Moonkin Musings

Why I quit WOW \ The issues with World of Warcraft: Part 1

2009-12-24T08:58:00.000-05:00

Greeting Musers

I mentioned in my last post I quit WOW because the consequences of playing WOW were no longer worth the benefits. When I attended my IT end of year meeting & mentioned this to another ex-player he concurred this was the same reason he had quit. Though we briefly spoke about it, we began to discuss the issues with the game that lead us to this choice.

Before I begin though I need to explain my list. As an IT systems geek, I have to look at the big picture in order to solve problems & to grade issues. This has lead me to be cold at times when a user is having problems with a BlackBerry, but as they're bosses boss knows I have to support all of our company's BlackBerry's for the America's. But it does give me an insight into the how's and why's on system's, such as World of Warcraft.

The main issue with WOW is the same issue many other systems face. It was built to solve a problem, was hugely successful & is now being forced to do things that the original designers never intended it to do. It has attracted user's who were not familiar to the architecture of the system & had to be adjusted to support them while at the same time keeping it's original user's happy.WOW has now become bloatware.

Before I go into this lets talk about why WOW rocked. 1st though MMO 101: All subscription based MMO use a standard currency: Time. He who can put in the most hours (or who can afford to pay someone to put the hours in for him,) is He who is on top. When WOW launched in 2004, it was successful because it greatly improved on the MMO Currency exchange rate . Prior to WOW MMO's were awful in this regard.You don't get a term like poopsocking if a game is an enjoyable romp in the woods! WOW's designers took the currency rate & cut it in half . A dungeon that took 4 hours in Everquest now only took 2 hours. A raid that took 8 hours now only took 4 etc. This made it possible for what i think was WOW biggest success: The democratization of MMO's

By cutting down on the amount of time required to play the game WOW opened up MMO's to people who had avoided them due to the draconian requirements. A 25 year old male gamer who avoided EQ\UO because they had a full time job, social life etc. could now afford the time requirements of WOW. Yes he would have to give up something else to play the game but now he could delve into the MMO environment that he had avoided for fear of the consequences. While this was in itself a tremendous improvement. WOW greatest success was far more sublime.

Over the years people have written about WOW's success and listed the many things that the game improved on compared to existing MMO's I have found though that with successful systems it's always the unassuming things that lead to their success. For example Facebook over took My Space because it was easier to use. That's it - End of Story. It was an easier for someone with little computer experience to use Facebook than it was to setup a MySpace page.

WOW became the top dog because it allowed people with no MMO experience to start playing the game without jumping through hoops. Prior to WOW required a user to either a.) Know someone who would help you along b.) Read up prior to setting up a character or c.) Suffering from griever's or PK's until you learned the ropes. WOW changed this. People who had never played a video game were able to load it, login & learn how to play. This feature + the cut down of time requirements + all the other improvement that WOW presented is why it still has 12 million user's playing it.
In my next post I'll go into the details of how these great improvement have lead to it's current sad state
Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Why I quit WOW: A farewell to Moonkin Musings (sniff, sniff)

2009-12-24T07:46:00.001-05:00

Greetings Musers:

Well it's been over six months since I last posted. It may have been another six months if a reader hadn't emailed me to see why the posts stopped in June. But that /player poke gave me the urge to put what's been mulling in my head for a while, but it really came to fruition this past Tuesday when I sat with a co-worker who's also an ex-wow player & we mused over why we quit the game & what we saw as the critical flaws in WOW. Granted we're both IT people so our views may be a little biased but he did agree with my points on the issues & the logic of our decisions.

I quit WOW back in August. Initially it was a response to a crisis of my own creation, & as a self-flagellation to the death of one of my pet chinchillas. I thought that if I had paid more attention to the little puff then maybe the issues he had would've have been more noticeable. and I could've saved him.

But as I've made peace with the fact that 1.) he was sick for a long time & 2.) his breeder stopped breeding chinchillas due to the issues with her herd. I forgave myself for his Death. Still though I quit WOW.

    I have to admit it was very hard, the urge to play was strong. And oddly the person I had initially quit for, (my wife) actually encouraged me to play. Her argument was that it was my way of de-stressing & as long as I handled it in moderation she was fine with it. So I reloaded the game, & started up again. Then one night while I was in the middle of a daily quest for the Argent Crusade, she tells me that she wishes I wasn't play WOW again & that she liked me when I was "Off the Dragon." I promptly shut down & proceeded to delete my alt characters (even my Tauren Druid!) & left poor Neren alone on the character list.
     In addition I also had to remove the client from my work PC due to our company's IT security audit. While this was never an issue prior (hence 7 IT staffers having WOW loaded & being told of the record it didn't worry the security officer since his scans of our PC's had shown no misuse other than the WOW client.) because of the audit the various 'unauthorized apps' that we had been allowed to use on our PC had to be removed so that we didn't get any write-ups.
So no WOW on my Work PC & no access on my home PC did help with the withdrawal, but don't get me wrong there have been many times in the past four months I've wanted to play again. When I heard about the release of Cataclysm, when I had a really rough day, when I was by myself on a Friday or Saturday night because my wife was watching our nephew's or nieces. But I didn't start playing again. It wasn't that the game was boring, It was that I realized that WOW is a lifestyle. I'll repeat that last point: World of Warcraft is a lifestyle and like any lifestyle it forces you to make choices. I got to a point where the choices that you have to make in order to play WOW were not worth the consequences.

    Before I continue I need to make this point. For most of this decade I practiced & taught Aikido. One of the many things I got out of my practice was the following: All choices have good & bad consequences. When I started back in 2001 my girlfriend at the time encouraged me to practice, I had wanted to study Aikido since early 2000. The consequence of this encouragement was that within a month of my practice the Children's Aikido instructor felt I had the right temperament to help with the Kids class. I could've said no but hey he was a Nidan & I was frankly scared of saying no to him.
    Because I started helping with Kids class I could no longer go out on Friday nights with her & our friends since I had to be at the Dojo bright & early Saturday morning to clean it before classes started. The one time she came to meet me at the Dojo on a Friday night to go out to Dinner became an uncomfortable hour of suffering for her since she had gone out to a bar prior & in her words "felt dirty" coming into the Dojo smelling of cigarettes & alcohol. In retrospect her choice of encouraging me to practice Aikido & my choice of pursuing the apprentice path lead to eventual break-up.

     In that respect WOW is no different. The choices I had to make to be a successful player on my server were no longer worth the consequences. This is why I've been able to resist the urge to re-login; I could've reup'd my account but it wasn't worth the effects in the real world. I'll cover these effects in my follow up post. Until then consider what WOW has given you vs. what it's denied you. If your like me you may find that it's no longer the end all be all

Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Brain Calgonated but who am I now?

2009-06-08T10:19:00.002-04:00

Good morning musers!

I don't have words for the lack of blogging over the last month. I seriously underestimated what the tutoring schedule would do to my brain. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets, but I think that I needed to be more honest with myself. If I can't play WOW then I can't blog about WOW. Blogging requires a minimum commitment of WOW time in order to aggregate enough events to make a decent post.

