What to raid and what to loot..

Cataclysm is getting closer and closer and a lot of players are realizing that the world of warcraft as we currently know it will 'cease to exist' when Cataclysm hits the shelves. Its not that all of the areas will be destroyed, its more the fact that the old content of WotLK will be soon forgotten (as the old-world and Outland was). As a result, players are trying to gather all their last achievements which will become feats of strength, and trying to get the mounts which will vanish.

On the other side of the spectrum people are looking forward into the near future. What will be the way class X should gear in Cataclysm and what will be the best spec to level in. And that is my current dilemma.

In the past I always did raids with my warlock. A fairly OK geared character which could usually be found in the middle of the top 10 dps. But, as more locks joined the raid, I requested the Raid officers for a switch to my druid healer (there is always room for more healers it seems). So it was done and rather quickly my gear was boosted from 2 parts of the regular T10 to 4 parts of normal sanctified T10. Now with my lock, who didn't need that much gear, I had carefully saved up some DKP. But, with 2 specs to tend to I quickly tore through my DKP and am now back on bidding minimum and hoping nobody wants the same item.

My dilemma now is that by the end of it all, I'll have a fairly complete healing kit, capable of being at the top of the healing charts (which I've already, suprisingly, found myself several times)and will be a valuable asset to the raid till then. But what will it bring me when Cata hits? The person who will want to quest in the new expansion instead of just heal random dungeons? Sure I can go quest in my epic healing gear, but that will not bring much joy I fear.

So, what to loot? Should I stay with my current decent healing gear and collect feral stuf from now on and leave my raiding buddies to fate? Or should I keep working on my healing gear and grind my teeth when cata hits?(Or, as a side trail, should I go for boomkin as apparently ferals won't be doing that well at the start of cata...)

I for one am going to keep working on my healing gear and will trust in Blizz to provide me with decent enough gear to level through the content. But I don't think everybody will do the same and I'm affraid many raid leaders will grind their teeth till cata hits due to the priority settings of its raid members and naggers who want to raid a different instance/boss for specific gear.

Mini-games and me..

By Azariell

Its been a while since I last made a post but I've been attempting to tone down my online/PC time. Suffice to say it didn't work, but did have some consequences for my online game play.

First of all, I figured the best way to reduce game-time was to stop raiding again. Sad thing is, that I only started raiding not too long ago. However, as this was a health based decision, the raid group could live with it and wished me all the best.

This, however, did bring be back to my old habits of thinking up mini-games or better said small achievements to entertain myself with. You see, I've been playing since about 2005 and for the first 3-4 years I didn't raid simply because I did not have 'fixed' free time slots. Remember, this was all in the era without the fancy blizzard achievements.

So pre-WotLK for example I had smaller projects such as completely focusing on making money for that epic flyer, but also things such as collecting all materials needed to level tailoring from 0-375 (only getting the tailoring profession after I was done with the collecting). Most people actually thought I was insane and did not understand that I still found the game interesting...

The same situation occurs now, and I've found joy again in the 'simpler things in life' or simpler things in WoW sorta say... I've started the process needed to obtain the Venomhide ravasaur mount, next to that I'm leveling my DK to 80 with a side 'quest' that I want to have enough PVP currency (WG marks and honor-points) to buy a few pieces of starter gear when I hit 80, and a similar personal quest with the argent crusade tokens.

The stupid thing is that as soon as I started raiding I more or less had to 'abandon' playing any of my other toons as I didn't really have time to really play them. Now, I actually can enjoy the different classes again and do all the little personal sub-quests/achievements that blizzard throws at us...

So, What do you guys think? Do you also have little personal achievements? Or can't you believe that someone can find WoW interesting without raiding the end-game?

Does wisdom come with age?

With age comes wisdom, or atleast so they say. Apparently, however, age also comes with the knowledge of (supposedly) gaining that wisdom and that is something not everybody is able to handle well enough.

