I'm done with it (yawp)

In addition to that, my first character made it to the lackluster 85, being my shadowpriest Pupunen. After a couple of Halls of Origination PUGs (and failed Tol'Vir and some other) it dawned to me that either spriest is very much overpowered or I play my ilevel319 mix-match spec pretty well or the PUGs are just littered with people who really do not how to play (says a lot about the people PUGging). Why?, you may ask. Because I was all the time in the first or the second place, and the ones passing me obviously had quite a lot higher ilevel. I checked the ilevel occasionally and the best/worst case was that one warlock who pulled about half of my dps with ilevel of 345 or something: considerably better than my gear, gemmed and enchanted (tell tale signs of shining and twinking gear...), while mine was not even gem slots and without enchants (as I haven't bothered yet).

So two goals reached almost simultaneously.

Gnomore got just one level and moved on to Stonetalon. Knowing how crappy that place is in travel wise, I think he'll turn to the Eastern Kingdoms for a while, say, next 5 levels. If not more but to gain some other archeological finds than Night Elf stuff.

While I'm at it, I may as well analyze the current motivation. With the burden of having promised the 250k cap, I have next to no motivation to play WoW. I remember this same feeling from springs of earlier years, too, and I put it into the amount of sun/daylight. The more daylight there is, the less I want to sit inside and play. It seems that the same thing is happening all around the blogosphere, creating the summertime blues.

However... Rift is still there, something I haven't tabbed for a while. Still need that one Iron Tombs run to get the quests done and then it's up to the Stonefields and new 'quest' areas for rifts and monsters. Kind of waiting for that to be able to play for my pleasure rather than just to show it can be done.

What my gaming will consist from now on in WoW is Gnomore (naturally) and the Three Stooges. Nothing more I want to put my time into, even though there are multiple time sinks to waste it all to: reputation sinks, cooking and fishing dailies, overall dailies and collecting stuff. Sorry, Blizzard, did that in Wrath of the Lich King, why do it again?

I'm done with it. How about you?

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Arms DPS

One's performance is pretty interestingly dependant on her/his subjective view. The commonly accepted or required values tend to be easily measured and are usually posed more out of the convenience rather than actual facts.

Take the GS for example: you can have completely wrong gearset which exceeds the actual requirement, but still doesn't improve your actual performance in the role you sign in. This is sadly pretty common, so now we can see more and more requirements for gear checks, dps checks and achievements.

My achilles heel has always been my lack of interest in the dps role of the warrior. However, this has to change if I'm to continue on the raiding path I'm trying to follow, and thus I have started to dig up information on Arms dps.

Before anyone starts telling me that Fury is by far better in delivering the overall dps I can say that I don't like Fury and I'm not going to change my view to please others. That would make me miserable, and you have seen what that looks like.

In the search it has become very clear that there is a lack of actual Warrior dps blogs out there: in fact, there is a certain lack of Warrior blogs in general, except the few excellent tanking blogs everyone is following. The only one remotely touching the subject of Arms dps is the blog of Pixelated Executioner, or Pix for short.

Now the main point of an Arms Warrior is that he's an utility to the group. Not only a valid dps cannon which really starts to shine at the final 20% of the boss fight, but as a valid buff source. Trauma, Mortal Strike and Rend are all very much appreciated in any party or raid an Arms warrior is part of.

The critical stats are almost the same for an Arms Warrior as they are to other melee classes:

• 8% or 263 hit rating to soft cap the hit
• soft cap on Expertise, meaning 16 Expertise with proper talents
• Strength to give the hit some real punch
• +Crit and +ArPen to cover the cake

I'm more inclined to go the way Pix has gone, and that is to gem for +STR rather than the overall consensus of going for +ArPen. This same route was also pointed out in WoW.com, where the difference between the two routes was deemed to be very slight in PvE. ArPen might have more impact in the PvP setting due to the fact that you need to get through the armour anyhow. In PvE you as melee DPS are supposed to be standing BEHIND the boss, dealing damage as crazy. Also the point that ArPen is being removed in the event of Cataclysm, it's a safe bet to gem for +STR, too. Cheaper, at least.

Now the rotation of an Arms Warrior is pretty simple, and goes along the same ways as with warriors in general. Rather than being a rotation per se, its more a priority like Protection Warriors, being as:

1. Rend has to be up all the time
2. Overpower
3. Mortal Strike
4. Execute
5. Slam
6. Bladestorm

Well, the last one is an addition from Maxdps' priority list, but it's worth the mention in these AoE heroics days, as it is the most potent AoE attack Arms Warrior has. I take that back: combination of Sweeping Strikes and Cleave is the most potent, but the combination has gotten some tweaks since Pix made his excellent posts about Arms and I think it was nerfed quite a bit. Sure, Bladestorm is prone to be nerfed completely in a fight where the boss -or player- disarms you, but in a PvE boss fight the boss shouldn't even be hitting you, let alone disarming!

The main point is the same as with all the classes with DoTs: keep the DoTs up all times and don't clip them. So in general terms Arms Warrior pops up Berserker Rage and charges in on the footsteps of the tank, striking with the Rend as soon as he arrives to the combat. Followed by mandatory shout (Commanding as priority) as the Rage builds up (utility to the group first and foremost, dps as an added value is my view) its time to start using the rest of the skills which have a pretty limited window of execution because Overpower, Mortal Strike and Execute are available only on procs. This is the main reason for the priority list rather than rotation. Thankfully our Taste of Blood talent, Overpower also procs pretty decently over the fight and is almost interchangeable with Mortal Strike, with Slam as filler if neither is up. If you're lucky, you may land a Heroic Strike in there, too, but that shouldn't be prioritized.

If, and ONLY IF, the boss doesn't have adds you can use Bladestorm. On a boss like Saurfang it's an absolute no-no (as well as Thunderclap) only because of the Bloodbeasts. If you get hit by a boss or an add you are not supposed to attack, you have failed.

Like I mentioned earlier, Arms Warrior begins to shine at the last 20% of the bosses health, as then the Execute starts to proc constantly. The fight, especially with stationary bosses, turns into a one button smashing show, but the result is quite impressive.

In short, Arms Warrior will not currently top the damage meters, but s/e sure as hell fills her/his spot in the group by giving a good damage buff and an increase in overall dps.

Did I mention I've always liked the underdogs?

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Is it epic?

I have been touching the subject of raiding being revered as The Game within the MMO. I myself think that raiding itself has been created as a superficial way to keep the players who want to beat the game and see the flashing Game Over, You Win screen happy and working ad nauseatum. The opposing point of view deems quests and levelling as boring solo endeavour and raiding as being epic battles and epic experiences.

Look around in the blogosphere: how many posts about quests, epic storylines or great deeds done while completing quest can you find? Let alone blogs?

Based on what I've seen -which isn't much- I think it's pretty few, most of them mostly concentrating on completing the Insane to the Membrane achievement or speed levelling by going through the few longer quest lines, skipping the finale because the reward is obsolete at the time you reach that point.