So you may be asking wth is up with the Title for this post? Well this weekend, which was absolutely lovely if I may say so, I spent with my loving wife & just relaxed and let my brain soak, no major thinking no students just mental calgon. It was just lovely. To top it off, my honey went to the gym after Sunday's festivities. Which gave me some uninterrupted WOW time. After banging out some dailies, I see on guild chat someone looking for an arena partner & I find myself saying on gchat, " I'd love to get a 2x2 or 3x3 team"

This leads to my first major change since I did a Major Post. I LOVE PVP! I dunno maybe it was all the stress of the last month, but I found BG's WG & now arena fun & relaxing.

But this is so odd for me, I was so anti-pvp for so long that my friend Doug busted my boomkin balls for wanting to do a 2x2 with him. He ripped into me how he had begged me to be in his 3x3 back in the BC days I had snubbed him. This was of course when he was scoring the Green Trophy Tabard of the Illdari, on Sat afternoon but I digress.

Onto other items of note

Guild dramarama: I'm still in Knights of the Blade, but I may be looking to leave, there has been guild leadership issues over the last month which have lead to progression issues & other items. I do like all of the people in the guild, but with the summer coming I may look to greener pastures. Still I may stick around & see if they're able to shake this off. Stay tuned for more dramarama

On the state of cowardice: This has to do with VOA 25 & Mr. Emalon. I've noticed a level of cowardice towards Emmy that makes me shake my head & wish for the good old days when I got yelled at for being a boomkin. Here is what I've seen since his arrival on the scene

1.) VOA 25 Pug gets organized

2.) People wipe on 1st Emalon mob due to n00bishness

3.) Players whine that we should do the easier boss 1st

4.) if easier boss is done 1st, whiners leave raid after scoring gear\badges.

5.) If Emalon is done 1st whiners leave raid.

Hopefully as players get better geared etc, this pattern will VOT, but it is leading to gear check's as a response to players asking to be invited then bailing on emalon.

That's it for today

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

Remember Me?

2009-06-01T17:07:00.002-04:00

Greetings Musers
Yes I know I've slacked on the blog for way too long! I feel so bad about it! Even though I have on my treo to post every four days, actually finding the time to post with my schedule was nigh impossible. I even had a couple of good ideas to boot!
In Any case with the slowdown in SAT work I should have mental juices to update my blog more frequently!
Until Then
The Musing Moonkin

Won't anyone think of the children?!?!

2009-05-04T16:04:00.004-04:00

Greeting fellow musers!

In general I hate it when I'm right, since it usually isn't good news, but alas regarding my post about Noblegarden\Children's Week\Argent Tournament screwing up day to day patterns on my server has been proven correct. Only 1 out of 25 flasks of endless rage sold on the AH. Not because they were overpriced but because no one was raiding. I don't know what is going on with other servers\guilds but my guild has taken to raiding on Friday\Saturday to compensate for all of the the holiday's. I wouldn't mind this schedule except that Friday is now a teaching night for me & Saturday is off limits unless the wife is out & about. An important note gentle reader's it really is good to set days that you will not raid unless X criteria is met (in my case X is wife is away on business or out with friends.)

I am feeling ambivalent regarding the achievement's for Children's week. I don't know if it's because I'm on a dark humor binge ATM, or because I think that they took a event that was I felt was very sweet & added some dark items to it. (Hail To The King, Baby is just plain dark IMHO.) I've been mulling over some other changes that I think would fit this dark, bleak version of Children's week

1.) Orphans brought into Battlegrounds, Instanced Dungeons or Daily Quests where damage can incur can be killed. So you've accepted responsibility for your orphan how can you not expect that bringing your ward into a dangerous environment wouldn't have consequences. What did you think was going to happen? It's a kid for frak's sake. I feel that this will make earning the achievements involving combat much more valuable.

2.) New Achievement! I've singled out the kids who are mean to me: We all know that children; esp children who are orphan's due to War, Catastrophe etc can be mean to the 'new kid'. Show your love of your orphan by helping him\her get revenge on the kids who tease him at the orphanage.

3.) New Achievement! Laying Flowers On Their Graves: Help your orphan find closure with the senseless death of their parents by taking them to their grave\final resting place of their parents.

If you can think of any other changes that can be made to children's week let me know & I'll post them

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

3.1. Aftershocks: Herd Mentality in full swing

2009-04-30T09:17:00.004-04:00

Good Morning Musers,

I had this minor moment on insight yesterday after getting the Noblegarden title outta the way. I went over to the AH in IF to post some flasks & get some mats to make more flasks when I noticed that there were barley any flasks or mats for sale. Oddly price gouging of the assrouge variety was not in swing (though this was rectified by last night; frost lotus was up to 140% of market value on fenris's alliance ah's)

I then realized that while I was posting my wares that no one was actually in IF, players on Fenris were either wrapped up completing Noblegarden, perusing advancement in the Argent Tournament or god forbid trying to get both done at the same time. My curiosity intrigued I scanned the AH and discovered that it's cupboards were not fully stocked. There was gear on sale of course but not the rows and rows that normally would be available to peruse.

I'm still trying to explain this logically, I think what I saw on my server and may be happening on other server's is a classic example of herd mentality. If enough people stop doing their daily routine to pursue a special event (holiday, sporting, etc.) It will affect day to day needs whether in a community or on a virtual world.

The question I have though is how long will this disruption continue. My gut says that with Children's week Starting on Saturday we will still see disruptions with day to day server needs for at least two weeks. By then people will have done enough Argent Tournament quests that they will start to pursue their usual goals.

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

A Noble Idea

2009-04-27T11:10:00.003-04:00

Good Morning Musers!
Well it was noble of me to think that I could keep a hard 'n fast writing schedule, but RL reared it's ugly head and prevented me from keeping up beyond daily tweets. This was compounded by the fact that two server events were going on & I had guild runs to do & I had real life obligations.
So let's see what's been going on
1.) Naxx 25 Cleared: Yes I stayed up till 2am on Sat to finally knock this achievement off the list. As you may be aware I tutor all day Saturday, So I had been up since 6am and had taught 3 kids that day. (AKA it wasn't a quiet day for me.) I actually passed out during phase 3 of the KT fight. It took my GM screaming at me to move out of the Purple Rings O Death to wake me up. While Naxx may be easysauce I firmly believe now that it's best done either as an afternoon event on the weekend or over two nights. There's just something that happens around the 2nd wing were people start going AFK. I don't know what it is but suddenly people will post bio BRB, afk phone etc.
2.) Gear Upgrades: This has been bittersweet for me, I tend to get attached to my gear & I set goals on what I'd like to replace with what etc, but sometimes you have to go with what drops. I had to make peace with that and take what the random die roll generated.
3.) Petopia: I do love holiday events esp when it get's me closer to my goal of 75 pets!!! I have grown quite fond of my Argent Page as it is quite nice to have a pet to kneels before you periodically!.

That's it for now. I'm off to enjoy a tasty Lunch!
Until Another Day
The Musing Moonkin

Feeling like a plucked chicken!

