you could see something was brewing up: both in Stormwind and Orgrimmar were swarming with high end people, as if waiting for something. What on Azeroth could they have been waiting on Wednesday 12th at 22.00 o’clock?
Not the Lich King, for sure?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Revelation
I have earlier promised to tell a bit about my dark past which lead me to joining the World of Warcrack... I think now is perfect time, as I have something in mind connected to that.
I started on a private server. Yea, the unofficial server run by someone with good virtual server and connection. Running the game client as the server by an emulator. Why? There wasn't any trial back then and I wanted to see what I was getting if I subscribed. That was... some years ago, the game had been around for over a year back then.
To be honest, I got lucky, because the second server I joined proved to be a social goldmine. I mean that the people were a great bunch of people. I never knew them by their names, only their nicks, which is pity as they would have provided a good connection to the game later. The server was called Fairplay, and it was run by a guy with nick "Linux".
It was a 'Blizzard like' server, the exp rate was about the Blizz but loot was a bit, sometimes a quite bit, better than Blizz. Of course, there were never more than 40 players online at a time due to bandwidth and emulator, but still you could get the hang of the game. Because of my style of sacrificing my own playing to help others, Linux popped in to see me from time to time. Then he asked me to help him on testing some things he was implementing and all of a sudden I was asked to join the GM team. Me, total noob back then!
It was a blast: free game, loads of things to do outside the game and always people who thought it was nice of me as GM to pop by.
Which lead to the fact that when Freeplay disappeared, like all good private servers do, I was left with only one choice...
I subscribed to WoW.
Fast forward to this date. My son and his friends have been playing on a private server for sometime now because his friends parents don' t want to pay the meager monthly fee. They have had a blast playing on a Fun Server with exp rate at *10.000 (times ten thousand, yes). One kill makes several levels. I think it was so that the first kill takes the toon to cap or something. They have seen all the instances, they duo them pretty decently and sometimes I've been a bit jealous because of the fact that they have taken the easy mode to see all the sights in the game.
But then again, do they really know how to play when their gear is so much better than the best gear ever available in the real game? When everyone is wielding Illidan's dual blades?
The main thing is that they were enjoying their game a lot.
Then the 3.0.2 patch came. And the realmlist.wtf, which tells the game the sites to connect to, disappeared. At first I didn't believe it when my son came and asked what had I done with it, but when I checked, I couldn't find it either.
What happened? The guys have managed to extort, whine and cry the real subscription to the same server I'm in. My son's character, which he hasn't played during the time on the private, is their highest and they have to run all the lower level instances to gain what they had earlier.
And they are having fun. Partly maybe because of the fact that I can see when they login and can give my son the opportunity to join them. Partly because they had never seen the lower level instances nor had experienced the challenge in doing them.
But will this be seen in WoW's general subscription rates? There are bound to be loads of people who lost their past time because of this, even if it will be only temporary before someone comes up with a solution, who are hooked on "gears and raids".
It's not 11 million, though. Not maybe even the first million. But it's something especially because the privates I know of are mainly US/EU/Aussie-based.
I just wonder whether this has been a clever marketing thing from Blizzard: free playing till the finances start to look grim, and boom! get them on the payroll.
Could they be so clever and shrewd?
I started on a private server. Yea, the unofficial server run by someone with good virtual server and connection. Running the game client as the server by an emulator. Why? There wasn't any trial back then and I wanted to see what I was getting if I subscribed. That was... some years ago, the game had been around for over a year back then.
To be honest, I got lucky, because the second server I joined proved to be a social goldmine. I mean that the people were a great bunch of people. I never knew them by their names, only their nicks, which is pity as they would have provided a good connection to the game later. The server was called Fairplay, and it was run by a guy with nick "Linux".
It was a 'Blizzard like' server, the exp rate was about the Blizz but loot was a bit, sometimes a quite bit, better than Blizz. Of course, there were never more than 40 players online at a time due to bandwidth and emulator, but still you could get the hang of the game. Because of my style of sacrificing my own playing to help others, Linux popped in to see me from time to time. Then he asked me to help him on testing some things he was implementing and all of a sudden I was asked to join the GM team. Me, total noob back then!
It was a blast: free game, loads of things to do outside the game and always people who thought it was nice of me as GM to pop by.
Which lead to the fact that when Freeplay disappeared, like all good private servers do, I was left with only one choice...
I subscribed to WoW.
Fast forward to this date. My son and his friends have been playing on a private server for sometime now because his friends parents don' t want to pay the meager monthly fee. They have had a blast playing on a Fun Server with exp rate at *10.000 (times ten thousand, yes). One kill makes several levels. I think it was so that the first kill takes the toon to cap or something. They have seen all the instances, they duo them pretty decently and sometimes I've been a bit jealous because of the fact that they have taken the easy mode to see all the sights in the game.
But then again, do they really know how to play when their gear is so much better than the best gear ever available in the real game? When everyone is wielding Illidan's dual blades?
The main thing is that they were enjoying their game a lot.
Then the 3.0.2 patch came. And the realmlist.wtf, which tells the game the sites to connect to, disappeared. At first I didn't believe it when my son came and asked what had I done with it, but when I checked, I couldn't find it either.
What happened? The guys have managed to extort, whine and cry the real subscription to the same server I'm in. My son's character, which he hasn't played during the time on the private, is their highest and they have to run all the lower level instances to gain what they had earlier.
And they are having fun. Partly maybe because of the fact that I can see when they login and can give my son the opportunity to join them. Partly because they had never seen the lower level instances nor had experienced the challenge in doing them.
But will this be seen in WoW's general subscription rates? There are bound to be loads of people who lost their past time because of this, even if it will be only temporary before someone comes up with a solution, who are hooked on "gears and raids".
It's not 11 million, though. Not maybe even the first million. But it's something especially because the privates I know of are mainly US/EU/Aussie-based.
I just wonder whether this has been a clever marketing thing from Blizzard: free playing till the finances start to look grim, and boom! get them on the payroll.
Could they be so clever and shrewd?
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