Sidestepping again (YAWP)

First things first. Blizzard has decided to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbour by releasing Cataclysm on it's 69th anniversary. I hope this is just coincidence and not a sign.

Anyhow, the weekend. I spent playing this and that, for example a great night of going through old Vanilla instance Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj, but the main thing for me was that I finally got my unguilded crafter DK to ding 80. And noticed how the problems started right on the bat.

You see, with the quest blues and greens, I was smacking top dps in all the instances up till I dinged. After that, I feel like a slacker, not being able to even compete with the big guys. Funny part is, that even though my dk sucks in delivering, he's been just getting encouraging comments from the people I've ran heroics with. Mind you, HEROICS. I gently skipped normal 5mans alltogether.

Had I been tanking, I would have been scorned, called names and kicked from the groups. Like happened to that one pally trying to be a tank in better gear, wiping the group in the Gundrak. I stayed, with gear score below 2.5k, where as he left with his score of 5+k. Go figure.

So thus far my experience with levelling - or gearing a toon through 5mans - has been such that a melee dps is the one most easiest left alone in the instances. Tanks are under the most scrutiny, high above healers which in turn are high above all dps.

I think I start doing IC5hc's with my tank as dps. I wouldn't need to talk to anyone, just hang around and deliver. No more stress nor waiting for the one less fortunate soul who decides to do something stupid for which the tank gets the blame in the end for not saving their sorry butts.

One other thing about this DK. The first instance I applied to as newly dinged lv80 was Coren Direbrew. Ques what happened? He got both mounts on the first try. My other toons do not have the mounts as of yet. Sucks to be me.

On the other hand, I have checked the new talent builds through WoWtal.com and I think I've found builds for my tank and his dps as well as my spriest. Of course the cookie cutter talent builds will come in no time, but as far as I can see the 'new' talent system is much easier to handle and is less prone to gimping your toon completely with 'bad' choices. The PvP talents stand easily out of the trees and are in some cases more a question of choice rather than crucial things. The main talents are still there, with the characteristics.

Last but not least. Last night. Guild 5man achievement runs. With my spriest. Great big fun. For example, it took us at least 15 impales in Gundrak before we got the Share the Love achievement. Zombiefest was a blast and no one died. Pupunen still has a lot to fill for the Glory of Hero meta, but then again, so does Laiskajaakko, my warrior. Not to speak about that newbie dk.

So I have again sidestepped from my tank. Shame on me. Have to correct that soon, as the rest of the guild seems to be smacking LK weekly now. Kingslayers everywhere, except in my roster.

But hey, I still have almost 2 months to go!
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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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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?

Come on people!

It's getting ridiculous. I should be taking screenshots of them.

I mean the requirements to join a PUG raid or instance through the /2 Trade calls.

"LFM weekly Anub'Rekhan, need 1 tank, 1 healer, dps. Achievement and GS check."
"LFM ICC10, achievement (pref for first 4 bosses) and GS 5.1K minimum."

Like what on Earth -or on Azeroth- are people thinking? Those are real calls, I'm afraid. Yesterday I saw a similar one for the current weekly on our server, Razorscale Must Die. To which I got myself, amazingly, only to learn that it's a very simple fight in the current gear levels (I have 2 piece T9, only, and it was easy), not something to call for an achievement or gearscore!

So has the need for fast, easy runs gotten too far? I think so. The ones calling for achievements, outrageous gearscore and incredibly overlevelling companions are in fact looking for the instant gratification for their time/effort. The same as the gogogogogo heroic runners.

If possible, people should take a step back and really think about it. How rewarding is it to down a boss which doesn't even have a slightest challenge?

I bet these people wouldn't do the grey quests, either, even if they are a part of the Loremaster achievement.

There are no badges to earn.

Hits and blunders (YAWP)

LFD is a wonderfull tool, which connects total strangers across the battleground to fight either select or -more often- completely random Wrath of the Lich King dungeon. It works like a clockwork, is simple, fast and very entertaining, most of the time.

And with that prelude I'm off to my weekend.

All well and fine in the world of Azeroth. I met both exceptionally working groups as well as one or two obnoxiously intolerable dps divas, mainly from the DK persuasion: I wonder if DK's have somehow replaced the most obnoxious group of all times -that being the Huntards- as the most self-centered players in the game? Then again, lets not let the few rotten apples to spoil the whole basket: there were also excellent DK's with whom I ran the Random Dungeons. Too bad they were guildies, but what can you expect? :P

The total anonymity of the LFD tool is yet to surface, for people are very polite and nice to each other. Only in few of the random groups I found people eager to chat, the most vocal was this one mage who's main phrase was "gogogogogo" after any and all encounters. But then again, that run through Drak'Tharon was very smooth and fast.