Now that I've dipped my feet into the raiding end of the pool, I'm waiting for it's magic to get hold on me. The min-maxing minigame which being capped forces on you finds its culmination point in raid gearing with all the finesses from flasks, potions, enchants and buff food. The further we go in an expansion the higher and higher the arbitrary gs expectations of the PUG raids go, leading us to the point where a fun run in Sunwell Plateau requires "properly geared, min. 5.6gs players" (saw yesterday a call for full group of lv80's for that one...) and you can't get on weekly below 6k. Couple of days ago I was turned down from weekly in Ulduar (XT-002) for lacking from 5.6k gs...

This superficial requirement armada creates the false assumption that the life at the cap is the cream of the crop. It makes us forget the stories, the lore and the real adventure experienced while climbing up to the top. Then again, the game designers guide our decisions and impose us with certain solutions to their puzzles, forming the way the game is played. If they wanted, the game would look very much different.

One aspect I've noticed lacking is the quest line composition. There is no way of telling if the quest you just picked up is a continuing one (unless you run a quest helper addon or another), and despite what Blizzard thinks not everyone is rejoiced to find a quest hub and see their minimap blink yellow: the most rewarding quests and quest lines I've taken have been those which you find out there in the wild, in a dungeon which you just passed or out there, beyond any quest hubs. Sense of adventure, excitement and exploration, I say!

The quests should give us also choices which have the chance of changing the future quest composition. You should be able to make a decision whether you want to torture a prisoner or turn their superiors in. By choosing either your future quests should reflect this change, thus making every levelling experience different by more than just choosing another area (only to return to the same path later).

There are no real epic story lines out there, even though there are some pretty long ones. The ones that tickle your fancy and force you to hurry to the next chapter in the story are few and far, but those are the ones that really make the game epic.

Will we see this change in Cataclysm? I don't know. Like I said earlier, I hate the Cataclysm leaks, and can't bother to find out beforehand. But if the questing is more and more the same as always, then the only thing that remains epic is gear.

The question is, whether the quests and questing in general is epic enough, when beating the 'unbeatable' odds of group content seems to be?

Could questing be as epic, even?
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A bit better

Oh my.

I have gone through a grinder and I presume I'm still at one piece. Lack of practise shows -and feels- deep in my head. And partly in my corpse body, too.

You see, last night was the raid night and the guild went to Ulduar 25 for a change. I have decided to give this kind of life a shot and see what the cards hold for me. Staying up late is just a minor repercussion compared to this raging hyperactivity my mind is experiencing. It goes along the lines:
- Did I execute the right skill on that fight?
- Was that really the right decision based on the info I had then, because it sure as hell isn't when I'm looking at it now?
- How could I do it like that?
- What can I do to learn that other thing better?
And so on.

Most of the time I was in my protection spec and in defensive stance (mental note: work out the key layout for prot spec-battle stance!). In couple of fights I had my dps spec and gear on (mental note: badge gear upgrades and practise on this set!), and I even got to tank some fights (mental note: streamline keybinds, pay attention to UI layout, too).

I can see the lure of the dark side raiding, though, a bit more clear now. In ICC25 my computer's performance is too low for the playing to be responsive and controllable enough, but in Ulduar... I could do something and feel I was working with the team and for the team. It was not constantly guessing where I should be, if that attack landed or if I stepped away or in the goo.

This time I had my flasks, I had my foods and I was more prepared and tweaked up. The beginning feels always easier when the encounter is something you know at least adequately, like Flame Leviathan and XT002, latter of which happened to be the last weeks weekly which I tanked succesfully, btw. So tanking the Life Sparks in that encounter should have been easy, but honestly speaking I didn't even remember where they spawned originally! Once I got the grasp of it (thanks to everyone patching my misses) I felt I did it quite properly, missing one which really bugs me (mental note: mocking blow still exists if taunt is on cd).

The first wipe we faced was that with Auriaya and her kittens, but that was because we wanted the achievement and really weren't trying hard enough. And I was the first to die because I just didn't pay attention to my cooldowns just there and then. The second run went smoothly as if everyone had been just woken up.

Kologarn was a blast as the second tank of the colossus himself, even though I didn't find the debuff showing on my screen anywhere (it's on the left side in the middle you idiot! You just put it there SO YOU WOULDN'T MISS IT!!! :P ) so the taunt rotation went a bit awry. But it worked anyhow.

Hodir was our second -and final- wipe, as we tried to go for the heroic one with all sorts of achievements on the way. For this one I changed to my arms/dps set, and boy, was I lost (mental note: dummy): the buttons just were so WRONG! No shield slam, no revenge... Hello, you're holding a two-hander! I suppose I do better damage with my current prot set than with my dps set, so I decided to go with that after this fight. The logs will tell me if I'm correct, but anyhow my dps set requires some badge love. I had even a blue trinket in there, that should tell something!

The only fight I'm really disappointed with was the one with Mimiron. You see, this was the only fight along with Hodir in which my screen froze to ICC25 kind of state, and this resulted a pretty quick demise in the first  Plasma Blast. I think I was one shotted. Never the less, I followed through the whole fight with my face buried beneath Mimiron himself, enjoying the view and admiring the scenery. Just like I'm used to when we're going through content undermanned with my brothers, mind you, so it made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside...

All in all I now understand why Ulduar is referred as being beautiful and well thought instance. Granted my experience of raid instances comes down to ICC25 (being laggy as hell for me), I still loved the feeling of space, epicness and completeness of the place. It has much in common with the scenery and feel of Karazhan in a way, having something new to see behind every corner and imaginative visions here and there. Also there are some great references to Uldaman and other old world instances, which really made me smile on the way.

Now, the next step is to get out of this self-doubt and see what I learned. Now that is a challenge of epic proportions!
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The Three conquered all

by Copra


Another Thursday evening, the evening for the Three Stooges to stand up against unbeatable odds. And get beaten the heck out of them in doing it.

That's the general idea of our brotherly Thursdays and this one was no special. One random heroic to begin with (smooth and crispy Utgarde Pinnacle) followed by Icecrown instances. Three against the odds designed for five.

We like to give the opponents an advantage, you know.

So we went from the beginning. Forge of Souls. Bishopgeorge decided to give the instance the advantage of having his keybinds being unlocked. This did cause a wipe on trash (aye, on this gear and knowledge level, it's just appalling :D) but we downed the bosses one by one with no real problems. The Devourer of Souls was a kind of "one man standing" in the end, but FoS was a nice distraction. Lots of unnecessary movement, strange mantras being recited by Förgelös who is trying to learn to use his Trick of Trades and one hand miracle working on my part.

Pit of Saron. Off we went like the current modus operandi states, riding on our high horses past the initial introduction of our main target, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Where the tanking me and the dps'ing Förgelös circumvented all the additional trash, decided our residen healer, mister Bishopgeorge, give the instance an upper hand again by leading a group of mobs to our combat zone. Thanks to that, we had a very pleasant bloodbath and survived the hilarious onslaught of pixelated carnage.

Forgemaster Garfrost was just a tad short of being a let down. You see, I had the Permafrost debuff at around level 30 all the way, only resetting it twice over the course of the encounter. It took a while, but it was over just around the time we all started to worry if we would make it.

Krick and Ick. Now this bugger is really a bugger. For some reason it seems that this fight is our Achilles heel in many ways, but not because of the movement part. Oh, no, the movement is ok, the stopping to hit is the bugger: we gain so much momentum -each one of us- that we just simply keep running when the running part is over. And we always seem to manage to reset the darn boss in the middle of the battle. Like this time.