During my vacation a few weeks ago I had an epiphany, well I had realized this before, but it was a bit more obvious when I was there. Several of the older residents of the hotel apartments went to the poolside around 10-ish and started 'settling'. They moved around some of the chairs to provide a bit more 'empty space' around the chair they had selected and one of them always took a second chair and put it on the first to elevate her sitting position, they place their books, fly swatter and other regalia around them, and sit there for the rest of the day as the king of their little own castle.

Now this does not necessarily seem rude, but when you realize they are making the sunroof less comfortable for others, but more comfortable for them then it is.

This is just one of the many examples, so why am I putting it up here, in a WoW blog? because we see the exact same thing happening in WoW. 'The grownups' believe that WoW (and any online game for that matter) should not be played by kids, but just by the adult and mature population. We all (me included) are appauled by the 'kiddies' who walk around yelling god knows what to everybody they come across and find it absolutely normal. But who are to be blamed for that? Those kids? their education? or maybe their parents for not raising them right? Or is it the WoW population who made these kids into a self fulfilling prophecy?

As stated earlier, kids are seen as trespassers on the domain of the older players. This means that from the start, kids have been treated as such. They were told they shouldnt even be there, are the n00bs and are boo-ed at for not instantly knowing what to do. Isn't it somewhat obvious then, that at some point, the kids just started to not care anymore, and fulfill the prophecy of the 'problem children'? You can either fight with all your power to prove you are mature enough to play the game, or you can take the easy route and just be the kid they think you are....

A good portion of the 'Older people' believe they have certain rights over the younger. They believe that they earned the respect of said youngsters by just having the age. They hold the wisdom and they should be respected.

Personally I almost always try to do the 'right thing' and help our older fellow man. Be it in a shopping mall, crossing a road, or standing up for them in the bus so they can sit. I have absolutely no problem doing those things as I believe them to be right. However, they have absolutely no right to claim these things. They have no right to wiggle them in front of me in a line for the check out believing it to be ok. They have absolutely no right to kick away my bag because they believe I had to remove it for them in the first place etc etc.

So who are we (as I count myself to the somewhat mature player base of WoW) to tell these kids that they can't play and that they are ruining our experience? Aren't we ourselves just as much responsible for ruining their experience? And If we would have embraced them from the start, wouldnt there have been a lot less hatred?

Growing awareness for seemingly Trivial things

By Azariell

"LOL, omg I just pwned that n00b when I told him to STFU and L2P". Abbreviations of phrases are a rather common thing in MMO's. But do we always mean what we type or better said do we always realize what we are saying?

The content of the abbreviations are often 'lost in translation'. Sure, most know what the abreviations actually stand for, but never really think about it when using them.

Just for laughs, count the amount of LOL's, LMAO's and ROFL's you see in the chat, and try to estimate how many will actually be 'Laughing out Loud', 'Laughing their ass off' or are 'Rolling on the floor laughing' (I still have trouble understanding how somebody can type while rolling on the floor laughing btw).

My best bet is that not too many actually will have performed any of the actions for which they often even use caps to write them. The content of the combination of letters has become completely lost and those words are now just used as expressions of fun, not really showing how funny you thought something was.

The 'Laughing abreviations', however, are not that bad. Sure it removes part of the feeling you can get with players, but in itself it's seemingly harmless. STFU and OMG on the other hand is not.

OMG can be seen as one of the most 'vague' expressions in chat. Oh My God to me refers to rather severe expression of astonishment and/or disbelieve. However, people use it for all kinds of reasons. From 'normal' day to day affairs such as 'omg I just walked past an undead' to semi-rare occasions such as "omg did you just see that horde guy walking into the alliance inn"' to severe astonishment "omg, did he really just pull a Leeroy on us?". A rather wide range if you ask me.

Last night I was in a pug, wiped, got a new dps and healer and the first thing the dps said was when he entered "omg" nothing more, no explanation, nothing. So in my mind I was going "What does he mean, did he just hurt his pinky finger with his knife, or maybe he hadn't noticed, before joining, that one boss was already down (and now he knows, will he leave?), or was he just so much in awe of my uber 1337 outfit" Ok I made that last one up, but still...You don't know, and can't know as the meaning of the words have become completely lost.