There are few annoying things about the LFD tool, too. The first, which started to pick me the first time I ran it, is the fact that a) you can be 'denied' from a group before it launches and b) of someone declines the group invite for a reason or another the whole group is returned to the queue. The first one I cannot explain because I haven't tried to be a leader yet, but the second is annoying example on how dumb the piece of program is. It makes a selection from the set population, but cannot make a reserve list from which to amend if any of the individuals rejects the invitation. Probably this can -and hopefully will- be tweaked in latter versions.

One nice thing, though, for the DPS classes over there. As I grouped with a guildie, a DK, we got a random group running within seconds. So in a way he was riding along with me being a tank and in constant need from the system. All in all, it pays to stick with a tank in this sense, too. As we found out, we saved each other's butts more than once, and the groups we ran from wipe more than once. Imagine that tank and DPS save the day after a triggerhappy paladin -the healer- decides to tank a miniboss and few adds... It was fun and furious and all the cooldowns were used, but we prevailed. And were the only ones alive when the dust settled.

The only thing that didn't go as well as I thought was the finale of the weekend, in which I decided to go with guildies into the IC hc 5mans chain. Forge of Souls was a blast and went so fast I didn't even know what happened. Really, I had to ask before we entered the portal to Pit of Saron what just happened. I was just keeping the mobs and bosses on me and trying to keep them hitting me, mostly without a problem. Old rules of not standing in anything and avoiding the blasts applied, FoS was surprisingly easy. For the group, that is.

Pit of Saron was something else, though. At least for me, as I have this problem with moving and tanking at the same time. Add to that multiple mobs and I'm having really hard time.

Forgemaster Garfrost was already somewhat hard on us, as the healer got eaten alive by the cold stacking on him on the first try. This was the first wipe in the whole run, but not the last... sadly.

Ick was the second, and I'm not sure as of yet, why. Maybe it was me, not moving the boss enough to help the dps to be in a spot without the toxic sludge, or something, because on the second run it went smoothly. The ramp up to the passageway proved to be problematic. My computer had frozen earlier due to some UI issue, but now I got DC'd. Luckily before a pull, but never the less. Something's wrong with my 'puter, as this wasn't the first nor the last case of freezes and odd behaviour. But up we went to the Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Which was the wipefest. First pull: I didn't know what hit me, but it hit well over 17k overkill. Second pull: it hit even faster and harder. Third pull: my screen froze just as Tyrannus jumped off of his mount. I came back to witness a wipe.

So. It left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Things to be happy about. New shiny shoulders for Laiskajaakko: it cost 45 Triumphs, but was worth it. Pupunen left Outlands and is now capable of Cold Weather Flight in Northrend: she'll next start running the random dungeons, too.

To do: find a good DPS gear set for Laiskajaakko's Arms build. He's lacking a decent dps set for runs in which the tank is better, which are usually guild runs. But it would be nice to see the instances from the dps point of view and to see how other tanks do the job, especially in the instances I have trouble with mobs.

All in all, a good solid weekend of fun.

How about yours?

Social explorer learning to dance?

Gearing game is one real bag of surprises: at one time you are really in the dumps for lacking emblems or money to replace your obsolete gear, and the next moment you're hilarious over a piece of gear which drops from the daily heroic you're running with your guildies. Like yesterday, we had a lovely -though I saw it as messy on my tanking part- run through the daily Halls of Lightning, which really elevated my spirits and made me love certain guildies even more. Ok, the one PUG member we had -a rogue- made his contribution too, whispering me that he thought I did remarkably good tanking effort, for in his guild their main tank/guild leader cannot hold his aggro in Onyxia from this rogue, whereas I could keep the aggro through the whole instance.

I tank. Really!

The dumps came from the fact that instead of costing 25 Emblems of Triumph my Holy Grail -Clutch of Fortification- costs 35... Cursed be my excellent, though short, memory!

As I was sitting in the Lagalan Dalaran, I read some posts in the general chat: something I have woved not to do anymore. I dare to take the chance now, as I'm getting more confident over my skill, though my gear is at the moment disagreeing with my ambitions (below def cap again with immensely better gear, go figure...). And I understood what had been bothering me for a while already, something my brother Förgelös had said way back when earlier.

As an explorer I enjoy more about learning the steps than dancing in some other's steps.