2009-04-17T17:44:00.003-04:00

Good afternoon musers

First off I hope that your server has finally become stabilized. Fenris became somewhat stable last night, though there were still some hiccups here & there.

Well I wanted to post my current talent build but the armory isnt' updated. Needless to say right now I feel very un-moonkinie (if that is a word) I took the points I put into Typhoon & Starfall & put them into Imp IS & Imp FF. While this does up the dps across the board i feel like I've cut some of myself off. I know that Typhoon really is for PVP & Starfire is situational at best but still I miss them.

Normally I don't post questions to my readers but for those souls that do mull over my scribblings have you noticed this feeling before when you sacrifice BOOM for viability?

Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin

3.1 Quick Thoughts

2009-04-15T11:52:00.003-04:00

1.) Job Well Done!

As always Blizzard takes what worked & didn't work in previous major patches and improves on them.

Positives

- Argent Tournament is fantastic. What got me was the fact that you have to earn the right to compete in the tourney & from what I can gather this takes at least 3-4 days to acquire all the tokens. This means that all day players only have a slight advantage against casuals.

- In addition it opens up a number of items and achievements. I like the fact you can trade tokens for faction rep.

- Mounts Swimming is fun, hilarious & ever so useful.

- Fishing quests actually make sense, though the question for me is do I or don't I focus fire on getting that Turtle Mount?

- Completing the Epic Flight Form quest line is now a feat of strength. Oh Yeah!

- Level 213 idols being available for purchase. Goodbye Idol of Steadfast Renewal! Hello Idol of the Shooting Star!

Negatives

Major

- Mana Regen Nerf: Before I vent, I have a feeling this nerf will itself be nerfed. I understand the dev's view that mana regen was way too high (it kinda reminded me of a sci-fi weapon's power pack being drained then quickly replenished) but still the 40% nerf was a bit much. My guess is that it was nerfed that hard so they can 'adjust' it to say 20%.

- No Alchemy Daily Quests WTF?!!? I was so looking forward to this. I am seriously considering giving up my Alchy Stone for a epic trinket now.

- Dual-Spec: I'm going to have to agree with a couple of my cohorts, this was the worst 1000gp I have ever spent in world of warcraft. In my opinion, the concept of Dual Spec is good, the idea behind it is good, the implementation of it is good. Where it fails is the reality of players. What I saw last night was scores of alliance players on Fenris 'expanding their minds' only to say a few minutes later WTF, when am I ever going to be Shadow Priest or a Ret Pally.

Here's my point. To be an effective player, you need to know your class & spec. Unfortunately that takes time. There's no way around it, you want to be a good PVP'r your going to be in the battlegrounds or arenas for hours, you want to raid end game? Expect to put in hours reading strat working out theorycraft, determining what is sacrificed for what etc.

I can back this up with my own experiences Bear Tanking last summer, reading how to feral tank is one thing, but actually doing it took about six weeks before I had it down in normal dungeons.

I guess this ties back to my belief that once you find your ideal self, you should stick to it. In the end you find your alts unsatisfying.

Minor

Mini-Map needs to be fixed couldn't see my arrow on the new one.

That's it for now

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

Moonkin Fury, Dual-Spec Delight & My First Poll

2009-04-14T11:32:00.005-04:00

Good Morning Musers!

Wow, all I have to say is wow. The last couple of days have been chaos in both game & real life. For starters I scored big in Naxx 25. I mean huge I won the heroic key to the Eye of Eternity Raid. Actually I didn't win it, another player beat my roll of a 86 with a 94, but he had already won a trinket from Sapphiron & he had forgotten the raid rule of 1 item per boss. Oh joy of joys!

I also won my tier 7.5 chest piece. As of last night my wrath is now hitting between 5.8k & 6.2K! & my Starfire is Criting right below 11k However I refuse I mean absolutely refuse to put the Powerful Stats enchant on it. The reagents for the enchant are absurd! 4X dream shard & abyss crystal?!!? Sorry but the difference between that and Super Stats (+8 vs +10) don't justify the cost.

Now onto new business. 3.1 is launching today, I am both excited and nervous. One one end I am kinda curious to try Feral Tanking, but at the other end, I have to agree with a co-worker who said that Dual-Spec allows groups to Spackle in a player to fill a void but that player will not have the experience to effectively preform the role that he's now assuming. What I think we'll see is a lot of almost WOW's funniest home video's moments such as a holy pally tanks and gets his ass handed to him etc etc for a couple weeks until players get their bearings.

Lastly I've posted my first poll! Yes should I dual spec (and if so which blend) or should I stay true & stick to a single spec. I look forward to your input!

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

Support your local merchant: Thoughts on buyer's psychology in WOW

2009-04-06T11:47:00.005-04:00

Good Morning Musers!

First off; Yes I know I've been negligent on my posts over the last couple of days! To remedy this I've setup a Blog schedule. My goal is that Moonkin Musings will now be updated every four days. My hope is that this will remedy a issue that I've seen with my posting. I go through spats of grand ideas and then months of drivel!

Ok now that's out of the way. Onto new business. My experiment in working the auction house has been a profitable success. I won't say my coffer's are overflowing but I'm getting to the point where I can actually look at a BOE level 213 epic & mull over actually purchasing it. I haven't though I need to have money to make money, & alchemy while profitable isn't a cash cow the same way enchanting is!

Also while having a Mule has it's merits, I've found that a mule doesn't cut it after a certain point. I'm not saying that Mules don't have their place in the server economy, but they have their limits. Mules conflict directly with a need that a buyer has trust.

When you use an Alt to conduct business beyond X scale (X being the value of the item but for arguments sake lets us the 150 gold level that blizzard will be adding a confirm to in 3.1), it adds a a level of skepticism\mistrust to the transaction. This level directly increases to the amount of gold that is needed to purchase the goods or services.

OK so you may be thinking why? Well my hypothesis is quite simple. Just like in real life we're just more comfortable buying from people we know then people we don't know. We're able to rationalize away this discomfort with small purchases, but as purchases increase in cost, we get more nervous about the purchase. We want to buy the goods from someone we know, someone who we can go back to if we need something else etc. Also with large purchases, negotiations will take place. If an item is on the AH for 2800gp, it may sell it may not sell, however if you know the person and tell them I'll buy it for 2500gp, then they've still made a sale.

The question for me though is how far will real-world economic psychology permeates into MMORPG's will it get to the point where brand loyalty comes into play? Will people forgo gaming to be farmers for a player who's amassed enough gold to pay game salaries? I suppose only time will tell.

- Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin

Finacial Idealism vs. Reality: WOW Style!

2009-03-30T07:06:00.005-04:00

Greetings musers!

Today's topic is something near and dear to my heart the sordid topic of coin! Unless you're a new reader, you already know that I work two jobs to make my financial goals. desire, intent and dedication to succeed financially. Well my friends this desire, intent and dedication to succeed financially has finally crossed over into wow! I pulled in about 1k in auctions between Sunday morning and afternoon, and put more auctions up this morning as well. I know to some of you this is a non-news as you're already masters of high finance. But to me this is a big deal. In fact it's a HUGE deal.