These are just a few of the many abbreviations that are used around almost all MMO's. How many people do you think still really realize what they are typing instead of just using the abbreviations that have completely lost their meaning.

The example also shows that it has become more and more difficult to interpret others. Personally, I always 'hear' the entire sentence in my head instead of just the abbreviation. The awareness of the sentence in that case can hit pretty hard. L2P can be one's standard response when the tank misses one mob, but for another it can be a serious accusation. I take everything personal and with that, I make it much harder on myself than it might be meant.

I for one grow a bit tired of asking what a person is referring to when they OMG, to find out of its something referring to me, and if I need to do something about it...

So what is your way of 'dealing' with the abreviation madness?"

Setting group atmosphere

By Azariell

Atmosphere is a very important aspect when rating an activity. Even when a Pug results in numerous wipes but in the mean time you had fun with the people in there and the overall atmosphere was good, then chances are you still had a good time, despite of the wipes.

By now we all know the silent LFD-Pug runs. You enter, say hi (if at all) and continue with the run without further chit-chat. To be honest, with those kind of runs, I always try very hard to lighten the mood in the first seconds, but when the other 4 just stay silent then at some point I stop trying and turn into my own game again for the 20 minute lasting silent-treatment.

This, however, is an issue that is bound to have been up on several blogposts since the LFD-tool was introduced. No, what I want to talk about is a pretty specific element from general Pugs, which is the' starter instructions' which can be linked to my earlier post "To Tank or not to tank, thats the question"

As a healer during the leveling process, and later in my tank role I have been thinking about building a pretty simple macro which can either be aimed at one single character or the entire party chat. At some point I was triggered to write a blogpost about it when Garumoo gave us an insight in his macro for addressing tanks at the start of of Pug.

But my issue has always been, how will it affect group atmosphere when the first thing you say is "K, listen up; 1: You pull, you tank (and most likely die); 2:I determine the pace etc etc". When you bring it in a kind manner, people will just have a laugh at you, and for example when you are the tank, they will purposely start pulling things for you to 'catch'. If you start of with a harsh message, somewhat like I just gave as an example, people will see you as one of the elitist jerks.

Will the healer (if you are the tank) be more willing to do his best when you start barking orders. Will the tank be more likely to stay if at the first few seconds of entry, he gets told several 'orders' on how his behavior should be? I'm most certainly not amused when at the start I get told (what I already know and take into account) to stay in range of the healer, wait for his mana etc OR ELSE... then I'm not that eager to tank the instance anymore. I am aware of the fact that there are tons of jerk-tanks out there, but that doesnt instantly mean I'm one of them.

A solution would be to only do those messages when things turn sour. Tank chain-pulls the entire instance, trigger happy dps etc. But at that point the atmosphere is already pretty grim and when you start handing out tips the group is more likely to fall apart then give it another go.

A completely different point of view would be that pugs nowadays are very short and why would one even attempt to create any kind of atmosphere when you will most likely never see those players again. But think about it, for some players, doing pugs is the majority of their playtime. If we add all those 20 minute runs, how much would be left outside of the pug to create the atmosphere?

Eric on the Elder game actually made an excelent post about the size of the community compared to the anonymity of the players. When you reflect that post on the LFD pugs, you see a small group (meaning less anonymous) but with a playing/shared time of 20 minutes the effect of the small group is completely negated. So again, why would you bother?

Personally I caught myself several times being more focused on the guild chat than on the pug I was running. When chat in the guild is fun, and the party is as silent as an isolation cell then people will focus less on the party, and more on the guild. Not a good development if you ask me.

So what do you all say?

Just accept the silent treatment and just 'get what we came for'? Or do you actively try to create some atmosphere and just have some fun with other people in what has turned into a daily HC grind?