Currently Laiskajaakko (prot warrior) is stuck in the gearing game by running heroics, heroic dailies and ToC. Mostly that is a mental barrier, because the other -not necessarily more profitable- option would be to PUG the raid instances like Naxx, VoA, Onyxia or normal Ulduar. This poses the problem (and explains my earlier sentence): entering the entry raids I would have to learn the boss encounters and know them before I even see the boss! In our Shadow Labyrinth run the most fun we had was when we had to figure out how the bosses should be handled and the reward was -instead of leet loot- the downing of the said boss. Now the 'gratification' factor would be to be able to follow the steps someone else has laid out before the instance hit gold.

I agree that most of the heroics I run now would have required some ideas on how they work, but the overpowered guild teams I run them with lower the barrier of the lacking knowledge a lot. Like yesterday.

This wasn't enough for me to realize: If I was to enter the entry raiding PUG's, I would be required to know ALL the boss dances before entering the PUG! Let's see what I would have to memorize to be even slightly comfortable with them (and not making myself the village idiot, loser and noob in the group):
- Obsidian Sanctum, no drakes would be a start... and what the heck does it even mean?!
- Naxx, all wings, 15 boss encounters, 18 bosses
- Vault of Archavon/Koralon, two bosses
- Ulduar (Don't even know where to start!!)

And in signing in to a PUG to run Naxx for example, I wouldn't know even which wing to start with...

Perhaps it is easier for a new player just to skip the obsolete raid content and aim for the highest content available, gearing through emblems and loot piñatas. I fear not, because someone will be doing an addon which tells you what happens when and what to do (DBM and BigWigs are on their way to this direction) in no time. And if there is another way to experience the content as it is (in addition to the Goblin way of purchasing the raid), I would be happy to hear about it and tell the world.

Because for the moment I'm not too happy to start learning the steps before knowing whether I even get to dance. This is effectively the same as being invited from the local soccer team of friends to play in a world league team without prior notice, only to be standing in the field and being pushed aside during the game.

That would not be fun at all.

Short recap of some blogposts

I have to make some pointers to interesting blogposts that have popped up within a few days now. First of all, Tobold makes a very nice and -I think- precise review of WoW after 5 years of gameplay, pointing out the good and the bad and the ugly, though being IMO a bit soft on the bad side. For example he doesn't point to the gearing game which has changed the end game over the time, even though he mentions that the content is too easily overcome to the hardcore gamers. I also found the mention of an average gamer a bit odd... makes me feel that I'm something not so average anymore and my sense of being average somehow degrading. Oh, well. Keen from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog pours even more salt to the wounds in his excellent post about how the developers want us to perceive the game world our avatars explore. Really made me think about how I have perceived the game worlds I've visited and what has been missing I have not seen in them.Great reading.

And after I read Gordon's post (We Fly Spitfires) about raiding being the end game of MMORPG's I realized that the angst I have had with my newly capped lv80 isn't just mine or affecting me alone, but is a more widely perceived 'problem' of sorts. This combined with Kyrilean's (Casual Hardcore) notion that the new emblems are making the new raid content more accessible but are making the old raid content obsolete summarises nicely the feelings of a newcomer lv80 in WoW, who wants to experience the content the way it was supposed to be experienced. Instead of voiding the content Blizzard should -IMO- create systems which would reward people to progress the toons and make that progression more accessible. Matt from Wildwhine writes about the same thing.

There was yet another post I was trying to find to complete this recap, but I couldn't find it. To be honest, I don't even remember anymore what it was about after reading all the posts mentioned up there. Needless to say, they are worth the read.

And the blogs mentioned are worth their place in your reader, in case they aren't there yet.

With a little help from my friends...

What an appropriate quote from The Beatles' to describe last evening's furious couple of hours.

Last evening was a special one for several reasons. Not only did Azariel pay a visit on the 'wussie side' and chat  with me (read: mock and abuse me), but everything seemed to click into place.

First of all, the fishing and cooking dailies were one shots both. I found a helmet from a quest chain I hadn't finished which alone helped my defense to come closer to my aim.

And I learned that the defense caps are a myth to normal 80's instances, providing you have a good group.

You see, I was minding my own business (dailies in Dalaran) when there was a question in guild channel, offering a gear up run in normal Trial of the Champions. Me, being the carefull and concerned bugger, volunteered to join if my presence wouldn't ruin the fun of the rest of the group.

During the meantime I made the Argent Tournament's dailies, learned a bit more about the jousting (which I hate even more) and finally we entered to the instance. My first 5-mans at lv80.

Trial of the Champions, normal.

