It's dead, Jim

First of all, I'm not dead. Nor is this blog. It's this.


Yes, I'm participating and I'm already couple of thousand words short of the aim I'm supposed to be at.

I think it's WoW that is dead for me. I got somewhat pepped up last week when we had the ongoing Three Stooges evening with our second team (paladin, shaman, rogue) and logged in with my - little played - Unholy Deathknight, tender at level 82. Ran some idle quests while queuing for a random and got into the Vortex Pinnacle.

I fully agree that I'm not up to the gear nor anything, but I also must state that I was the only one not stacked with heirlooms and top enchants. I am still running around with my lowbie quest gear, with one or two blues in the mix. And due to this, I was severely lacking in the dps I may have been supposed to deliver. Considering this, I wasn't the one standing in the fire. I was not the one disconnecting repeatedly. I was not the one constantly pulling unnecessary aggro and definitely not the one pulling stuff off from the pally-tank. I even mentioned this and got mentioned for being ok in these regards.

Still I was kicked before the wind dragon boss. The only thing I saw was a note from the warlock who was repeatedly disconnecting and stalling our progress stating "Just kick him" before I was ushered back to the world.

No mention of doing something differently. No mention of getting better or asking if I knew things.

Not. A. Thing.

Sure, where the others were stacking incredible 11k dps at that level (heck, Förgelös barely can make that on a good day on our lv85 trio!!!), I was doing 'merely' 3.5k. Maybe that was the reason, not the overall performance.

So WoW is dead for me except for the Brotherly Thursdays. The community and the players currently suck and are obnoxiously stupid.

I rather spend my time in Rift or Champions Online. At least I'm not judged by an arbitrary number in either, yet, but by my performance and behaviour.

Some thoughts on heroics

I've run a couple of heroics with my shadowpriest, and quite honestly it's been a shock to see how much harder they really are from the normals. Add to that the fact that I've been running in PUGs rather than guild runs (only one guild run), the statement that "pugs are the new heroic mode" really shines.

What I have noticed, though, is the tolerance to failure has changed from the Wrath. PUGs in which I have been have been extremely tolerable towards failure and first timer failures. Not saying that I have been faulty of them, but neither saying I haven't. The only kicks from the pugs I've seen so far have been due to someone disconnecting or going afk without a notice.

The difficulty made me think about the Three Stooges and our possibilities to go further on our quest to die undermanned in unimaginable ways in the dungeons where normal pugs go laughing. In Wrath we were in a blissful situation because our tank - which happens to be me - had geared up to raid level gear before we started on the ICC5 man instances. I was overgearing the content on regular basis and my survivability was above the norm back then, even though the rest of the holy trinity - healer and rogue - were not up to the same level.

Now the situation is already the other way around. The tank is the only one who hasn't gotten to level cap, and I sure as can be have no will to start pugging the instances to get geared up. So we go along and seem to have already struck the glass ceiling in the tanks survivability in the Lost City of Tol'Vir. I know there would be an easy remedy to that.

PUG as a tank.

In Wrath I did at least the daily PUG and one or two heroics a day. The instances were quick and - after the first run - passable in a PUG, let alone in a guild group. In Cataclysm... I do not even want to tank in a PUG, knowing how much love tanks get when something goes awry. Like Tobold posted sometime ago, the most stressful positions in a dungeon party are the tank and healer, who have to move and act while the ranged dps just stands in one select position throughout the combat.

How true it is, even in heroics.

The fact that a heroic takes almost double the time of a normal instance (not discussing about the threesome) makes the PUGging even less attractive, even with the additional bag of loot from Call to Arms. The stupid grind for reputation based gear enchantments makes the whole issue even more depressing, making me ask why the Wrath enchantments couldn't have been like heirloom, upgrading along with the level.

There would have been quite a few apparent gold sinks if Blizzard had utilized the upgrading enchantments a bit more. I would much rather fly through Northrend than kill bazillion monsters for a new reputation to be honest.

We'll see when the tank hits the cap. I guess it's time to start digging up those gearing guides.
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Weather takes it's toll (yawp)

Weekend was as uneventful as possible only because of the weather. The sun was shining all the time. And because I ran through all the episodes of The Event which is quite promising both in stories as in building the suspense. Then again, the way it portrays the President and his cohorts is very much the typical paranoid US type, which is quite decently confronted by the pacifistic - but brutal when needed - survivors of the vehicle crash. Not to give any spoilers, that is presented as such: my humble opinion is that you watch the show and try to get past the first three - four chaotic and prolonged episodes. The story starts to open way beyond that point and gives new promising ideas the further the story goes.