You see in my ideal self I'm beyond money. I'm almost aesthetic about it I have enough, I'm not greedy I feel like I should rise above it. This view helps me keep WOW in perspective (as I've said to people who've I've given gold to "It's just digital imaginary numbers"

In the real world I was once the same way, but reality, hard cruel pwing reality taught me otherwise. Frankly, I was almost delusional. Part of this was my own self-deception, and part was due to my grooming. I was being skilled up that I would be a learned man, a man who's skills and knowledge would mean that I could afford to have others watch out for me. This belief was re-enforced by several factors. The primary one was my upbringing I had literally been raised by my family with no concept of finances beyond the abstract, and thinking back on the matter I even recall that when I was curious about daily money matters my family eschewed me for not focusing on my studies

So now we flash forward, I'm in my mid-late 20's and practicing Aikido on a daily basis, I share a apartment with a roommate & I've become fairly self-sufficient. Still though my family is telling me that while I was self-sufficient now, after I grew up a bit more I would have other take care of my finances for me. To add to this In my martial arts practice I saw what my family discussed actually being carried out. First in my readings on Aikido (O-Sensei's son handled the dojo day to day business,) and in my own dojo with my Sensei's wife handling money matters. After all they were above petty dirty common details like payment & left that to others (course now I don't think highly of this.) but back then it made perfect sense to me.

I think the high point of this way of approaching finances was in 2003 when I bought my car. I didn't negotiate for it, I didn't haggle for it, the whole transaction was handled by my family. I came in, shook the dealers hand, went into the finance office, signed on the line and drove off. Of course though I learned (as many creative people do) that if you have others handle your fiance's hijinks's will ensue. So I learned grew up moved on. etc. etc.

Except in World of Warcraft.

In WOW a war has raged about in-game finances between my ideal self and real self for a long long time. I really noticed though back when 2.4 launched. Like now I was teaching 15-20 hours a week, and because of the requirements to raid I only had time to do SSO dailies. After a couple of weeks of SSO dailies I found that I had a huge surplus if money (at the time over 5k.) I didn't know what to do with all this gold, so I blew a lot of it: 20 slot bags, recipes, pets etc. I then went horde for the summer & spent the fall farming a wintersaber mount & doing old school raids since I had already seen the WOTLK beta.

After lich king launched. I found a comfortable balance of gold (1800-2k) I didn't feel rich, but I didn't feel poor either. I was OK. I knew that unlike other players who focused on heroic runs & raids so much that that they were perpetually broke.

I was happy like this until yesterday, something changed I don't know what it was but something clicked that synced my real world views on finances with my digital views on them. I do know what the catalyst for it was though. Yesterday morning I had an early tutorial (9am) so I decided to farm wintergrasp for eternals.

As I was farming I found out from my guild that eternals were no longer were as valuable as they had been. This stunned me, because I had a stockpile of them in my bank in case I needed them to trade for goods or services. But instead of bemoaning how things change, I decided to sell all my eternals on the ah along with the other items of vaule that were just gathering digital dust. In the mix I checked flasks and saw that I could make a killing selling them. And for a moment I hesitated because part of me wanted to be above commerce, but I then reconciled my ideal with the real. Between tutorials I logged in checked the mailbox and found 1000 gold waiting for me.

So today's another day & now Fenris has a new elixir master selling his wares on the market.
Where I'll be tomorrow though is another matter

Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

A Reminder about successful raiding

2009-03-29T11:51:00.002-04:00

Greetings Musers! I hope your weekend is fairing well whether in the real world or the realm of Azeroth!

Last night I was permitted a very rare and precious treat: Raiding on a Saturday night with the missus home (Thank you HBO for showing Sex and The City: The Movie!) My GM was also thrilled since I'm a dependable dps'er who can off-heal should the situation arise. In my joy of this celestial alignment, I setup the home office to be raiding central for the night and also setup the living room to be as cozy as possible for my love.

Now while she had a wonderful time enjoying the urban adventures of Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda, I was stuck in a wipe fest of epic scale in Naxxramas's Construct Quarter. After 2 hours of impotent attempts on Grobbulus our GM called the raid. (Ironically this occurred right when the movie was over, which is leading me to think that some collusion between the GM's wife & my wife may be taking place, but I digress.)

With any bad raid night there is usually a little fallout. Once it settled (a couple of protest gquits etc.) we voiced our thoughts etc. over vent. I gave my feedback on what I saw: raiders goofing off and not focusing on the task at hand.

This leads me to an issue that I'm seeing with WOW 3.x: The Raiding dial has been turned down to where it can actually hurt Guild Progression. While I applaud Blizzard's decision to allow everyone to raid, it has also matatisized piggybacking: Players who are carried by the raid group.

Let me be clear Piggybacking has existed since WOW was launched. But while in the 1.x & 2.x builds this was relegated to one player in the raid it's now spread to 3-6 players in the group. This stops raid progression dead in it's tracks since there are group cohesion fights such as Grobbulus that require everyone to be on their toes.

So as a reminder

To be a successful raider in WOW (in order of importance)

1.) Arrive on Time,

Commit to raids to you can attend & do not interfere with real life obligations or commitment.

- This means ready to go 15 min before the raid.

2.) Be Prepared

- Gear fully repaired & the correct gear\trinkets for the raid.

- All Potions, Flasks, bandages for yourself

- Talent's spec'd correctly (if you've been doing PVP make sure to switch back to Raiding Spec)

- Real Life, Bowels\Bladder voided, pets taken care off, chores taken care off, food\drink by pc ready to go. Nicotine ingested before raid.

- Read Strat watch video of fight before raid.

- Make sure headphones\mic working

- UI's set for raiding.

- Vent working

3.) Be Focused

- Game sound off or very low

- Background IRL sound low

4.) Have Fun

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

A Long Overdue update

2009-03-27T17:14:00.002-04:00

Good Afternoon Musers!
Well I sit here at my office desk unable to do some of my tasks because a certain website I use to purchase equipment is down! So I figured it's time for a long overdue update
First off Congrats to my friend Sheilds (who's still in KoC) his wife had a lovely baby girl Monday! Mom & Baby are doing fine & Mom let Dad play a little bit whilst the baby did sleep. I've already told him that I'll gladly take his toon!
Secondly I didn't listen to my own advice & I did a full clear of Naxx 10 Man yesterday after noon from 12:30 - 4:15pm. I think it's my fate that I happened to luck out and come across these types of runs at the oddest moments. I pulled in my friend Sindel to be the off tank & he lucked out & got the Heroic Shoulder Token that he'd been looking for months. I scored the SoulBlade and my Tier 7 Helm + 15 BOH's so it wasn't a bad run IMHO.
Now the question is what to do next. I really don't have the time to raid seriously for at least two more months. But at the same time while I like the new alt I'm leveling he's not my idealized self I use him to work out focus and calmness in a raid environment.
Contemplate on this I must
Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Twitter Blogging

2009-03-25T08:49:00.003-04:00

Good Morning Loyal Followers!!!

Due to my work schedules, life commitments & desire to play WOW, I find myself lacking the time to make a coherent post. I know sounds odd, but I like to have clear concise posts that are significant and not just drivel. Seriously there's enough of these on the net & I don't want to add to them!