Then I have to admit that we resorted to the current modus operandi of avoiding the majority of the trash leading to the tunnel: mount up and run as far as you dare. Which usually leads you to the last pack of mobs before the entrance.

Like the mobs in the tunnel, the mob was a pushover. I heard my brothers yawn even though Bishop didn't even have his headset on. I on the other hand had fun, trying to learn to time my Spell Reflect right on the casters: the havoc it caused!

Finally, Scourgelord Tyrannus. The only boss in this set that tries to bore you with his monologue. Really... /yawn... boring, but the fight was a perfect example of dedication, sacrifice, selfless commitment and sheer dumb luck. The execution was perfect and when Tyrannus finally fell, he was the end of a series of very long boss fights in Pit of Saron. We prevailed and Tyrannus went down on the first try, even though we had had problems with him last two times we had visited him!

By the cost in repairs, Tyrannus has been the most expensive boss for us so far. But I fear that Halls of Reflection will best that and some more. You see, we got in and tried to see what it was like on three of us. I was the only one who had been in there before and I have tanked it only once with a good group of guildies.

We were severely under dps'd and even though my control over the incoming mobs was pretty good (ok, one or two got to hit the other two, maybe once or twice before I caught them), the sheer amount of damage was such that the healing had a bit of a problem there. And it didn't help that we had three waves on us at a time because we couldn't kill the buggers as fast as they came.

Result: The three stooges have a new challenge, a challenge for which everyone of us has to work on. I need more dps (I really need to check if I can get some str or haste on me), Förgelös has to get new set of daggers and attack power and Bishop... well, he just has to be.

All in all, one great night at the Icecrown instances.

Thoughts on why

by Copra

It started as a Twitter question I posted. The question is as follows:

Just a question, no back thoughts actually: Have I missed anything special for not ever raiding, still seeing all except LK in ICC?

As it happens, I was lucky during my holiday to be able to participate in two guild runs in ICC. One with my priest in IC25 and another with my warrior in IC10. Normal, of course, as the runs were more a training for the actual raiding core for the hard modes. And as such they felt: in 25 I learned that my computer cannot handle the amount of information and my frame rate dropped below 5 fps, and still the bosses went down here and there, me feeling that I wasn't contributing at all. That feeling is something I hate with passion, and I don't know if it is valid because I was still delivering above 3.6k dps in my 'pre-raid' level gear. So I was contributing even though I was looking at ICC25 cartoon book.

All in all, I've seen IC up to LK, but because I've seen it on two separate toons I'm effectively out of the "11/12 bosses, link ach" PUG's even if they would accept a tank with 5.2k GS. But because I've seen them all, and participated in the fights, I'm actually missing only the bloody part in which I really have to work for the win. And that is more a question of trust on others than on my own performance, because I am always doing my best. Which isn't necessarily enough because of the fact that gear conceals the lack of skill, as someone has earlier commented.

The valid question I hear from here and there is, why do I play WoW? Its valid because I state all the time that I don't raid, I do not have group of good friends to play with and because I sound bitter whenever I start talking about raiding and how it is not right even though I haven't done it for real.

First of all, I found out that my absence from the game for a week worked miracles. There were some things I got very disappointed during my vacation which can be left out of the discussion, so the week of leave in fact cleaned the air. I stopped thinking about how I could become part of the raiding team or how I could do the WoW catch-22 and get into the PUGs running ICC.

I found out that the journey is more important to me than the level cap grind. The raiding is there to keep the players who want to beat the game happy, a game which you cannot beat. I say this again, there is no Game Over, You Win screen in WoW. Raiding, like anything else in the game, is a passtime. It should be considered no more than that, yet it is revered like its something mystical. (I admit, I have fallen into that trap myself and find raiding as such very mystical and mythified thing only because I do not understand the pull of it.)

Raiding people usually say that the questing is boring and just an obstacle to start raiding. That the end game is where the game really starts. The question is, if this is true? In MMORPG's the game is everywhere and in the end game, the game kind of stalls and ends because the 'artificial growth' of the character is stalled and replaced by even more artificial (and grindy) gear progression in one way or another. The epeen measuring in GS or any other way ("Woot! Look at my shiny pony!") is not really what MMORPG's end game should be, yet still it is.

I still say that raiding is more a clique forming part of the game. I have my reasons to say that in more than one way, even though I can somehow imagine that it may be a very nice and binding experience when you are playing with good group of friends. However, this causes the experience to be very much clique forming and thus becomes exclusive: how can you trust an outsider if your group has worked so well in the past.

So instead of putting so much effort in being an elite raider and looking down on the people playing the game for the lore, world or quests and stories, people should appreciate each and every part of the game similarily. If nothing else, but because each and everyone of the players is paying the same fee to play and each and everyone is looking for a pleasant experience.

I would like to see Lich King fall, not only as the video shown in the middle of Dalaran, but as first hand. But I don't want to be frowned on, looked down on or dismissed because my gear isn't up to the arbitrary standard created by one way of calculating even more arbitrary numbers together. I don't want to be stuck into the catch-22 of not having good enough gear for not raiding because I don't have good enough gear to raid.

Because of these reasons, I find myself playing the game I like: doing quests, avoiding using my main because I feel disappointment every time I see the GS requirements of PUGs and know I cannot make it into the guild raid core without committing my sleep into the game. I rather level an useless alt on a desolate low level area than feel not accepted or excluded from the world my main is living in.

I've heard time and again to change guild. For one, I don't do guild hopping. I'm too old to go around and try to impress anyone. I kind of feel at home with the people, even though there is distinct separation between the raiders and casual members. Baseline is, I don't want to change guild, I want an equal opportunity to PUG and/or participate. Something the game cannot and doesn't provide currently.

So I do quests and level up alts.

And I like it: at least it takes my thoughts away from the things I don't like and, most importantly, away from my stressful enough work.

So the big question is, why do you raid the same raids time and again, and why do people who raid look down the people not raiding.
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Major confession

by Copra


I've found out a peculiar thing in myself. I love dailies. I can't wait to get home, login to the game and do the daily.

Sadly I'm not referring to WoW, but my new sidetracking love in FPS PvP, CrossFire.

The major points of interest are:

1. My son plays CrossFire, too.
2. He plays a lot better than I do.
3. I learn everytime I login and play.
4. The rewards are mainly tangible and really help me later on.
5. Did I mention that I learn to play better every time?
6. Even though the maps are always the same, the daily challenges are different.
7. Even though I'm just a newbie and beginner, I can participate in a game of pro's.
8. In a game full of pro's, I have a chance to survive and even pull kills.

Yup. If the PvP or dailies would have a part of that in WoW, I would be hooked. But no, the dailies and PvP are governed with different set of rules which for me cause frustration and boredom.

Besides, CrossFire loads a lot faster than WoW and there is always a game starting. The only toon who gets right into the action in WoW is my warrior tank, but the daily heroics are what they are.

Too bad I don't have 3 hours a day for WoW to raid. I have 30 minutes to run a couple of CrossFire matches.

Good enough. And getting better.

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Jump into the deep end

by Copra

Sometime ago I wrote about how the PUGging is in fact a question of trust. In that post I mention how I don't want to tank in LFD heroics because I feel that the rest of the group are not trusting me. Now I have to change that a bit: I don't feel comfortable enough to volunteer for a PUG raid as a tank, but in LFD group I take the leap into the deep end of the pool. I trust the healer to do their best to keep me alive, but I don't trust the dps to look their threat meter -if they even have one.