On the gameside I've been trying to survive in the Blight of the Immortals, a slow moving but extremely rewarding/annoying/frustrating/infuriating browser RTS, in which zombies are trying to conquer a fantasy continent and players are trying to fight the Blight off. In some settings even each other, but as a support player I've stuck with the co-op play. Lovely little game which shows that a good idea with even a decent presentation leads to a great experience.

I have more or less lost the zest over WoW, now even more than ever. After completing my own goals in the game I'm now only playing (and paying) it for Gnomore and The Three Stooges. I tried to run and have fun with my Shadow Priest, but noticed that its not so fun anymore. The only thing that matters - game wise - is the item level of the gear, and even though you might find a green which is better than you are wearing as blue, the item level of the green is so low that it blocks your progress. Stupid thing is that it's enough to have the higher level gear in your backpack to make your scores high enough.

Also the disparity of the normals versus heroic is daunting. Whereas I was easily in the high end of the damage meters, I'm now at the lowest ones even though I generate more points in dps than earlier. Sure, I'm competing with the people in raid level gear in blues and greens, but that is not the point: this disparity causes the group to force kicks even though I might know the encounter, not stand in the bad and keep on delivering, but not being able to break the magic m&s wall of not exceeding tank dps.

Gnomore project also got a hit in my interest as someone linked a forum post in the US general forums where someone stated that they had levelled a NE druid from naught to cap without killing anything nor doing any quests. All I can say is that the only requirement is to have time and will to sit by the computer, as in everything you can do in WoW. And that druid is the easiest one to go pacifist with, taking into the account the possibility to sneak and gather stuff in travel forms.

But I did get Gnomore into a place where he really shouldn't have gone. More of that later this week.

Godspeed!
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It's the way you use it

This is kind of a response to the discussion resulted from yesterday's post.

I admit that I measure my performance in WoW. Be it Gnomore with his no-kills policy (binary measurement: kill/no-kill), my spriests performance in random instances (DPS), my AH adventures (GPH or total gold gained) or my tanking with the Three Stooges (did we get it or was it another wipe). I also resort to some comparative measuring during the last one, due to the fact that we three are in it together and if any of us spots any way to improve the overall performance, its a gain for all of us.

It comes down to the fact that I use the numbers and measurements for myself, to improve my personal gameplay, performance and/or evaluate my success in gaining my goals.

I admit that I did pose the thought in a somewhat provocative manner, condemning the whole measuring as bad, evil or originating from poor self-esteem.

As Hirvox mentioned, minmaxing can be fun, and for some it is the only fun part of the game. At the same time we should accept the fact that not all are interested in minmaxing at all, even though the game itself imposes this on us. I still think that if the game is played so that you must seek additional information from off game sources to be able to play it at any level, there is something wrong with the game itself. And that measuring performance is way out of the way of reasonable if your gearing and/or performance is used as a measure of yourself as a player.

In Rift there are no actual performance meters (dps or threat meter), the only metrics there is is in fact the rift/invasion group roster, which can only be accessed while the event is on: after the event is over the roster disappears and there is no way of telling who performed the best or who worst. I think Rift is going to avoid the measurement issue WoW is already suffering because of the fact that there are so many ways to set the souls up and even though the archetypical soul/role composition changes, the general class bonuses in the gear still apply: the gearing is much more straightforward in it's own simplified way.

Main point today is this: it's not wrong or a bad thing to have measurements or measuring in the game. What makes it wrong or right is the way you use the information. To use the information to improve ones own performance is more than applicable, but to rank people according to some arbitrage numbers - usually taken out of context - is just sheer dumb. (Note: I'm not talking about improving raid performance, that is similar to what we do as Three Stooges. But if that information taken from separate fights are used to put people down, I really doubt the motivation of the raid leader.)

The question for today is: is it really necessary to measure the performance to the last decimal (or hexadecimal, or even binary sequence)? Like I said about Rift, there is no need for it, and the game is overall deemed seriously fun, where as in WoW where everything is measured by addons the game is funnily serious.