Best-in-Slot gear concept

By Azariell

The concept of BiS gear (or Best in Slot gear) is a common way to 'rate' drops and or gear. In the 'old days', during vanilla WoW I had the feeling that the BiS gear was almost always the Tier sets and raid boss drops (seen from a leveling point of view, I had just reached 56 when TBC hit). Now, next to the tier sets and raid boss drops, there are also the crafted items, the 'regular' emblem rewards and even the rare trash-mob drops. All in all its not that strange that a concept such as BiS was introduced.

But how important is the BiS gear statistic and how can one actually claim a single item to be the BiS item?

A gear set on any character is built around his class and his talent spec. The total 'package' of gear is balanced around the needs and requirements of the class and player. When you change one piece of gear, it is not uncommon that you will also have to change several other pieces of gear just to restore the balance and benefit the most from your new item. So how can you take one piece of gear out of the lot, and state that it is BiS? Did someone actually put together the ultimate total package of gear for a class/spec combination and according to that is calling each of those items the BiS items for optimal performance? Or is the BiS determined by looking at the individual items and rating them for its stats? (if anybody has more info on this, feel free to enlighten us poor sods) But are those ways of determining BiS gear of any use?

A general player will reach 80, begin to gear up and over time collect more and more items. In general its a dynamic process, where a player will look at the options, and decide on which parts to upgrade, and what parts need upgrading next. This means that when you get your hands on one of these 'mythical' BiS items you should be very happy because its the best gear for you...but is it?

When following the first reasoning (BiS determined on complete gear set) then your lacking a whole load of other items with which this item would be BiS (I haven't yet met a single player yet that just collects gear in the bank until he has a complete set and then starts wearing it). If your using the second method (BiS on individual stats) then how on earth are you going to manage your balance? I mean you already have a gear set, you replace one piece which is supposed to be BiS and all of a sudden your balance is way off (not even to mention that in one fight some stats have a higher importance).

Especially the second way is quite dangerous, for example when using Gear wishlist. For the gear wishlist you can either put together your own weighted stats, or use a general GearScore method. When using the second for Locks for example, items with Hit will always rank higher. But what if I'm already full on hit?

Now, this entire rant might sound I'm completely against the BiS concept, but I'm not. The concept is good, it gives an overall impression of the best items to go for out there. What I am against is the abuse of the term (as has happened to so many other terms). Players use the term BiS at their own convenience and do not look at the boundary conditions which are important when selecting gear.

In all kinds of chats (be it general, trade or guildchat) you hear people using the term. But how many actually know what they are saying? How many know how the BiS item they grabbed from some random website was determined?

When looking at it from a distance, it all comes down to the (in)famous GearScore again and the everlasting discussion regarding its use and abuse...

Two extremes in one weekend (yawp)

What a weekend. First some 'old instances', like Shadow Labs with Bishop for the Karazhan attunement chain. Just duoing that for the heck of it and having fun. Even wiped on Murmur again, this time just out of spite and for the heck of it. After that we took on a random, only to find ourselves in Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom.

The group was a mishmash in both gearing, gemming and enchanting. To the point that one of the dps left before the first boss. The healer druid left after the first wipe. The dps mage, who couldn't contain his aggro generation shouted "NOOOOOOB TANK" after dying despite of me spamming taunt and devastate on the Guardian he was shooting at. After the third try the whole team broke. The only sane comment was from a paladin who came to the last try: "If you do not know the boss, do have the decency to say so before the pull." Agree. Then again, I've been there enough times to say that the whole group screw it up, and it wasn't the tank's fault. I had the guardians on me as soon as I could get within the taunt range, even if the dps/healer ran away from me (thanks to the minor speed buff of Tuskarr's Vitality!), and even as I was a tank, I was dpsing at the top of the group. I mean groups. Sure, that mage had over 3k dps, but dps without aggro management is suicide.

It just was a failpug. That's all. No excuses, I was part of it.