Yesterday was another evening like that. Several IC10's opening up all the time, GS requirement a bit higher than my current gear and achievement requirement for 4-6 bosses, minimum. I don't have the achievements, so that's it. I know I can do the fights as a tank, seen them all up to Sindragosa and bested them. Sadly on two different characters and on different raid sizes, so I don't have a concise way of showing them.

So I passed the whole /trade because of this. If the people calling for a PUG raid have such expectations for their group, they won't trust them a bit. They just want to have the badges and some loot, not anyone doing their best.

We ran two heroics with Förgelös, and I submitted myself on the mercy of the healer. There was enough to do in the first Ahn'Kahet, as there was a hunter and a warlock who were no the most careful with their pets. Fun and furious, never the less.

Second one showed me again the lack of group play tutorials in the game. We went to Gundrak Drak'Tharon and there was this boomkin druid who clearly had no idea on aggro management or what to do in a group. But hey, he had at least four pieces of ilvl264 on him. First pull with five mobs and this druid was down. Why didn't tank hold the aggro was his question. Being the gentleman I am, I told that I had a glitch on my computer (which I really had, the whole thing froze for 5-10 seconds mid-fight), but the real reason he died was the fact that he pulled that one mob before I had any aggro on it. I had enough to do with the rest before my 'puter froze.

The same thing persisted through the whole instance. The other thing that royally pissed me off was his use of Cyclone all the time. Just as I had charged, thunderclapped and slammed the trash mobs, his cyclone would push them all away from me and I had to start again. Worst moment was when he did that on King Dread fight in which we had two adds: the two adds were pushed to the path of two more, so that when Dread was dead, we still had five (one came later) raptors to deal with.

Without the wonderful shammy healer and mu total trust in her talents it would have been a wipefest. Also the mage did a great job to down the odd adds for the druid, not to mention Förgelös' new level of dps after getting some sweet crafted gear.

It is hard to let go and trust completely to other players when you see this kind of disregard from them. But in the end, when you are able to trust that the players around you do -or at least try- their best, you can really pull out the best in your own performance: concentrate on your own skills and moves and dedicate yourself on your own job.

As a tank, getting beaten by the bad guys so the others can do the beating, uninterrupted.

Can you really take the jump into the deep end and not worry about other's doing their job while in a PUG (raid or LFD)?

I think I finally can.

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Skill or gear?

by Copra


Over the last few weeks I played quite a bit of WoW. While I was more concentrating on getting my main - protection warrior - up to the GS standards for IC PUGs, I also spent some serious quality time with my shadowpriest and for a while I had her in better gear than my warrior. Which was easy really: as ranged DPS you are more welcome to come and blunder in an impromptu PUG raid than with an almost-decently geared tank. So I got in more PUG raids with my spriest than with  my main, which of course increased the probability of loot gear.

I still cannot fathom the LFD tool, though. Even though my warrior overgeared my spriest, the latter gets PoS or HoR as random heroic all the time, while the warrior has to succumb to VH. Why? As it happens, my spriest has done the quest line in IC5 mans, where as my warrior hasn't.

As if this wasn't enough, I have been playing my unguilded deathknight quite a bit. Coming from lv74 to 78 has been quite a journey and is in fact the point of the title. You see, every time I launched to quest with my deathknight I launched the LFD. Most of the time it took three or four tries to finish the random instance. And I mean three or four total new starts, not just replacing some people in there. The experience was awful, really, as most of the time the players were obviously levelling their umpteenth alt with the mindframe of a capped and geared toon: blast in, aoe everything, move on.

At lv78 it just doesn't work that way, except when the toons are properly geared and the players really know how to play. Of course there were the entertaining runs of Ahn'Kahet, in which we just chain pulled everything in steady flow, but most of the time the group just disappeared mid-instance after a wipe.

The worst case was the druid, who came to Violet Hold as a tank, but it became very soon very obvious that he didn't know a thing about tanking. First of all, his gear was not for tanking. Second, when he was asked to kite Xevozz, he didn't even know what kiting was. And as the final straw, I was asked to tank in my unholy dps gear... I should have declined.

Later on it turned out he was levelling his third alt, and he was in fact a boomkin. And he was so full of himself that he kept saying everyone else a noob, while he was himself one, really.

On the other hand, at level cap, the better the gear you are wearing, the easier the heroics turn to be. The meager improvement of 200 in GS (up to 5.2k now) meant that my warrior gets the silent, strong type heroic runs everytime. We grouped once with Förgelös to run a couple of heroics together and his two comments were quite revealing. First one after we got into a group right after I had chosen my role was: "Well, that was fast. I normally have to wait for 5-8 minutes." (SIDENOTE: With my spriest I have the average waiting time of 13 minutes...) And the second one just after the instance was finished: "That was fast and professional. I usually spend much longer time even in the easier ones."

So all in all, at least in the capped heroics it's not about skill but gear. Gear to take the beating and gear to deliver enough damage to kill them all promptly. However, in the levelling stage the skill is more important than the gear, as I was able to beat the damage meters with few levels lower skills, talents and gear in an instance repeatedly with my dk, even against a mage and warlock.

The more I look at it, at level cap the skill doesn't rate too high. The few raids I got into were more like jumping platform games than MMO experience at its best.

My judgement is that gear >> skill. At least for now.

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EDIT. Just occured to me that I didn't define what I mean by skill. In WoW in my opinion skill is the ability to play the toon to the fullest and be able to utilize all skills appropriately, depending on the encounter. Running around a boss room is not skill per that definition, neither is doing a dance or platform jumper acrobatics while in an encounter. Like Tobold has said time and again, there should be more encounters which require strategic thinking rather than twitch.

Real Performance Issue

by Copra

I hate the whole concept of Gearscore being the evaluation point of the players skill and ability to play his/her toon. The whole Gearscore adoration cult makes me feel sick and the calls in the trade channel make me wince mostly because the arbitrary number requirements do not make any sense. "LFM ICC10, 5.8kGS must, 11/12 achievement. /w me for inspection." is the epitome of this dumbass mentality.

However, enlightened from Bishopgeorge's experience with Gearscore/Recount, I installed GS myself. Now my recount shows also the performance per gearscore (calculates DPS/GS, giving a single numeric ratio of performance, normalised). And that makes me laugh time and again.

You see, it becomes even more apparent that the arbitrary GS number doesn't tell anything about the skill or the abilities of the character. Or player more like.

In levelling dungeons it's clear that the toons with heirloom gear are rerolled alts, and they most probably are playing another class than their main is. Fair enough. This means that they should learn the basics and the finesses of their alts class as well as their mains to be able to perform at the same level, right? And their GS should reflect this skill and knowledge, right?

This isn't true as often as you would like.

Now I have been struggling with the DPS of Pupunen all the time. Ever since I broke from the healing to shadow. Now I barely break the 1.7k in the instances. I can barely make 2.1k on dummy. With the gear I have on me, naturally.