At least that's the way I see it: measurements, when used 'wrong', alienate the player base and creates a separation to those who minmax and those who couldn't care less. Both groups will suffer if there is no middle ground or mutual acceptance.
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Joy of being newbie

I recently read a post in Pink Pigtail Inn, where Larísa shows and tells an application her guild has gotten. The applicant - according to the application - was a 14 year old kid, with a level 82 deathknight, and the guild is pretty much a hardcore - at least serious - 25 man raiding guild.

Now the comments range from the typical evaluation of "fail" to Gevlon's mention of "M&S proper" to adoring mentions of cuteness of the applicant.

I told this in the comments, but I'll expand a bit.

My son, coming 10 years this May, plays a DK, too. Level 63, Unholy for dps and geared only from questing. My son loves to spend gold on trivial and unnecessary shinies: sure sign of M&S conduct by Gevlon's rules. He also likes to bash mobs, to a such an extent that he signs in PUGs every time he gets to play (because he's so young, he has this character on my account, under my supervision).

I have selected his spec, talents, skills and help with the gearing questions among other things. But that's it: I have never taught him on how to play the class, nor how to min-max the rotation. Never even occurred to me to do such a thing.

Taking into account that he's so young and English isn't his native language (in fact he's just started to learn it in school), he still gets into the PUGs. As it happens, he likes to play in group content: so much so that he automatically pops the LFD tool on when ever he gets the privilege to play. Yes, that is earned around our house.

To make this really strange - or in some others words showing the state of the levelling players - he scores to the top of the damage meters every time. Not necessarily the top, but in the top two usually.

And he has never - not a single time - been kicked out of a group. He's the epitaph of the current WoW thinking in group content: "shut up and deliver".

As I monitor how he plays and what he does, I'm constantly amazed how he finds the things I take for granted or have already trivialized to myself extremely interesting or amazing. The childish glee on everything new, strange and surprising is still there. He's loving the game for being as fluffy, cute and amazing as it is. He's enjoying the game, being the newbie he still is.

Now that wasn't the reason why I brought my son into the blog. The reason is that it's quite brutal how the 'jaded veterans' treat the newcomers, newbies, kid learning the ropes and each other in the game. The level of cruelness tells quite a lot about the state of the game itself. The only people worth the while are only those who make the min-max-game their main hobby, who know their class by heart (and the accompanying stats and bonuses) and play the abstract gameplay system regardless of the shiny graphics involved.

The elite who are not to be called elite, because the raid content is at everyones - and their cousins - reach. Provided that you fulfill the forementioned requirements of the gameplay mechanics.

Is this really the way the game, which we all started to play for fun, has turned to?

What have we lost when the game could be easily turned into a number crunching simulation with a few Simon Says scotch-hopping?

Is it the same game anymore?
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Deeper into the community

I've been reading about work place cultures lately and formation of different types of cultures. The fact is, these theories and studies, when done and written properly, are more or less transferable to any group of people involved with similar interests.

Thus I've been making some connections with the stuff I've been learning for work and with the Metropolitan Players post I made a while ago. In that post I compared the current state of WoW population being that of a population of a metropolitan city: busting with action and no interest or concern over what the passerby is doing, thinking or planning. In the worst case this goes as far as the random dungeon experience, where you easily treat the other player characters as moderately working AI characters.

As in all societies or groups of people, there are bound to form structures. Call them tribes, creeds or guilds. The stuff that drives these groups forward is the motivation to work for a common cause. In special circumstances these groups of people will exceed the individual level of expertise of its members, but usually it is the lowest nominator which states the achievable results.

In MMOs - and in WoW particular for being so huge - the problem is to show the values of the guild to form a tightly knit group of individuals willing and motivated to work together to the fullest. Usually the guilds are advertising with the general terms like "nice social levelling and raiding guild", "good mature guild" or "mature group willing to raid later on". Very seldom - if ever - you will actually see something stating about the values or aims of the group in question.

Due to this and lack of general social tools in game, it is neigh impossible for a player outside of a group they feel their own in spirit to find one. There are no actual meeting places to find like minded people save the dreaded guild hopping from one to another till something clicks. The LFD tool took the last bit of server reputation off of your shoulders and at the same time took away the only spot where you could have made those connections with people on the same server, which might have given you any sort of direction to look for a group with same thoughts about the content or life in general.

WoW community, which is so much discussed everywhere every now and then is in fact an infantile community. It revolves around the Me, Myself and I in the elitism and respect, with certain aspects from This Game Sucks and My Game Sucks. For well performing guilds, which are not driven only for the individual gain of the GM or an elite officer group, it may go to the common good ground of We Are Good.