The other extreme came on Sunday. We had a couple of hours electric blackout and I wasn't sure if I would make it to the guild weekly raid. However, I made it and I got into the Icecrown Citadel for the first time: the weekly was Marrowgar.

The fight is very simple, at least on the tanks: tank, spank and stay away from the cold flames.

The group, however, was a mix of alts and newcomers (like me). Most of the people hadn't encountered this boss earlier. Never the less, we did it on the 8th run, when everyone had learned their lesson on their own part.

Did it feel good? Damn right it did. Got a nice mace to replace my trusty old Peacekeeper Blade, which I will keep in my bag still. Just for the sake of Sword Specialization...

This week starts a new era in the blog: Azariell has 'joined' as an author and I may have to come up with a new punchline. He'll post an introduction at some point when it suits him: I know he has at least one post in the list already. The way I have thought this is that we'll have one post per day on the weekdays and weekends are 'free' of posts. That's the first time I've put on any schedule in the blog, so it's bound to be changed or broken right away.

Straight ahead towards new disappointments!

To Tank or not to Tank: that is the question

Here is another guest post from my good friend Azariell, who approached me with this text as his view on how tanking and as a continuation to his earlier guest post about the behaviour of the anonymous LFD PUG. As it happens, this post is very closely related to the post I linked yesterday, which I would like to push up once again.

This Shakespearian reference might seem very cheesy at first, but when reading the rest of the Hamlet scene it actually covers the content of the following combination of thoughts pretty well (Literary fanatics may shoot me now for such a ‘disrespectful’ comparison).

I am not going to talk about how tanks (and healers) are blamed for everything, and that they are the most underappreciated classes. What I want to talk about is what should tanks accept as demands from their party members and to which extent this is related to the new ‘Looking for Dungeon tool’ (combined with the rather unique position tank are placed in when using the tool).

So for the next 4 lines of the Scene (for those who care Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1)

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 

Being a tank, you have certain advantages; one of the most important ones these days is that you can find a group using the LFD-tool within seconds of pressing the ‘join’ button. DPS can often wait up to 15-20 minutes before they get a group. Nowadays, a complete heroic instance can be ran in 20 minutes, effectively doubling the amount of heroics that a tank is able to do compared to a DPS. This of course comes with the extra emblems which can be used for those all important gear pieces, or just to make a quick buck by selling the raw gems that you can buy.

However, to be a tank in the LFD-tool, you get ‘forced’ into a certain mindset. The GOGOGO mentality by now could almost be a word in the dictionary. The DPS cannot continue without the tank taking the lead, but the only thing holding them back is the sky high repair bills. So instead they start to put pressure on the tank (and healer) “GOGOGO” “What are you waiting for” and so on. And for some reason, I tend to oblige those requests, even though I am not comfortable racing through an instance at such pace. Sure, I can do it, but do I want to? I know it’s just the power of the group (or single individual often) and as a tank you just want to be liked and not be told that you are a crappy tank.

But to whom are we catering when we fulfill the request of that DPS-er? My best guess is that only the fully geared players, who can blow through an entire instance without mana shortage might like it. To be honest, on my fully geared Warlock I have no problems taking things a bit more slow. Actually having some fun with the people in the group counts for something too right?

But the people duped by this are the tank himself, who is pressured into a pace which might not suit his play style. The healer who is strained even more by not only the constant healing on the tank, but also the healing on the group. And finally the not so well geared players. Players who have mana problems, underperform because the pace is way to fast for them to catch a breath (mana breaks have become a phenomenon of the past).

The strangest thing is that tanks are in short supply. The fact that tanks have a group within seconds of joining says it all. So, why do tanks feel pressured into doing things they do not want? They are the ones holding the best cards right? Taking this out into the open and acting like you hold those cards, is also not the solution as it would only be seen as arrogant behavior.