The funny part is the fact that during the last few levels of levelling and instances, I still managed to be in the middle class in dps. I had few blues, mainly crafted and good enchants on them (Pupunen is tailor/enchanter, capped on latter). But only after installing that gs addon I found out that when the gear score value was taken into the account, Pupunen was overperforming the rest of the dps.

Every.

Single.

Time.

When I capped with her, I took on heroics right away. I thought I would be mopped around in DPS with all the 4k+ gs toons running gogogo in the instances.

I was wrong.

Pupunen wasn't even lowest in the normal DPS in the first few runs. In gs normalised dps she was on the top of the list almost every time, even with people geared in 5.4k gear. I was keeping 4.8k gs hunters below me in dps in Gun'Drak.

Here comes the revelation.

Her GS was below 3k.

The first heroic she ran she had 2728 gs. The next lowest player had 3.8k. The highest -who was the tank- had 5.8k. The tank was the only one higher than Pupunen in normalised dps. Heck, he was the highest overall in everything, but that shouldn't be a wonder.

In a way, I feel much better about that 1.7k on average now.

To say something more about that darned GS: In the first four heroics Pupunen got two purples and two blues to replace the levelling gear. First purple ever. Her gs rose from that forementioned 2.7k to 2.9k. Her dps, on the other hand, rose about 100 points in instance.

The other revelation came when I started to gain more and better gear to her. Purchased a cheap Merlin's Robe and saw her GS rise above 3k. At the same time her DPS rose to 2.5-2.6 on a dummy, but the standardised GS went down like a cow's tail. I hit the bottom after the high.

The reason to this was simply the disparity of the GS from the stats which really mean for the class. In my case I stacked heavily on the spellpower instead of hit: she's still hitting like a freight train, but misses so many times that her dps is severely affected. Time to see that I gem and enchant her up to the cap of 289 (which comes from the fact that I have both hit effecting talents at max). You can easily have a high GS but completely wrong enchants and gems which eat up your DPS and performance. I had learned that (except the GS part) on my warrior already, that the gems and enchants mean at least as much as the gear itself. Now the reality check was even bigger.

Gearscore should be used only as a tool, mostly to see how you perform yourself. It's a bloody arbitrary and secondary value which has no real connection to the actual skill of the player or the performance of the toon in  the PUG. A player with high GS may actually be the slacker in the group, while the one with the lowest GS - and lowest gear - may well be over-performing on their own. Sadly the one doing their best always get the stick because their numbers don't come out as good as the slacking high geared ones.

The real performance issue is within the mind of those who do not understand the basics.

Then again, all that matters is that the end boss goes down timely and everyone is contributing. Some more than others.

It's a hard life

by Copra

During the last four levels of my shadow priest Pupunen I got my experience mainly from questing. That's what I started to do with the toon in the first place and I decided that that would be the way she would become of age.

However, the lure of the LFD was too much for me, so I gave in a couple of times. Most notably the last Culling of Stratholme, when Pupunen dinged the final ding in this expansion. After which she moved on directly to heroics.

And that was the moment I made the horrible discovery.

PUG in levelling is more horrible in all aspects than PUG in level cap.

Really, the levelling PUGs are a cesspool of badly behaving primadonnas trying to shine with their level capped, Lich King slaughtering mains. Most of the time I felt sick with the bragging and/or bad playing in there. The worst ones were the runs where the tank stated that he was in the instance first time ever and got laughed at. In the end, the dps DK laughing called some names and left the group due to 'noob tank' and 'healer suxx'. (Sidenote here: it was for the best of the run. The replacement DK was excellent professional, who told the group after the instance that it was his first time there, too.)

Then I hit the cap and switched directly to heroics. What a bliss! Smooth runs, no-one was evaluating you and as ranged dps everything was luxury: keep the dps up, always keep casting and stay out of goo. It's way much easier than playing a tank, really. And even more easier than playing a healer!

There is nothing to tell the other players that you are screwing your rotations. Other than dps meter, which everyone is trying to avoid not to show how they are slacking, too.

Playing a tank or a healer is much more straining, that is for sure, and I had had my thoughts on how much easier playing a ranged dps is compared to those positions.

Now I know.

But I also know that the levelling PUGs are awful when compared to heroics at the cap. I don't think it's the water of Northrend that makes the levelling PUG players so bad: it's the air of most exp in least time which these games have taught us to min-max.

It's the idea of playing the game instead of playing a RPG and enjoying the ride.

I never thought...

by Copra

Another weekend gone. Instead of taking the Midsummer festivities seriously I found myself plunging into the longer story arcs in Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills with my shadow priest Pupunen.

And I never thought I would make another level capped toon in the game. Let alone play hours on end without even noticing it anymore.

This happened, though.

First of all, it took a good, solid story chain in Zul'Drak area to launch the craze. As if that wasn't enough, the next chain I plunged into was actually prequel to the one I had completed, which made the whole even more interesting.

The one I'm talking about is the chain involving Drakuru. The first part of the chain begins in the Grizzly Hills, where you capture an ice troll. This captured one asks you to help him to retrieve a legendary weapon and this story leads you to Drak'Tharon Keep, a 5-man instance.

The second part of the chain takes place in Zul'Drak, where you get a mission from the local representative of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

As I mentioned, I did the chains in wrong order: the conclusion in Zul'Drak first and the beginning later in Grizzly Hills.

Mental note: if you are about to experience the games longer quest chains in any sort of chronological or logical sequence, please work one area at a time. The story arc will tell you when to move on.

In Zul'Drak there is another troll centered storyline, that of the ancient animal gods of the local trolls. If you haven't done this chain, I urge you to go and do it! It's well worth the effort, as it really shows that it's possible to build up emotionally involving chains within the game. Well, as long as you can toss the "kill 10 rats" syndrome aside.

In Drakuru's case, I found myself wishing every now and then how I would rather change sides and side with this troll ruler. I would have liked to have the option to turn from the railroaded path, and take the a sidestep. For once at least.

In the case of Ancient Gods I would have wanted to kill all the scourge and scourge infested trolls in the area. Thankfully there was a quest chain in Grizzly Hills (to which the first Drakuru chain ushered) in which you get to help the Drakkari Troll ghosts to get their much deserved rest. One of the highlights of the Northern experience as itself, not only as a part of a bigger chain. Oh, with added bonus of Harrison Jones, the famed archeologist... and saving him!

All in all, I'm a bit sad that it's over again: Pupunen capped (and do I have stories about my observations...) and the story is over. Then again, I learned one crucial thing during the last few levels (or four... I started from 76 and ended capped...):

The stories within the quests are best served when you overlevel the content: you have the chance to see the stories unfold rather than worry whether you survive and how you can cope with the mobs.

Levelling quest content isn't the best form of storytelling, really. The mess of quests you are involved with constantly blurs the actual chains, and you will not remember what connects to what in the end. Faulty in design, really.
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feeling dead

Just as I have said, I cannot stay up late during the week. Now I feel like my eyes have swollen to sizeable tennis balls, my brain resists all attempts to get a decent thought out of there (twenty typos corrected from the last 7 words) and all in all I'd much rather be sleeping than working.

The culprit to this was last nights Three Stooges session: the three went where ever they could to be undergeared, underpowered and undermanned. In short, where ever the challenge lies to three casual newbies.

We had thought about taking on the Old World raid instances before they are made void: this is a project we will follow through before Cataclysm. I'm sure of that. But yesterday a devil whispered to us. Take on the ICC 5-mans...