For the lonely soldier in the levelling trenches, to find that group in which one can state that We Are Good is a part time job alone. For it is not enough to feel that I Am Good, when the ones you are bound to be compared are already raiding at highest level with their own special group.

Especially when there are no connecting points in the community to introduce yourself, your personality, your skills and your abilities to the groups desperately seeking a team player.

The groups seeking a specialist are in another pit: they can get the specialist, but what might be the personality and how will that fit into the group?

And will it be determined fast enough to avoid any damage?

MMOs at the moment are enjoyable group endeavors to those who travel within their own social contact group. They are a massive single player game to those who are not in any existing group, and there are less and less possibilities to find people with similar mindset in the typical DIKU mud due to the achievement oriented power levelling culture which is present in the games. Like the destination is more important than the journey, the way it IMO should be.

It is not the destination that determines the hero, but the journey during which his integrity is put on test.

Maybe public quest types can be of some remedy to this?

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Power of words

There has been quite a few posts about how PUGs suck, how there is animosity towards tanks and healers and how people are just jerks in PUGs in general. In my current craving for positive things around me in life I decided to look at this thing the other way around.

As we are all responsible for the atmosphere of a PUG, the question really is...

How to improve the PUG from the inside?

As it happens, I got the best possible experience on this yesterday. My main idea was to jump in to my AH banker and check the mail, get some Archeology on him and log off. Out of habit - or just for the heck of it - I punched the character en queue for a random: as he was at level 54, the wait could have been around 20 minutes on the server I'm on.

No such luck. Didn't even get to Ironforge IP before the Random Group was ready.

Off to the Sunken Temple, the shortened, pitiful, run around version of the former Temple of Atal'Hakkar. Sure, most of the people hate it, but I found the maze-like structure fun and in it's own way demanding place. It was one of the first instances we cleared as Three Stooges, so that may have something for the place...

Never the less, I was summoned as the replacement healer, and the group was performing quite decently. The tank was a selfish bugger, not really suitable to tank at all. Told that he was a newbie tank, but went on like on steroids. Despite of this,, One by two we cleared the bosses, and as you may know the hall where Jamaal resides is full of those nasty undead trolls who turn into ghosts who happen to love the healer. And that the casters in there just happen to shoot fear around, usually causing major aggro chaos and huge add pulls.

Well, long story short, that all happened on the last three groups, until which I kept everything under control very nicely. (I can brag from time to time, right?) That was until a) fear hit our rogue DPS, who b) ran into another group, which c) for some reason took it on the healer, me. Talk about crud hitting the proverbial fan.

There I was, mana depleted, with caster and couple hunters hitting me, tank very much involved in gathering the mobs he could and losing health in alarming rate. I did my best to stick to the tank, hoping to hit Swiftmend (proccing Effloresence) and hoping that the tank would pick up the aggro.

It all failed, naturally.

Just when I was about to call it a day, I got a heal. And another.

The other druid in the group had dropped out of feral and brought me up to the land of living! The day, and the encounter was saved only by the mutual co-operation of the druid kind.

After Jamaal was down I generously thanked the feral feller and made him to the top of my heal list. Screw the tank, this guy saved my life!

As I got out of there, I punched the LFD on again. This time I got to flight before the group was there: it seems that the second wave of alts is just up in the last levels before Outlands.

Blackrock.

As you may know by now, that you can run parts of Blackrock as whole 5 man instances. It's been split into smaller runs than earlier, but this group... it seemed they wanted to have it all. The tank was obviously from a PvP server, hopping and jumping and delivering serious damage on the way. She was easy to heal, though, as she kept her self heals on pretty constantly.

It was a run from one mob to another in a speed I have never seen before. Chain pulling would be belittling the whole run, it was one constant fluid motion. After a couple of tricky, and almost lethal, pulls the tank stopped for a moment and said in /party

"Awesome healer is awesome."

That was all. Only smilies from the rest of the party, and me blushing at my keyboard. Why, I hadn't done anything any healer wouldn't have done. But from that moment on, that tank was my aim, focus point and devotion. I followed her like a puppy, and the only time I didn't we wiped, even though there were two priests and a shaman in the group!

At one point I even had to run back to save one of the priests and the shaman from mobs in the Lycaeum, where the iron dwarves come in lots and are normal: they just were cut off from us in the frantic race the tank kept on.