Luckily I've found out the joy's of twittering!!! So if you enjoy my blog posts, you can follow my tweets, these are more regular (several a day) and are still WOW based.

Until another day!

The Musing Moonkin

Thoughts on Successful Guilds

2009-03-16T11:01:00.005-04:00

Good Day Musers.

I hope you're awaiting 3.1 as eagerly as I am. When I saw it download onto my laptop Sunday I was overjoyed at the promise of new content. However I don't think it's going live tomorrow. My gut says that it still needs more brew time on the PTR.

The following post come from my decesion yesterday to gquit Knights of Camelot & my choice to throw my hat in with the Knights of the Blade. Some of this post comes from a discussion I had with a Guild Leader from KoC yesterday afternoon offline.

If you've followed my blog you know that for a period of 2008 I ran Ronin; I had been involved in WOTLK beta & knew that the old ways of wow were going away. When WOTLK went live I stayed guildless for a while but came to a point where I needed a guild. I decided to join The Crystal Dawn based of my experiences with a couple of their members, but soon learned that casual attitude ran too deep for my liking.

I was then presented an opportunity to join my friend's guild, The Knight's of Camelot. The first couple weeks were great, but Feb to March I noticed a disturbing trend where there simply wasn't enough people to even do 10 man content online. This didn't bother me much because for the last couple of weeks I was simply too busy with real life quests to spend time on virual life quests.

Then this saturday I had an opening (my wife away on business), and an invitation for 25 man Naxx. I signed up, took care of my chores & was ready, only to find that people who signed up were no shows. Frustrated, I was going to run heroics or try 10 man naxx when a guild member with an even busier schedule than myself invited me into another guilds 25 man naxx run. I raidied Sat night until 1:15am EST and cleared two wings. I also recieved a guild invite which I didn't really take seriously ATM. Sunday morning though I woke up logged in while having coffee, and decided after being tempted by the guild membership to gquit & roll with KoB.

Anyway here's my thoughts on what makes a successful guild. I'm going to try to distill it.

A successful guild is run like a business that's owned by friends. That is everyone gets along, everyone is on good terms but everyone also knows what to do and how to behave. There are agreed goals and clear leadership.

That's it

Until another day

The musing moonkin

The Effects of Brain Mush

2009-03-08T07:57:00.004-04:00

Good Morning Musers,

I hope the calm before 3.1 is not as boring as I've been told by my friends. Frankly I wouldn't know at the moment, for you see I haven't played WOW in almost a week! I actually tried logging in @ 7am this morning because I realized that I had an Oracle Egg that had hatched on Tuesday & I didn't check to see if it had yielded a pet, food or God-Willing a Drake. Ironically, I found the process of doing two daily quests so taxing on my brain that I said screw it & logged off. The only guildie online when I was didn't mind as he was still recovering from boozing & bowling on last night.

The irony of my mental state is that WOW helped produce it. That is I took practices for maximizing efficiency in play & applied them to real life 'quests'. I plotted out paths to see the quickest route for students, used mana\health conservation formula's to enable me to keep going for 12-14 hours straight etc. The only downside that I can see is that it created three distinct mental states

1.) On: Mental Faculties running 100%

2.) Off: Mental Faculties off, brain in a soak or sleep mode. Reading INOP, WOW INOP, TV as acceptable entertainment.

3.) Halfway: Mental Faculties running but not at peak efficiency. Judging from my own observations this state exists from 1 to 2 hours a day. Personal Tasks are accomplished in this mode (if not at work), entertainment that requires anything beyond simple mental strat (bejewelled etc.) is taxing

I was discussing this with my Friend Bill, who also happened to be my Best Man and commenting that the mental and physical exhaustion was creating a state of Shoshin that was allowing me to have ideas and changes in process that enabled me to do more than I thought possible. However it is a state that cannot exist forever at least in my opinion. Although many stressor's are removed I've found that other stressor's that normally don't bother me (being late for an appt etc.) are now very stressful since my schedule is very tight & the amount of time flexibility I have is in some cases only measured in minutes.

Luckily though once this week ends my schedule calms by about 25% That should be more manageable

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

An Hour's Respite

2009-03-03T17:17:00.003-05:00

Good Evening Musers.
My gauntlet of overwork is almost over!

I just have a couple more days and this tutorial fest (that has been very very very financial good to me!) will be ending. After Sunday my schedule will settle down a bit, but with my next crop of incoming students I have an odd trade off in the works. I'll be losing weekday game time but I'll be gaining weekend game time. That is if I don't fill the time with other students OR have other real life things to do.

In my heart I think that Neren will be going in Storage for a bit. Not because I'm tired of him, but because I won't be able to invest the time in him that the 3.1 content requires until at least May. Once May comes around the SAT prep season begins the wind down & I can spend more time on my virtual self.

Still though I do enjoy my game time, when I can get it in. I actually got an hour in this morning..It was bliss. I mean I just felt the stress melt from me doing the Oracles dailies. Even farming the Stormwright's Shelf!

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

Ready Check..Occ @ 7:30EST

2009-02-27T12:55:00.002-05:00

Good Afternoon Musers,

If you've noticed the gaps in my posts are increasing. This is just due to part time work schedule I'm juggling the transition of my SAT students. The March Students are wrapping up and the May Students are spooling. Luckily this controlled chaos will be over next sunday. I'm not running on fumes yet, but I can feel my mana is down below 30%. If this went on past next week, I don't know what my mental state would be like. I will say this I wouldn't need Yogg-Saron to drive me mad!!!

In other news. Tonight I've assembled a top team of lunatics to take down Occulus. I've been reading the strat & getting psyched up to knocking this one of my list. I'll just need to get that extra boss in OK, kel & mag and another title is mine!!!

Tier 8..Looks Great!

2009-02-24T15:33:00.002-05:00

http://www.wowinsider.com/photos/tier-8-armor/1383206/full/
Awesomeness!!! I know I'm busy but I so need to run Uludar when it goes live

On leveling a warlock..inital thoughts

2009-02-21T08:59:00.005-05:00

Good Morning Musers!

I know it's been a couple days since I last posted. For anyone who's read this blog since it's inception, you'll know that this time of year is very busy for me due to SAT season. In fact I'll be leaving soon to go do a 'rescue' tutorial (Student used other services before coming to my employer.) I hope to get back on the writing wagon next week (finger's crossed!!!)

Also you may also remember my stance on Alt's. I have a love\hate relationship with them. I strive for the Zen like purity of my friend Zorch. He has one toon, that's it no alt's not even a bank alt. If he needs to goto the AH he goes to the AH. At the same time I also find that an Alt can be liberating. With my work schedules, personal commitments, and in-game commitments an anonymous alt is a way to unwind and have fun.

Still though Alt's are an investment in time, if you spend time on an Alt you lose time you can invest on your main. Turndow is getting dusty because of this. With SAT season in full swing I don't have the spare hour to invest into his leveling. There's a part of me that's even wondering if I want to invest more time in him. He may be boxed for a while because I'm leveling a Warlock!