I didn't have to lure my brothers to it. As our mains are all capped now, it should have been pretty straightforward thing to do. But there is always this "but" when we are considered. The "but" in this case was that none of us was too familiar with the instance. Förgelös had never even visited ICC, I had run Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron twice, never got to Halls of Reflection, and Bishop had been there once on a run which had been a disaster.

So the bosses and encounters were completely unknown to us as a group. Add to that the Mutilate-build of Förgelös, who still wears more or less blue/green gear, and you have the soup we were swimming in.

I had high hopes that we could down Brohnjahm, not much more due to our lacking dps. And situational awareness of a shortsighted procupine would prevent us from achieving anything more.

The trash proved that we had the potential: no problems to keep the aggro and downing them in succession. The biggest problem was for the rogue (Förgelös) to stay out of the harms way and stay alive: I think he got himself killed once or twice before we got to Brohnjahm.

Ah, king of souls... First of all, we had to figure out how the encounter works. We spent at least the first 5 minutes to figure out that I had to kite him away from the shattered souls and the others could do their best to kill them while I was backing away from the boss along the rim of the disco ballroom. The Soulstorm proved to be even worse due to the fears cast, causing us lose unnecessary amounts of health while running through the storm, twice each time.

But... Rest in pieces, Brohnjam! We did it on the first try, and quite frankly I didn't believe it at first. One of the most exhilarating experiences at level cap I've taken part to.

After that boss, the trash becomes even easier, and we found our way to the Devourer of Souls. I remembered that this boss was tricky, but I didn't remember why.

First of all, Bishopgeorge, our resident healer, announced he was out of drinks and potions... so no mana refreshes within the combat. "Just try to stay alive when I go OOM" was all he could give us.

Second, Förgelös doesn't seem to have any kind of DBM type assist, so he misses most of the cues of the harm, like the pools on the ground and the soul light which really kills if you stand in it.

"Don't look into the light!" was the best advice I could give.

The first one was a wipe, clear, sound and solid wipe. Out of bad planning and not knowing the encounter. Something started to stirr in my mind as I was thinking what happened, but nothing tangible. Second try was another wipe, this time we got considerably farther, even though our healer decided to take a sunbath... And third was because both the healer and dps decided to make closer acquaintance with the dead.

Fourth was the epitaph of our running against unmeasurable odds. In the heat of the fight, Bishop DC'd and... announced that the battery in his mouse had just ran out. Both Förgelös and I were laughing silly due to this, causing...

Wipe four.

Obviously we got all pumped up by this, because we did it on the fifth try!

Out the bad air, in with the good.

Pit of Saron was another kind of beast. Forgemaster Garfrost went down on the second try, even though Bishop tried to even out the situation by DCing again. He didn't succeed.

Ick and Krick is an optional encounter which really measures -or as in our case, teaches- the value of movement and situational awareness to the newly dinged solo levelling beasts. Or it should at least do that. I decided it was time to bang our heads against that wall, as there was a certain lack in the quality of following the cues on the ground among our threesome.

I cut the long story short by these recaps:
- Förgelös dies in Toxic Waste. Bishop slips and we wipe.
- Bishop dies in the explosions. We wipe.
- Förgelös gets chased by Ick. He runs to Ick and keeps on beating him. We wipe.
- I get chased and run too far. The encounter resets even though Bishop lands several Holy Smites on Ick.
- I charge on Ick, Förgelös starts to whack Ick... and Bishop DC's just before the charge. Wipe.

Our (Laiskajaakko and Förgelös) gear was already red, the clock was around midnight and we had already exceeded our expectations for the evening so we called it a night.

Where Gevlon runs his Undergeared, we run Undermanned!

...

I give up on my aspirations

I made an experiment yesterday. And I will leave that as my last of sort.

You see, my biggest gripes with WoW at the moment is the fact that I cannot raid. The guild I'm in is raiding at reasonable times for normal people, starting at 21.00 on server time. That means 22.00 on my time, which is fine for the most. But the sad fact is that I'm waking up at 5.30 in the morning, and for me a sleep of 4.5 hours during week is way too short. (Basis to this: raid starts 22.00, lasts 3 hours, results ending time 01.00)

Can't do that, I'm worse than a zombie for the next day.

Even if the time was a couple of hours earlier, real life puts it's finger on the reset button. You see, I come back home around 18.00 if I'm lucky. Family requires quality time for sure, so I'm tied till something around 20.00-21.00. Game time commences after that, which doesn't last for long.

"Surely there are raids on weekends, too", I hear from the back. True, but my excuse is my hobby with the dogs. Over the summertime I'm involved with activities which tie me up for the whole weekend, without set ending time on the day. One event may end so that I'm home at 18.00, other so that I come home at 23.00. I can't make a commitment I cannot keep, that just doesn't fit into my thinking.

So I'm calling quits on the whole aspiration to ever raid in WoW. Because of that I'm stuck in the heroics limbo with no light at the end of the tunnel.

You see, the experiment was to play till midnight and see how my old corpse body would do afterwards. It doesn't cope well with the strain, so I work below my level at the moment and I cannot accept that.

Rest safe, Lich King. There is at least one threat less to pester you.

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Rise of the second rate raiders

Wrath of the Lich King has matured to the stage where the hard core raiders are starting to get bored with mister Lich King himself and are bailing out of the raiding mouse wheel. Here and there in the blogosphere you can see posts describing this in a way or another.

The more stable and steady guilds are replacing their A and B teams the rate they can to keep the raiding rolling. It's the rise of the second rate raiders in the sense that the people who earlier had a snowball's chance in Hell to roll into the raiding core of the progression guilds are now asked for the raiding just to keep the progression of alts and preparation for the Cataclysm going.

If you didn't have any chance to be included into the raids earlier, now it's time to start grinding the Icecrown 5-mans and Weekly Raids for that shining, spiffy ICC level gear.

In a way this also will be reflected on the PUG announcements for ICC, because there will not be enough people to fulfil the obscene Gearscore and Achievement requirements, and even PUG's must yield to the lesser experienced players attending.

All casuals, now it's time to rise and join the constant onslaught of the Lich King! Forget Cataclysm, the end is neigh!

Kind of sad revelation

Had a short chat with Azariell just sometime ago, where he told how he had dipped his toes in the deep end again: he joined his guild's progression raids and got a few guild firsts under his belt. As I was about to congratulate him he stated how the achievement of a first kill felt kind of empty and instead of feeling great about it he thought he had failed the encounter: as a warlock he was supposed to deliver dps, but instead he was stuck low in the dps meter and that made him feel like a failure.

In a way this reminded me the weekly raid I accompanied, in which our guild took down Marrowgar. I was in there for the first time, we ran it like 4 times before the kill and for me it was a kind of anti-climatic experience. Like I wasn't contributing to the whole at all, like I was depending on others to do their job better while doing mine as well as I then could. The same happened to me with Onyxia and Sartharion, even though we ran Sarth with only 9 for the achievement: hollow, empty feeling, almost stating that I was glad it was over.

The more I think of it, the challenge just isn't as tangible as it should be. There is no risk involved, only severe repetition to overcome the bosses. Gear makes the effort easier, but doesn't remove any risks.