Conclusion
Few nice words work better than cussing and calling. If the tank or healer isn't doing en par your expectations, praise one of the dps or the other one (tank/healer). Bring positive words into the meddle and see the whole group gather more strength from it. Forget the one calling, cussing and making jerk of him/herself. Unless of course, that one is acting really destructively and causing the group to stall...

It's easy to go down to the level of "OMGWTFNWB", which is usually very destructive. Make a point of splendid use of CC, nice DPS, great heals or perfect pulls and use the power of the positive.

You may be surprised.

C out
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Refreshed

by Copra

I'm back, well rested after a nice four weeks absence from the blogosphere. And boy am I out of the current flow of things. Which is apparently no flow as far as I have been able to see.

Anyhow, I'll return to the irregular schedule you have gotten accustomed to soon enough.

I have played, yes, and found out some curious things in WoW. And in Crossfire, to which my son lured me to try my achiever-fps-pvp side. But more about those experiences later.

One thing that amazes me in WoW currently, though, is the uncanny increasing requirements to participate any PUG raid... Before my vacation started, the outrageous average GS for a PUG IC10 was around 5.3k. The last I checked was 5.6k. And rising. And the outrageous Catch-22 of this is the fact that to get that high GS you have to raid. But you cannot get into a PUG without having the high GS which you can achieve only by getting gear from raiding. 

Whew.

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Oranges and Cherries

After a busy weekend I cannot but wonder how someone can even compare WoW and EVE: it's like comparing oranges and cherries. There are more differences in the overall philosophy of the environments and mechanics than there are similarities.

As I was wondering this it occurred to me that I can't compare my experiences in the games either. In WoW I have been most of the time in a guild in which the group activities are scarce and limited to small groups or I have been soloing alone in the world. In EVE I have been lucky enough to begin the game in a rookie corporation which is active in all aspects of the game and encourages the rookies to take active part in the group activities.

Totally different pots of porridge.

The more I play EVE, the more I wonder why there are no more similarities with fantasy MMO's. Granted, I don't know many as well as WoW, and the ones I've tried (except for Dawntide) have been very similar to that.

In EVE you can start being a valuable part of a corporation from the first day you join the game. The tutorial missions in the beginning build a very nice basic set of skills, with which you can fly and work in the high-sec areas. In the corporation I'm in, we have few days old rookies running in the level 4 missions with the veterans: of course they are not being the tanks nor the damage dealers, but being salvagers and staying out of  the harms way.

In WoW and other DIKU MUD based MMO's this is impossible. You cannot take your lv1 toon to the higher up instances, as they would die of sheer shock at the door. On the first boss latest, as that one is bound to have an AoE that swats the insects off the walls. PvP: don't even think about it, as the lv1 toon wouldn't even pinch the higher level toon, and would be gone before he was noticed even. Flying into null-sec in a killer cruiser could be compared to having a level 10 toon in lv80 Wintergrasp: about a snowball's chance in hell.

Like I stated earlier, my experiences in the games have different backgrounds. I'm extremely grateful for the rookie corporation I was invited when I began my initial trial in EVE because of the activity and possibilities it opened. On the other hand, I'm amazed how Blizzard among other fantasy based MMO publishers have so neglected the social engineering in their games, making them so much soloable and not so rewarding to group as they are.

And of course, EVE has come a long way from the brickwall steep learning curve by introducting the missions which teach the basics of the things you can do and give you a route to make a decent income in New Eden without belonging in any corporation. But a sandbox game is more about making the connections and working with people: it's something you learn soon enough, one way or another.

Now where have I put that draft about that Basic Roleplaying type skill system post...

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Random on Monday

After reading Spinks' post this morning, a thought just popped into my mind...

Will the coming guild experience system make the guilds recruit more new players for tutoring up or will it cause the current members to create more alts which the guild will help to level?

I fear for the worse, but hope for the best. Then again, if dual-boxing is as normal as they (and some others, too) claim, it can be even worse than the worse. After all, this is the golden chance for the developers to guide the old players towards a new kind of social gaming aspect...

A plea to WoW tourists out there

I haven't played WoW at all during this week: not even checked my AH toons to renew the expired and cashing out the sold stuff.

I'm so deep into Allods Online. It's just that fun change from WoW, not least because I'm levelling again and in a new lore and surroundings.