So to go back to my Shakespeare reference: Do we just keep taking the blows in order to rake in the easy cash? Or do we make a stand and say ‘screw you guys, I’m going home’. The second, however, results in becoming a disliked tank with all consequences attached.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 

Now a follow up question would be, what demands should healers accept from their group? Should they accept a tank who’s personal mission it is to chain pull as many mobs as possible without thinking about the healer?

The behavior of the anonymous

((This is the first quest post in this blog, written by my old friend and former 'guild master' of sorts, Azariel, whose opinion I have come to respect very much over the years I've known him. He wrote this 'post' as a proposition for a post of my own, but I think it has it's own merit in the form he sent it to me. After reading this I found out that there are some issues which I can -and will- comment in a separate post myself. 

Without any further ado, I present to you, Azariell, Undead Destruction Warlock, Thunderhorn EU)

I would like to start by posing a question, the same (well, somewhat the same atleast) as the one I asked last night in Guild chat which sparked a rather ferocious barrage of comments by several (loudmouth) guildies.

The question is this, well more of a hypothetical situation then a question: You are the raid/party/group leader and one of the members of said group is not performing according to the requirements. The ‘logical’ (yeah, that’s debatable, I know) next step would be to remove that player from the group in order to find a suitable player to try and advance.

The question now is: Would you find it acceptable to kick that player without further communication with him about possible reasons or solutions? In other words, would you have the courtesy to tell him face to face that it isn’t enough, or just press the kick button and be done with it?

Now that I’ve given you something to think on, I’ll explain the situation. It was my first TOC-10 man run last night. I’m not a raider as you might know and only do occasional raids (ow and before you think that I was the kicked player, I wasn’t). So I have no real raiding experience or anything of that order.

So, first TOC-10 man run, group was complete, we all moved there and after a brief tactics explanation by our tank (I’m a Lock btw) we started the encounter. The first DK tank died pretty quickly causing a wipe. Second attempt ended in the same manner: wipe. Next healer assignments were switched, and guess what, another wipe. Between the second and third wipe, there had already been some murmurs on Vent that one healers HPS was low. And within seconds of the third wipe, the healer was kicked, and a new healer was brought onboard.

The question that formed in my mind immediately was, did he kick him without saying a word? Or would he have taken the time to whisper him saying that it just wouldn’t work. I posed that question in the Guild chat, and was greeted with statements like “Of course he just kicked him, he didn’t perform, hence kick” and “toughen up Az, that’s the way it goes”. I responded to it that it was just plain rude and that we are playing a game afterall, which should be fun for all. That statement was counter by the responses “Then go play a Dora game” (children’s animation for those who don’t know Dora) By that time the fourth attempt was already started so I couldn’t respond anymore, which was a shame. But is it true? Did we let this kind of behavior become the standard in games?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that if you want to advance, you need to know what you’re capable of, and when one person does not achieve, they need to be replaced to make the group stronger. If I would have been the player that was kicked because of that, I would have been fine with it, but just as long as they had taken the time to tell me politely what the problem was. Otherwise I would just have been offended by their rude behavior. I think not all guildies understood what I meant with my question. Luckily others did understand as one response was “yeah that was too blunt, but the healer really did have to go…”

Now, I’ve noticed this in more games I’ve played over the past. The internet brings out the worst in some people. Some people apparently believe that they can act any way they want as long as its online. Behavior they would never resort to in real life, all of a sudden becomes completely ‘normal’ online where they can hide behind their toon/account. I’ve been in games where leaders were back-stabbing each other at every turn, thinking up the most devious plans to ‘win’ the game, no matter the consequences.

So, what is it that makes ‘us’ change our behavior when we transcend our mortal existence and step into the digitized anonymous world? What makes ‘us’ go into a flaming frenzy where in the real world we might have just said “I do not agree with your statement”

I consider myself to be old enough to no longer be influenced by the behavior of people online. But what will it do to the minds of the young game-players, who are still learning what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’? Will they copy this behavior from the online world to the real world? Making the behavior of the anonymous the behavior of the individual?

Will the behavior of the anonymous one day be elevated to the behavior of the masses?