Anyone who has been there knows that the beginning of first stage is... Jousting.

The end is tank and spank with emphasis on grouping the mobs and not standing in the muck. I've learned from Outlands already, that anything on the floor is bad and should be avoided. Except the dead mobs, of course, but anything else is BAD.

The second part is more grouping exercises and avoiding aoe and turning your back to the boss.

Third is the Black Knight with his army of exploding ghouls.

The group being that of our guild's finest I was lead from stage and encounter to another in a very civil manner. Needless to say, the first run was spectacular: everything worked lovely, we cleared stage after stage without a hitch and the crowd was cheering. In a way I was amazed how my lacking defense wasn't an issue at all, not to mention the fabulous drop I got. My first lv80 purple. (Don't ask me now what it was, I'm relishing the moment, not looking at the Armoury!)

After a successful run we decided to do another. The other players had their alts (or alt's alt or something) and it was obvious they really knew how the encounter works and all. Like I've commented at some point, it's a pleasure to run with a group of professionals: the mentality strikes at all levels and makes you perform yourself at higher level.

The second run wasn't as easy, and we wiped a couple of times. This is where the professional, achiever mentality shows even more: there was no calling on who lacked and who sucked. Instead, everyone more or less analyzed their own performance and what they did wrong THEMSELF and tried to find the reason WHY the wipe happened. And adapted on the next run.

Needless to say, we cleared the instance with flying colours, I was very happy camper and owned two shining pieces of purple gear. I was pretty pleased on my first run on a lv80 normal, even though my defense was 499 after the loot and 'miscolored' gem.

As the whole instance run was so smooth, the whole group agreed to do it again today. Provided all are at the computer: after all it's friday.

And guess what: by receiving this kind of welcome, I'm bound to the guild even stronger.

I'm there to help others when they need. Suck that, Gevlon, with your M&S speeches. This provides continuity to a healthy guild and makes it sure that the guild which is strong from inside will continue to exist beyond the 'next guildbreaker' expansion.

Now I'm hungry for more guild love. :P

Obsolete endgame content

Just read an older post from Tobold, in which he proposes a form of horizontal expansion model to keep the whole content of the game more alive: Instead of adding more content to the level cap -thus making the old level cap content obsolete- he suggests that the players at the cap could get more beginning class options opened. Like in a racing game, you open up more car options after winning certain amount of races. From basic four (mage, warrior, priest, rogue) you advance to hybrids (paladin, warlock, druid, shaman) from which you advance to heroic classes (dk and so on), which you would start from the level 1 and keep the old content alive for the newcomers to come and enjoy the populated MMO environment.

(Side note: It's funny, but when I wrote my Learning to Play text, both syncaine at Hardcore Casual and Spinks in Spinksville wrote about the same issues which boggle my mind. Great minds and so on.)

What I had bobbing in my mind was the reason why the former end game has gotten forgotten. Why the reputation grind for factions goes completely unnoticed (in WoW), why the instances get forgotten and passed on the premise of a new expansion and how come the designers forget to tie in the expansions (at least in WoW... In EQ2 I saw some pretty neat quest line tie ins leading from one content to another...).

It seems that the vertical expansion route deliberately forgets and abandons the former -"farmed to death"- content in favour of the new one: the entry level to TBC was lv58 (56 if you had a mage to teleport you to Shattrath), and for the WotLK it's lv68 (which is IMO still too OP for properly geared toon...). What especially bothers me is that Pike's example I linked to earlier: Sunwell and Kael'Thas has been neglected by a huge amount of people, and still it's bound to be a great experience -even as nerfed one.

Let alone Mnt Hyjal and Black Temple...

To turn obsolete 'end game content' into something else... you have to device some twists into the former end game rewards and/or add some levels to the reputation rewards which incite the need to visit and do more for the earlier factions in order to advance in the new ones. Currently you can easily advance through the game and forget the faction reputations, and grind only the level cap ones you want to.

What if this wasn't so?

You couldn't gain the much fabled reward enchantment without an earlier faction rep at certain level: the fastest way to gain this would be a mentoring run through an earlier (heroic) instance. Old World endgame instances should be cut into smaller pieces and designed to work the same way as the Outlands and Northrend ones, being fairly easy one shots in normal and challenging at the heroic. The instances granting extra amount of reputation could be even harder than Heroic, scaling to the level of the party attending to it.

The options are there: it's all about the willingness of the design team to tackle this 800lb gorilla monster and make some tweaks in the basics. The game has been dumbed down enough now.

We casual players have brains, too, so the challenges could be something else than just adding twitch into the boss fights.