I can easily drop in and play for 1-2 hours, get group content done on the fly and be amazed by the crooked humour the designers have put in the questlines. And drop off, only to continue later on. It's not light or easy compared to WoW or EQ2 or any other game I've tried: the quest stories have enough detail in them to make an equal comparison with the two forementioned games.

The plea I mention in the title comes out of this urge to compare everything to WoW. The general chat of Allods Online is filled with comparisons on this and that aspect of WoW, with the nazi-card equivalent of shouting out that "This is just another WoW clone, this and that is copied from WoW". Meaning that a war ensues.

My plea: Could you people take a step back from the game, cool down and stop making the utterly unnecessary comparison. Stop crying that the game -be it Allods, Aion, Fallen Earth or any other game out there- is a copy of WoW. WoW wasn't the first one, and many aspects of WoW are copied from other games. The whole Warcraft-series is a rip off from this and that source. Ever come to think about the green colour of the Orcs? THAT'S FROM WARHAMMER MINIATURE GAME!!! Tolkien's orcs are from brown to black, not green. And there is a story why Games Workshop's orcs became green after a short while in production/marketing. Go find that out and then talk about green orcs being original in Warcraft!

Every game is a compilation of things from earlier ones, the utilities which have been noticed to WORK properly and/or being better than earlier versions. The same goes to movies', tv-series' and all entertainment as well as in technology. There are only so few completely new concepts created and only so often. And most of them are based on something that has been around already for a while.

So instead of whining and crying out that this game is a WoW clone, stop whining and start playing. Allods -just to mention one- sure has the same kind of UI as WoW, but the mechanics contain some pretty clever innovations. Instead of whining and calling names on people trying to enjoy the game AS IT IS, start playing the game and enjoy.

It helps a lot if you shrug off that mantle of WoW when you login to another game, really.

It may even make the change... enjoyable?!

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?

Random thought: Nerfing the more accessible

I've had a terrible weekend and it seems that the rest of the week becomes as terrible, too. You see, real life has dictated that I shall not play the game (except for the short stints of keeping my AH business running).

Nevertheless, I have read more than one comment and post over the blog-o-sphere about how the low level instances have been nerfed still to make them more acceptable. I don't get it: first Blizz makes the instances more accessible to the people by the introduction of the new and improved Looking for Dungeon tool, even granting the extra reward for completing a random one with random people. But to nerf the content, still?

Maraudon was a pain in the behind, I agree, and I posted about it way back when my main was at level 50. It has been 'broken' into four 'wings' or areas I hear. Wailing Caverns I wrote about earlier, too, and stated that it has been nerfed so hard that it didn't even bring a sweat on the sub par geared group of the 'proper level range' and Shadowfang Keep is a joke at the moment.

Why nerf the content they made more accessible to all? Are they really so anxious and eager to get everyone up to level cap and kill Arthas/Lich King before they unleash Cataclysm over the old levelling content?

Why have they taken the challenge off of the old instances?

WHY?!?

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...

Then a cheat, now a norm

I was watching the TV-show "FlashForward" the other day, and as the story of the show opens up in little pieces I noticed myself thinking about going to some website to see what's going to happen and what the mystery of the 137 seconds is all about. In this case I decided against it, maybe because the story has the kind of mystery to it which I have learned to enjoy in shows like Babylon 5 (during which I adamantly resisted looking the spoilers), Life on Mars (still haven't peeked how the US version ended) and Ashes to Ashes.

So a thought came to me.

Earlier in computer games, there were sites which had walkthroughs to different games. I bet there still are. In my book the use of those walkthroughs equalled cheating, admitting that the game is too hard for you or that your imagination isn't enough to solve the problems by yourself. The same as with different "god mode codes" which have been available to console games. I admit on checking them on some games, sure. In those cases, however, the games had a bug which was making the advancement impossible without a proper patch, which at that time was something I couldn't do. You see, I didn't have an internet connection back then.

The walkthroughs were guides on how to pass the game as effectively as possible. Or how to overcome that devious plot twist or final confrontation. Or how to pass the questlines faster.

Or how to kill the boss in the end.

In a way you could think that the strategy guides through the difficult and multi-phased end boss fights are walkthroughs in MMO's. The same as the use of questing addons, which take away the actual adventure and exploration away from the game. What was earlier considered cheating in single player games is in MMO's a gaming community norm. Now you are faced with the fact that you have to learn the boss fights -at least in principle- before you actually engage in the actual confrontation. And to reach that point in the game, you have to level as fast as possible to the level cap, because "that is where the game begins".