Risk of losing something valuable makes the challenge more... how do you say it... rewarding in a way, as you know that you have not only survived but overcome the opposition. FPS' are epitome of this perceived challenge without fear of losing anything: they stay interesting for just so long until you notice that there is nothing to lose and nothing to gain except your name on the rankings. WoW and other current day MMOs have the same, except that the gained 'rewards' are in form of gear, achievements or titles, which are not even unique, but common and unrecogniseable to most. I couldn't make a difference between two players in WoW with different titles, really, as the titles do not mean a flies poop to me. Especially if the player acts like a jerk.

WoW is a bit too much of a positive sum instant gratification passtime, really. It's nice, lovely looking and kind of fluffy cream cake with some crunchy bits in it. Sweet and compelling but pretty hollow in the mechanics.

It's funny but I see the same problems in my other hobby, too. The lure-coursing is actually a test for the working dogs to see whether they could perform their original work as intended. Instead of recognizing it as such and revering with the information that their dog has passed the trial, the owners have had to make it a competition. Instead of being happy with passed trial and healthy dog, people are disappointed for not winning!

In WoW the similar thing is with the whole game, actually: as a MMO it's not a game which you can win, it's more a passtime. Instead of enjoying the scenery, quests and lore, people are trying to beat the game and put extreme emphasis on beating the mechanics instead of the story. The whole end game thing is a culmination of this: people play the game to win it and the designer are doing their best to come up with 'challenges' for the same people to bang their heads against.

I was about to write a blogpost about how Gevlon actually hit the nail sometime ago, when he noted that everyone in WoW thinks s/he is a hero, as the game greets everyone as a hero. Instead of being a hero (among heroes), everyone is the same and everyone expects to get the same experience. There are no heroes in WoW besides those of the lore, and most of them are dead for good.

This is flawed: in hellenic stories, the hero usually dies. Saves the day, but sacrifies his life for others. There is only one hero and several henchmen.

I can see why EVE is more on the right route in this. The beginning pilot is one of millions of beginning pilots (ok, thousands), and has no way in hell to even greet the ones who rule their corporations. If this pilot sets her/his objectives right and has the stamina to stick to his/her dream, s/he may well become the hero in the corporation. But there will be only few pilots who's name will stay in the lore.

Will Cataclysm remember the name of the player who was the first to kill the Lich King? Does anyone even know who was the hero who ended Illidan's reign?

I doubt WoW will ever have that kind of depth to it. Still, I still play it and like the parts I like, but for me the end game part with the repetition and no connection to the lore is dead. Dead even before I ever tried it for good. 

Isn't that sad?

Fun and games...

I know I have written earlier about this issue, but the recent experience of pure fun without any pressure on performance incited the idea once again. This is more a flow of thought kind of post, without any actual analysis of anything and is based on my thoughts (unless otherwise mentioned).

WoW is still designated as a game, even though there are no real game-like elements in it. You cannot win WoW, except if you count killing the final boss as "YOO WIN, DOOD!" screen. You cannot score a high score in WoW, except if you count the superficial arena point score or a gearscore-like scoring system as a valid scoring system. And you can replace any desired game name acronym on the place of WoW, even MMO, and the earlier sentences are true.

For some people fun comes from winning and being better than others. That is actually quite a western way of looking life, always striving to best others. In MMO this comes in the form of besting the bosses or the raid content in a group. The raid leader - being the leader - is considered to be the one who knows and understands the way the encounter works and thus can be taken as the best player in the group. (Yup, that was a gross generalisation.)

The competition in raid content comes from the competition between guilds, as the content is impossible to do as a single player. The most revered guilds are those that get the server first, or even world first, kills of the newest and 'hardest' end bosses.

But getting the world first doesn't mean you have won the MMO in question, as there will be a next one within short time.

I have a competitive enough job and other hobby to say that this kind of competition just for the sake of it doesn't interest me. Sure I would like to see the end game content as well as any other player out there, but that is not the reason I'm playing the game. And that is why I've had so hard time in understanding why I'm not enjoying the game as much as the other people playing it.

My concept of fun is different from the group I try to 'belong'.

For me the whole concept of min-maxing and trying to beat the content seems too serious and ... well, not fun as such. Formerly the fun had come from the exploration and finding new things in the game, while levelling reaching the new talents and skills to learn and use. At the level cap the development started to go through the min-maxing route and you can easily find many texts around the net (starting from the official forums) about people who don't have The Spec for their character or their gear composition isn't exactly what is considered to be of canon with the build or role their toon is supposed to have.

I bet the players are still having fun, despite of the people in random groups picking on them, making ridicule of them and calling them by names. Why would they be playing if that wasn't the case?

I have serious enough job as it is, and I prefer a contradictory entertainment after I get off from the office. Good old laughter, tears and silliness. Not grumpy, stern tweaking to fit the suite and current flavour of the month.

I just learned yesterday that my main's gearscore is about 4800 and then some. I have acquired that by running heroics and gearing up the way I have felt being the way I want my character to be. To be able to fill the spot in the group he's supposed to. Now the game has advanced so far that this doesn't seem enough, for the gs requirements for yesterday's weekly and pug raids called for gs above 5200. I would like to take on the weekly and pug raids, but because of the fact that I couldn't care less about the gs I have, I'm effectively cut off. And because I've never raided any of those places, really, I cannot fathom even trying to lead them or put up my own PUG.

I know this sounds strange to most of the people reading any kind of blogs, but I feel that this isn't the way the game should be played or how I should feel about my situation. I should take the lead, not care about the others and take what I want.

That's not how I want to do it.

I know I could take any tanking position with the skill I have: I have no problem in following a plan and winding it when necessary. Because I don't know the instances I just cannot see myself failing the 10 strangers who I will never probably meet. I wouldn't mind wiping and progressing slowly, but I would mind failing the others by not knowing how to handle the situation.

That wouldn't be fun, you see, and I would feel bad about it for a long time. It's too serious, that level cap raiding, it seems.

At the other end is the pure fun without any pressure. Do as you please and how you wish others to do. That last weekend's fabulous gnome event which SAN-EU arranged was exactly that. Pure, clean fun without any expectations (everyone was at the same level there) and without requirements (except being gnome and acting gnomish).

Who is to say which thinking is right or wrong? The people playing the game at the cap and hitting their head against the pre-scripted boss night after night for the kill or the people roleplaying at the mid levels, raiding for their character's story and taking the blows in verse?

It's not any players desire to perform poorly, I think. But I think that every player wants to have fun with their game, be it whatever. No fun is better than other, and fun is very subjective matter.

So I will keep whining about how I'm excluded - like so many other casual and time restricted players - from the end game content. I want to beat the final boss just as much as anyone playing WoW, but feel that "I am not prepared" or feel excluded from this due to the artificial requirements other players set. The result is that we take the alternative route, enjoying playing the stress free roleplaying character seeking his roots. Why?

Because that's more fun for me. What's your fun?

Who gets and what

I stumbled across a list of features of the forthcoming Guild Experience system hinted to come in Cataclysm. I read them through and forgot the whole thing until the other day, when I found myself comparing the guilds I've been associated with. I've seen quite a few different styles of running a guild, from very much military style organisation of the first guild I was in to the completely open and plutocratic system of SAN. Also the aims of the guilds have been very different: from the 'do as you please as long as you're having fun' of SAN to very much achievement and achieving oriented approach of the first guild I've been in. In between there are several different kind of mixes which have been somewhat successful to combine the parts of both ends.