Yes I know I've said before I can't stand Lock's but an odd thing happened. Well not really odd. Last Friday the missus & I saw Coraline. I heartily recommend seeing this film & if you can see it in 3D. Anyway for the film adaptation, they gave her a friend name Wybie. He was dark & moody etc. but not evil. So last Sunday logging into WOW I had a scratching thought...let me see if that name is taken. Guess what it wasn't

Hence Wybie The Warlock was born! In a way he reminds me of Greathoof, the name was so good I had to level him. But Also I got it. I mean I get what makes Warlocks a tough class & a great leadership tool. The nature of the class, the need to be situational aware almost all the time and not be stressed by it is fantastic. Wybie offers me a way to train my mind, and I'm enjoying it. It's almost like Randori, you have x attackers coming at you & you need to prioritize and have on the fly strategy.

I don't expect Wybie to become my main, but I have a feeling I may actual level him to 80 because of the opportunity that the toon offers me. Not in WOW but in real life.

Until another Day

The Musing Moonkin

My Laggy Valentine

2009-02-16T06:57:00.003-05:00

http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/15/my-buggy-valentine-problems-with-love-is-in-the-air/

Agreed!!!
Sunday I had enough rockets for the rockets pink glare achievement, and I missed it due to a lag spike. I cursed in guild chat & gave up on the achievement after that.

Hopefully they'll extend this holiday for next year because I can't see the lag issues being resolved.

Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Annoyed with The Guild

2009-02-11T17:44:00.006-05:00

When The Guild first appeared, I loved the webisodes, I mean I LOVED them. The mix of humor and social commentary was as balanced as my Druid!
In addition it gave me a way to explain WOW to my wife. I get that for some people MMO's, WOW, gaming culture in general is frowned upon. My beloved wife originally fell into this group but over time she's become quite understanding of my passion towards WOW. It's my 'thing' like her dad likes golf or my brother in law like bowling. The Guild helped her I think to come to this understanding.
Lately though the tone of the episodes is turning darker. Yesterdays episode set off memory triggers of my geek apprenticeship. My wife thought it was absolutely hilarious but I beg to differ..I think that the show has 'jumped the shark'.
The thing is (and again this is my own opinion) the reason the show started was out of Felicia Day's experiences using WOW to avoid real life due to her unemployment & the people she met during this period of her life. That's where it picked up its fan base. I've lost count of players who used wow (myself included) to hide from the unjust universe. I liked Clara in season 1, I knew woman like her stuck at home with toddlers and a husband who worked 90 hours a week. Now she's become the dark party girl. For me the show feels more of a mockery of the actual people of The Guild.
I think in the quest to become more successful, the creators of The Guild are forgetting those that actually made them successful. If the show continues in the fashion for season 3 I'll stop watching it.
Until another Day
The Musing Moonkin

Monday\Sick\Didn't Play WOW all day

2009-02-10T08:09:00.003-05:00

The title says it all I actually didn't play WOW yesterday when I was home sick. I tried to, I logged in and did some dailies, but the plan I had for the day just didn't happen. However this was a good thing. I really just needed the bed rest\couch rest and I will say it again that if your home sick, you should avoid playing WOW because your mind will view the sick day as a virtual chore day. (I'm home, I can get all these quests, to-do's etc. finally done) therefor you'll end up feeling sicker than you did when you got up in the morning because you really didn't rest.

Here's the obstacles that gave me rest time

1.) Naxx Run that fell apart: One of my exguildies in TCD invited me to a Naxx am run. We were going to clear three bosses in construct quarter & then take down Kel'Thuzad. We started at 9:30, but after three wipes on Grobbulus two of the raid member quit which peeled off another 4 members and caused the Raid Leader to call the event.

I decided to go to bed until 11am to particpate in...

2.) The Occ run that never happened: Again a to-do that made me want to ignor how I felt. Yesterday's daily heroic was The Occulus. This is high on my to-do list because I still haven't downed the last boss on Heroic. The guild members logged on in the morning decided to Run it after the 11am reset. I got out of bed, logged back in only to find the people who said they'd run Occ not logged in. I decided to log out & watch TV for the rest of the afternoon.

Hell I was so sick yesterday, that my autopilot alt only went from 25 to 26. If that doesn't say your plauge ridden I don't know what is

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

An Achievement Worth The Effort

2009-02-07T17:47:00.004-05:00

Good Evening Musers,
In the whirlwind of the week I forgot to post this.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Fenris&n=Neren

Yes that's right I am now an ELDER!

So you know what you have to do..

Yes that's right. Kneel & Show Respect to your Elder!!! =P

But Seriously, I am very pleased with this achievement compared to the other holiday achievements that have been implemented since Echoes of Doom. First off, you actually have to work to earn this title. There is simply no way around it; if you wanted your name to be Elder X, you were going to have to do some seriously hoofing about Azeroth to meet all the requirements. So when the event started on 1/24 I decided to use the time I had that weekend (which was more than usual since my wife was away on business,) to knock out as many of the requirements as possible. I believe I started at 6:00 am with Omen, then went focused fire on the Elders of Kalimdor, (stopping for dungeons along the way), then Eastern Kingdoms, then Northrend on Monday.

In my opinion, the Major Effort that was required was devilishly designed. Here's what I thought was the highlights.

1.) To actually earn the title you would need to run Heroic Gun'Drak. This meant that you had to be level 80 & geared since the elder was with the Extra Boss in the dungeon.

2.) The Classic Dungeon Elders were all deep in their respective dungeons. While 3.08 has removed some of the slog, you would still need to expect to invest 20-30 minutes per dungeon to find the Elder.

3.) Elders of the Horde \ Elders of the Alliance was very well balanced. Although the event leans towards the Alliance (as the Wickerman event leans towards the Horde,) The placement of the elders effectively balanced out the advantage. For my friends who play Horde, they described the experience as 'Death of a thousand cuts'. For me and my ex-guildies, it was a Gank-Fest from the start, Horde PVP players were waiting ready and excited to see us and prepared to one shot or toons from the get-go.

4.) The Time Requirement meant that only those who were dedicated to getting the title would pursue it. I calculated that just doing the Elders of Kalimdor and not the dungeons on the continent took approx 4 hours. Eastern Kingdoms was about 2hours (but more time spent in dungeons) and Northrend elders took about an hour.

And last but not least...

5.) The players who pursued the title were the cream of the server. People who pursue (or are still pursuing this achievement) are really the dedicated few. It brought pride to my face to see us roaming lands that we had moved past once again

Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin

Why I left The Crystal Dawn

2009-02-05T09:26:00.011-05:00

Good Day Muser's I've been laying low the last couple of days partially because of work & partially because of what I did Wednesday Night.

Since I know some of my ex-guildies read my blog I wanted to use it to explain my actions

I gquit The Crystal Dawn Wed night after the fourth attempt on Instructor Razuvious on heroic mode. This was wrong on my part, it was bad form to quit the raid and then quit the guild. I hope that you will accept my apology and understand I had reached my line. There were several factors in this choice. My only regret is how I left the guild. It was juvenile of me though considering TCD's behavior on Fenris it does seem rather appropriate.