I'll ponder more on the issue of instance or raid bosses, though. Considering the fact that the MMO game experience is a group activity, it isn't any wonder that these strategy guides exist, though. In single player game it's all about you, yourself and your capabilities to overcome the opposition, but in MMO group content you have to rely on your team in addition to your own capabilities. In the heat of a boss fight with 10, 25 or even 40 fellow players the overall picture may well become shrouded in the fury of playing your own game the best you can, leaving the raid leader into a difficult micro management position of strengthening the strengths of the team by giving guidance to it. Even the most capable raid leader cannot be expected to be able to convey all the special tasks of the classes to everyone in the party, let alone decipher and comment on each individual's task and performance between the wipes. Even if this was possible, it's not realistic to expect the group spend the time discussing or learning the strategy there and then. The time spent on learning the strategy outside the game gives the party more time to actually play the encounter and find better solutions more suited to the party itself. In the end, it's better for all in the group have at least the broad overview of the fight, rather than know their own part of it only.

What was earlier considered a cheat is now the way the game is played. In fact, it has become more a necessity to use the off game resources to overcome the ultimately very complex boss encounters properly, and gain the feeling of progress in the game. Even though the game's publisher hands out the datasheet for the current bosses special abilities, these can only serve as the 'strategy guidance' a boxer might receive from his trainer before the crucial fight. It doesn't change the fact that it all comes down to the execution: the boxer has to overcome the upper left hook of the opponent by himself. In a raid its the same: even if all the group would know the boss' special abilities and their counter moves, even if they knew the strategies before engaging, there is the apparent margin of failure which comes from actually playing and reacting to the real fight happening on the screen. The strategy only gives the possibility of a solution, to which the party must find a way to actually do it.

In fact, the actual execution of the strategy in timely and proper manner in a team may be too much for some, even with the knowledge of the strategy. And that's the reason why it still feels good to kill the boss!

I wonder what would happen if the boss fights were not scripted and there was no 'best strategy' to win? What do you think about the cheats being the common norm in the MMO's?

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!

Comic relief

I feel so stupid.

No. I have been stupid.

Well, maybe I still am, but I have been shown to be extremely stupid.

I've been sitting in Dalaran, using my emblems on the vendors and wondering how come I cannot unlock the T9 gear at all. Due to my hate towards the Argent Tournament I haven't visited the area since the LFD launched, and I have visited the vendors there way back when the Tournament was opened, only to make a mental note that their gear requires something I don't have.

I have changed that mental note later to tell me that they require tokens for the gear, and there is no emblem gear available from the Argent Tournament vendors.

Stupid me. /smack in the head

As if there were any pointers to them in-game, anywhere... I wonder how many players even 'need' to visit Argent Tournament area now, as you can enter the Trial of the Champion through the LFD...?

Rant, vent, poof

I wasn't going to post anything today, due to a huge amount of inner rage for several reasons. However, I decided to post a few links.


Without WoWHead, WoW Wiki, or Thottbot, how was I supposed to figure out all the different choices for the emblems?


The standard motto for MMO questing became ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever’.


One of the functions of the community was to teach new players.


Whatever way you look at it, MMO's are a team effort in more ways than one.


In condensed form: New player hits the lv80, and has been running the LFD for the last 10 levels. He has visited all the instances a couple of times at least, knows to handle them at least reasonably and starts gearing up with emblems from the heroics. There is no primer in-game to tell him what to concentrate on, how to improve and how to gear, really.


Gear gets up to raid levels, even though the 'low tier' raiding is going further away in every content patch. Naxx and Ulduar have been voided for either being 'too boring' or 'not of any value in gearing'. There is no in-game primer whatsoever to tell the the newcomer anything about the raiding part. No information about raids and raiding at all.


Being the casual slacker-moron, playing only now and then, this feller wants to experience the content. Funnily enough he wants to spend his time in the game rather than going through the off game material required to participate the group functions. Being as casual as he is, or as hardcore as he can, he is seriously deprived from the information which might make his playing more enjoyable.


So he takes his stand, plays whenever he likes and cares Jack about the raiding which is as mysterious to him as the finesses of the Algalon fight. It's just a myth.