The Guild experience system will do some damage to all of this, I think. Now the system which Blizzard presented in the Blizzcon last year is far from set in stone, but the overall idea of having all of the members of the guild to contribute to the guild sounds very nice. However, if we take the average casual, social raiding guild (tm) into consideration, what will happen?

Guild has two 10 man teams, which combine for the odd 25 man run once, twice a week. Regular schedule, so there are 30 raiding members in the roster. As this is casual and social, there are some 30 more casual players who either enjoy the company, hang around because of the cool name of the guild or are in because they think they have a chance to raid with the raid teams one day or another. So a 60 players in the guild, quite reasonable.

Currently the situation is such that the raiders would have to support their raiding by themselves, and the guild would help by disenchanting the gear not needed or distributed by the raid attendants. The casual part of the guild would just help when they are asked to and would happily be chatting around.

With the guild experience system, the guild gains experience from everything any member does, so the more active the casuals are, the more experience the guild gains. The raiders will continue as they are doing currently, logging in half an hour before the raid and chugging out as it ends, as well as the casuals would be logging in to do their quests, dailies, chatting and achievements. However, there was a mention of the guild experience and achievement for internal trading.

The optimist in me would like to see this mean that the raiders, who are the experts of the game by far, would trade with the casual members and lower level members of the guild. But if they continue doing what they usually do (because of being casual raiders), they login half an hour before the raid to get ready and log off right after the raid for the night is done. There is no connection to the social casual group of the guild, so the raiders would do their internal trades among themselves (I can see a lot trades in consumables and enchants on the way...), where as the casuals would have to do them by themselves. In the end, the casual group would be supporting the raiders in the guild, widening the separation even further.

There will be a huge recruitment spree because of this even before the Cataclysm hits: each and every guildmaster of a raiding guild can see the benefit of having as many slackers in their midst only because they generate the Guild system currency while the raiders are away and not attending to anything.

The question is, how can Blizzard be sure that this is going to be fair to all participants? I mean, the casuals are already paying for the content the raiders are consuming at ever faster rates.

The casual gamer, who I think are the biggest group in the game, are the ones who are paying for everything.

That's what I think.

..

March of the Gnomes

New beginnings and new experiences.

SAN-EU had an event for the forthcoming Gnomeregan rally: we had a group of gnomes spreading the news across the Alliance capitals. Needless to say, we marched from IF to SW in perfect order (ehem?) and gnomishly perfect formation (a mess is a formation, right?). The event had everything in it: laughter and tears, great comedy and parody, as well as excitement and fantastic death.(Pictorials here and here)

We had great fun. In fact, I mentioned after the event that it might have been the most fun I have ever had in the game. Sure, downing a boss is fun for the first time, but it's not the same kind of fun: its the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction of a job well done. This event was all fun and games, no hidden agenda, no GS requirements, no achievement pressure. 

Just fun. Go along and play a gnome. 

It also showed me something shocking about the player base of a RP server (yea, yea, a gross generalisation): there are distinct racial tensions and - one might say - racism in the game. As we entered Stormwind in our amazement, merriness and cheerful need for beer, we encountered a guard of Stormwind (played one, that is), who stated that we should leave the city because we're... not welcome in there!

Come again?

As the event progressed, the leader of the player driven guard stated the same. That we were causing trouble and unrest, and we should leave as the human population was getting nervous. Nervous! How about the gnomes who had lost their home in Gnomeregan?!

It became clear that the human population of the Stormwind were gnomists (gnome-haters). In real, this is no roleplaying in here.

You see, when we went to Darnassus, the Darnassian Guard didn't throw the gnome party out of the city even after they had had a swimming (and bubble fart bath) competition in the Moonwell... Strangely tolerant people those night elves.

Onwards, for Gnomeregan!

On the other hand, I ran a PUG or two with my lv76 priest. Or tried to run, because neither of the runs finished. The same happened with my DK, now lv72. The PUG started fine, but the run didn't finish as people just quit after the first wipe.

It seems that the PUGs are becoming more and more failpugs (or PIGs as we in SAN named them) the further down the expansion we go. The people in the PUGs showed all the signs of speed levelled toons who have no idea of how to play the toon, what skills or talents they have and/or how they fit into a group. I would guess that the heroic PUGs at the level cap are getting more and more facerolled because people who are running them for their alts are pulling the whole weight of the group. And at the same time the PUG raids are devising more and more restraining requirements in the lines of "GS 5.3k and achievement on all is a must" to make it even harder for the newly dinged players to even try their wings in the raids.

One could say that there is much Cataclysm could fix. But as it hits shelves sometime in the Autumn, all this content is completely voided and the Lich King himself will be chuckling while people just fly past his Citadel.

"Fools!"

It's alive! (YAWP)

I've had gripes with the current state of WoW at the level cap, and I've been pretty vocal about it. Somewhere along the way Kadomi suggested that I should try the guild of bloggers, Single Abstract Noun. On friday I took a firm grip of myself and rolled a toon on Argent Dawn-EU.

Bullcopra was reborn. Like some of the readers may remember, Bullcopra was the first character I've played for any longer time than session, and even though he was on a private server, it's the toon I fondly remember as my first. Tauren Warrior with attitude. Yes, SAN is a horde guild.

This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning my toons on Thunderhorn-EU. As it happens, I just crossed 40k gold on my banker, my main just got his first Frost Emblem gear upgrade (cloak) and my dk over there hit 450 in jewelcrafting. So more or less, the kind of mini-advancements have been going on in each of the areas I've been putting some emphasis on.

I've come to the conclusion that my main is a sort of loonie-magnet: all of the last PUGs I've been with him have been collections of abusive characters and group quitting rage. It has always been the fault of the tank, whatever the case.

I can't be that bad, and I refuse to believe anything like that.

Then again, the PUG I took with my dk yesterday was a flair: everything went smooth, the tank got some bashing from the mage who couldn't contain herself (aggro wise) even though everything went fine. The curious part was the tank thanking me for taking care of one or two of the casters in the trash: knowing how troublesome they are, I just Gripped them into the D&D area and within the reach of the tank's Clap. Simple, yet effective, and I didn't think about it. It was just something I had wished the dk's in my main's groups had done in Utgarde Keep.

On the Argent Dawn side, I noticed some things which bugged me grossly. First of all, the starter areas have been nerfed to zero. There are no hostile creatures within the starting area. Well, maybe one (like Sarkoth in the orc/troll area), but when you have to encounter that one, you are already overpowering it. You just cannot die in there, really, and because of that, part of the thrill of beginning your journey is lost. There is no fear of dying.

The other thing is the upgraded regeneration which plays pretty big role in the beginning. Your character regains HP almost as fast as one single mob can deliver. I had to check the situation a couple of times to believe it, because as far as I remember, Tauren do not have regenerative abilities.

Long story short: I didn't remember how fun and cumbersome the levelling up a new toon was. The DK kickstart - even though it is excellent in many ways - doesn't come nowhere near the experience of starting a completely new character from zero after such a long time in the high tiers of the power pyramid.

But you have to have open eyes to enjoy it.

And I have. Plus the good chatty company helps.