Before I go into the why's I want to thank TCD for all the kick ass times I had with all of you. Frankly I burnt out on WOW and you guys re-ignited my love of the game. Overall TCD is a solid guild with members who know the game, and will back you up.

Now for the why I left. First & Foremost this wasn't a choice I made lightly. I had been mulling over it for a couple weeks but I had stuck it out because I liked TCD. Yes we couldn't get a raid together to save our lives but the guild members compensated for this.

Item #1 Raid Times

What I'll say now has been discussed with a TCD officer in confidence and he agreed with me but acknowledged he was powerless to make any changes. Fenris is an East Coast server. I live on the east coast as do other current member's of TCD. However a large population of dedicated raiders in TCD live on the west coast and the raid leaders setup raids based of the pst time zone. At first this didn't bother me but after awhile it wore me down because I am not really a night owl. I have a full time IT job that usually starts around 6:30 in the morning & ends around 5pm if I'm lucky, and of course I'm teaching SAT Prep 20-30 hours a week. I wasn't the only one to be irritated by this (not naming names) So I'll say this:

"While I have no issue with people from other time zones playing on any server, running raid times based of your local time zone is in my opinion a teensy bit selfish. If you want to run raids on PST Time then play on a PST Server Gawd Damn it!!!"

Item #2 El Laxo Attitudo

TCD is a very casual guild. This is why I liked it, hell why I loved being in TCD. After being in several hardcore raiding guilds I was tired of the guild drama & the time commitments. This is why I also turned down other guild invites when the state of moonkins was realized by the raiding guilds on Fenris. WOW is a game yes there is serious time but not all the time. TCD though was just a bunch of guys out to have a good time. However raiding does require a focused mindset and commitment to virtual obligations. TCD guild members because of item 1 & item 2 made raid progression difficult. Sign up for a raid, sure! Actually be logged in that's another matter.

I'm an adult I work two jobs, have a wife, children (albeit furry and egotistical but nonetheless children) and various other concerns. I do not have the luxury to waste time because people who say they'll be available for a raid do not show up because something comes up. I'm sorry I can only deal with that so many times before it becomes an issue. It became an issue for me about three weeks ago.

Item #3 Member Behavior

TCD was an adult guild and I was made clear of this before I joined it back in December, and truthfully I found the trash talk of some it's member's posted liberating. As I said in item #2 coming from hardcore raiding I had witnessed guildmates gkicked for lesser offences then what was done in TCD on an average day. However, I also noticed that this lack of mutual respect for other players had a degenerating effect on the guild as a whole. It was infectious, new members who joined the guild would in a few days begin to trash talk as if it was a hidden side to them.

As I said in my grand project post, people want to be led; and as we've seen in the real world if people see their Superior's, their leaders preform bad actions and get away with it they will as well. I had several time had to apologize to players who I had leveled with, who I had raided with who I had known since coming over to Fenris for the behavior of my guildmates. I also began to notice that people asking me if I would join them for heroics because there is truth to the old saying that if you hang out with ducks your going to quack. I was being written off as another TCD douchebag.

At first I didn't care, but an event on Tuesday made me re-evaluate my commitment to TCD. I won't go into specifics but a guild officer did something that in my opinion really showed his nature, which is to shock & to grab attention & to cause strife because he has that power to do so. That was the straw that broke me, and luckily for me opportunity presented itself & I had a guild to goto that still remembered who I was & not who I had been hanging out with.

I think by now the dust has settled & when I login tonight there won't be a stream of pst's that are inappropriate to post even on Encyclopedia Dramatica. In WOW people have short memories, it's the nature of the game I think. Still I know I won't ever get back the 900g that's owed to me by a guildmember for repairs respecs etc. but that's ok because I view it as a deposit on a learning experience. One that taught me more than I ever imagined. Somehow hanging around with a bunch of trashtalking goofballs made me a better person. It made me realize what I valued vs. what I thought I valued.

Until another day,
The Musing Moonkin

A grand project of both scope & scale: Addendum to Part 1

2009-02-02T14:35:00.002-05:00

I was thinking about this after I posted

"6.) Class shortages are due to basic human nature. The reason that there's always a shortage of tanks\healers & an abundance of DPS is because for the most part human beings want to be involved in the event but not in charge of the event. It's one thing to say I went to Heroic Naxx last night, it's another to say I was the main tank for Heroic Naxx and we didn't wipe.
Human nature is to be led not to Lead. Healers, Tanks & Specialists (off-tank, off-heal etc.) have responsibilities that if not preformed correctly can have dire consequences in game. Most people do not want these responsibilities, which leads to most players choosing a DPS class."

What this means is that no matter what blizzard does to make some aspects of instance\raid\guild responsibilities more tolerable if your idealized self does not want to tank, to heal, to provide off-heals battle rezz'es etc, You will not do it. You may respec from time to time because your raid needs a tank or a healer etc. but as soon as your given the chance you'll respec to your idealized self. If forced to do it, you will resent it.

A grand project of both scope & scale: Part 1

2009-02-02T12:06:00.005-05:00

Greetings Musers!

Well I'm just too excited so I will let you in on what I'm working on.

Beneath the surface of WOW lies the motivations and desires of it's players. Some are aware of why they play the game, but most aren't. Their motivations their desires manifest in WOW in their character types and play style.

Still though real world behavior manifests in the world of Azeroth. As we all note the major events (such as the Corrupted Blood Event or the Zombie Invasion event) when we can clearly see human group behavior mimicked virtually. But for the most part the group behavior that occurs on a day to day basis doesn't get noticed, even though that's the behavior that affects us the most.

This is why my project will be about. What I am proposing is a analysis of WOW players based of race, class and specialization. I have several hypothesis I would like to confirm based of data gathered.

1.) All WOW players regardless of server, participate in role-playing. The difference is whether it's idealized role-playing vs. theatrical role-playing.

2.) A player chooses a main toon's race, class & spec based of their idealized self (or selves). If your idea of a hero is a samurai, you may find yourself playing a night-elf warrior specced arms because the talent build calls to your idealized heroic self.

3.) Diametrically opposed to this is your idealized fallen self. A person who's always being picked on may choose to play a Rogue and lash out at other players. This self represents all your worst tendencies and desires.

4.) A player will attempt to find his or her niche in WOW based of which idealized self is stronger. A healer who needs to be praised consistently is a good example of a mix of the two. At one end he\she is helping other and saving the group. At the same time, the need for acknowledgement is being fueled by their guild or party. If this fuel is throttled down or cut off, the negative self lashes out by either underheals, party member deaths or wipes.

5.) Since WOW is a game and people play it because it lets them be who they want to be, the real-world limitations are slowly being erased. In the real world not everyone can be powerful, see everything etc. But we play WOW to do this. This leads Blizzard to slowly remove restrictions to keep it's customers (us) happy & to increase profits. However it can and does have unintended consequences such as

a.) Undergeared players entering heroic dungeons & raids

b.) Players who had to invest significant time to achieve gear and see end-game content becoming increasingly frustrated & leave WOW or take breaks from the game in their own way.