Until he miraculously encounters another fellow, who has been playing for a long time and is willing to teach the poor time deprived gamer the ropes of the finer things in the game. The game gets new face and new lease in his life. And an extended subscription.


Can the game companies really rely on the off game information in making the game more accessible to the players with no -or limited- understanding of the game mechanics?

They put the fun back into my game

Just when I thought that all the fun lies in the levelling, I got a surprise and a note that my whining hasn't been just my problem.

Recently I've been doing my random heroics pretty quietly and slowed down on my guild chat due to the fact that I've had this nagging feeling that the guild is too much achievement oriented and rushing everything to be the #1. Well, this is true, the guild is at the top spot in ICC raid bosses, congratulation and hooray for that, but this has caused the fact that the social and relaxed fun aspects have been suffering a bit. It's all natural and it most certainly isn't my spot as a newcomer to the guild (which has been around since the beginning of the game) to whine and nag about this, when most of the guild -especially the raiding core- is doing fine and dandy.

So I took up the tanking spot in IC 5man normal for some alts with both some enthusiasm (finally a chance to learn the fights PROPERLY) and doubt (alts of the raiders...).

To begin with, it all started by me changing to dps: a pally had been given the tanking spot. Good and dandy. Tought my UI was a mess only to notice that I was doing dps in defensive stance... I had changed my gear and my spec, but forgot to check my stance, which I do not change too often, if ever...

All the merrier. It was all fun and jokes and a epic wipe: DK took out his Army of the Dead on Devourer of Souls and we went down in a few seconds.That mirrored soul isn't too cool with the Army, I say. Sadly the tank had to leave for their raid right after we downed the Devourer on our second try, without the Army. So we got another dps to cover my loss (bah, it was a gain to get me off the dps meters... :P), so enter my brother Bishopgeorge, in his spiffy shadowpriest gear.

Needless to say, I ran PoS for the first time as a tank, all went well except those transition mobs from Ick and Crick to the tunnel gauntlet (hate them!). And as we were going to HoR... Bish hadn't done the q to enter. Nevertheless, we called it a night and promised to do the same later.

Next evening. Me and three of the former team grouped for FoS and PoS and wanted to see if we could get further. All fun and laughter and from the newcomer -our resident healer then- came a surprising comment after we had wiped four times on the Devourer of Souls (this time we had a shammy who unleashed his wolf pack and didn't understand the fault before we told about the Army of the Dead incident... with hysterical laughter). It was simply:"This is what I've been missing in the game. Fun and laughter, not worrying about dying."

It was just that for the whole run. In which we didn't get to the HoR at all: to the door and then everyone had to leave.

These few guildies put the fun back into my game. Thanks for that.

They also reminded me about the fact that I've been too much trying to reach the hc content: Normal IC 5mans are still challenging and rewarding enough for a social slacker like me, even though my gear would give me the keys to run the harder content.

After all, the game should be all relaxed and fun. Not a chore.

Lore tricks

The more I play, the more I'm amazed by some ingenious tricks Blizzard writers have done.

I started the Deathknight I had been postponing for a long time. In fact, ever since I got Laiskajaakko to Northrend I have been working on the idea of doing a DK for myself. The only thing that has kept me from taking the step has been the fact that there are so many DKs everywhere and mostly they are total... dung. And the fact that DK's game mechanics seem strange to me has been keeping me off. If it took me so long to understand the basics of tanking a prot warrior, how long will it take to understand the basics of DK tanking?

Which is why I took on DPS route for levelling. Unholy.

Back to the topic.

I had been wondering about the stories in Northrend which started more or less out of thin air, and involve the disappointed, cheated and cross Deathknight heroes. They have nice tie-up quests leading to them, which provide some insight on the story at hand, but in many cases the reason to the DK is left unexplained.

Until you start playing a DK. Thessarian, who is the first DK you encounter when you start questing in the Borean Tundra, is also one of your leaders in Ebon Hold quests, showing his disrespect for the fellow Deathknights even before the revelation of the Lich Kings betrayal. He shows the backbone and honor not seen in most of the other DK's leading the operations.

After playing the DK starter area, several of the stories I had experienced with DK's in the Northrend with both my warrior and my priest got a completely new meaning.

What a devious trick to extend the game, story wise.

Now I have to play the DK up to cap to see what else he can experience what is hidden from the other ally classes.

This makes me wonder... What haven't I seen, as I haven't played the Horde?

What a dirty lore trick to do, to make me play more.