To minimize item b.) Blizzard develops systems to compensate players: achievements, feats of strength etc.

6.) Class shortages are due to basic human nature. The reason that there's always a shortage of tanks\healers & an abundance of DPS is because for the most part human beings want to be involved in the event but not in charge of the event. It's one thing to say I went to Heroic Naxx last night, it's another to say I was the main tank for Heroic Naxx and we didn't wipe.

Human nature is to be led not to Lead. Healers, Tanks & Specialists (off-tank, off-heal etc.) have responsibilities that if not preformed correctly can have dire consequences in game. Most people do not want these responsibilities, which leads to most players choosing a DPS class.

Furthur Posts will go into more detail of the Why of this project

Until another Day

The Musing Moonkin

Quick Update: A hint of things to come

2009-02-02T11:59:00.002-05:00

Greetings Muser's!
I'm sorry there hasn't been post since 1/23. RL Work FT & PT ate up much of my time last week. I am working on a project that I will need data from WOW players. It is a project grand in both scope and scale. But I think that it will answer some of the mysteries of social interaction and behavior in WOW.
Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Don't Be Greedy

2009-01-27T06:31:00.005-05:00

Good Morning Muser's, I hope this patch Tuesday is going well. Let us all pray that the server glitches we've been seeing are whisked away by Blizzards magic wand!

What you see above you was a rare moment when good guy won. I decided to grab this screenshot because I was sure that I would I needed to defend myself in a flame war on the realm forum. Also because it's awesome when you out roll someone who's a sneaky bastard.

Now here's the story. From 1/23 to 1/25 the Missus was away at a convention in Denver. Now I did have to teach while she was gone since the tutoring season is now in full swing, but as luck would have it instead of tutoring\break\tutoring on Saturday I bopped from student to student. This let me play WOW from 2:30 p.m. till I was ready to hit the sack.

As I'll post later I spent the majority of the time Sat\Sun working on Lunar Festival achievements. But I did take in a couple of dungeon runs over the weekend. This was one of them a vault 25 man pug. We downed the boss on the 2nd attempt, and I was surprised to see the Epic Moonkin PVP Gloves drop. I've done about 5 vault 25 man pugs, and never has druid gear dropped for me yet.

Within 30 seconds of downing the boss & getting my Badges, I get a pst from Druidlord offering me 500 gold to not roll on the gloves. Now I'm just going to say my peace and move on. It has been my experience that the worst players of WOW tend to have the most egotistical names. I wish I could say with 100% accuracy that there's a direct proportional relation to UberName & bad player, but since I usually avoid those players anyway I can't say it with any degree of scientific certainty. But I will say that \when I mentioned what happened to my guild, the trash talk about the above player was quite thick.

In any case I told Druidlord no go on his offer & I rolled. My roll beat his by 1 point.

Just goes to show you that the universe will slap back greed.

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin.

Critical Mass: It has happend before & will happen again..and again..and again

2009-01-23T16:10:00.006-05:00

I haven't been playing WOW a lot lately. It's a couple of real life factors. My wife went away for business at an odd time (mid week) so this threw off the weekly schedule. Career-Wise both Full and Part time jobs are very busy. This has eliminated the blocks of time that I could dedicate to my guilds attempts at cohesive raiding.

In addition to the real life complications & obligations. There is also the Spectre of Patch 3.08. Now I want to be clear a lot of the tweaks in 3.08 I love. But like I said in a previous post a rule of client-server design is that if it's not broken don't mess with it. However sometimes you have no choice and when your hand is forced an you do make 'changes' to a client-server archetecture you'll see what players are experiencing with 3.08. perhaps one major glitch (lag\server disconnects in dungeons) & then lots of little 'hiccups'

The funniest for me was on my new Alt. Who's being nurtured and encouraged by my guild (what your leveling a prot warrior hell yeah I'll help!) I was in redridge a couple of nights ago (wed I think) and above the rethban mines is a path thats blocked by several large boulders. Now back when I was n00b and turndow was on rev 1. I tried to get past those boulders. I couldn't get past them. Well guess what wed night I did.

And I ran up that hill...And saw an unfinished area between the Redridge Mountains & the Burning Stepps. In my awe I ran down to that unfinished area..And hit an invisible wall.

Ok this is important. Were not talking about Northrend or Outland were we've all hit invisible walls. Were talking Azeroth...one of the first original zones. there shouldn't be invisible walls here.

Then it hit me. 3.08 was much more than it seemed. It was a core change hidden underneath little fixes and improvements. If they changed this, then what other changes in the very physics of the game world had also been changed. But it also hit me then that this has happend before with WOW but like so many before we've forgotten them. Ask old timers (04/early 05) about how stable wow was back then. It was very stable, compared to other games. But it had its issues as well.

So 3.08 is out. and for better or for worse the world is changed

Until another day

The musing moonkin

Turndow & The Vestiges of Early WOW: Part 2

2009-01-16T06:37:00.004-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!!!

In part 1 of this entry I posted that I decided to rebuild my first toon again due to a shortage of tanks on my server & in my guild. Well as of yesterday he's 17 level and enjoying the breadbasket of westfall and the craggy hillsides of the Redridge Mountains. If I have time this morning I'll get him his first pair of shoulders!

The second part of this post covers a phenomenon that fascinates me both in Real Life & WOW. I love spotting the remnants of the old world that are still present. For example where my wife & I live in Northern New Jersey once was all vacation homes & farmland. Now its all developed into Office Parks, Malls, Condo Developments etc. But every so often you can still see remnants of how this area used to be. A building here, a road sign there, etc. These vestiges seem puzzling, seem out of place unless you know what this area was like up to the early 1980's. In my travels I always like to spot these relics of the past because it reminds me that change isn't instantaneous, its a evolutionary process in which the old is gradually replaced by the new.

This messy process also extends into digital creations. I know this first hand from work. My current application has vestigial parts to it that absolutely make no sense unless you know how the business ran 15 years ago. This also holds the same with World of Warcraft.

Although the developers have done major design changes to WOW since it's launch in 2004, if you look carefully you can still see and experience remnants of a much older version of WOW. Now make no mistake you can miss them if on your treadmill to level 80 if all of your focus on is getting to end-game. But if your aware of where you are in the game they stick out like historical roadsigns. This is coupled with the fact that some of them are literally tied to the mechanics of the application, and unless blizzard makes a WOW II and rebuilds the game from scratch them they will be with us through every expansion.

For example lets start with white gear. Now whether your a level 1 toon in a starting zone or an end game raider purchasing thread in Dalaren, 90% of vendors only sell white gear (the 10% that don't sell white gear + uncommon gear that replenishes over time.) I never really thought about this until I was leveling Turndow & was in ironforge learning how to use guns & having to purchase a gun from a vendor. It got me thinking; no player after X level (usually 14-16 from my own experience,) uses white gear. It has no stat bonus it doesn't make you more powerful. Still though the vendors sell it like it's going out of style. Yet every vendor sells it.

This paradox (white gear is everywhere / no seasoned player uses white gear) lead me to thinking about Vanilla WOW. And by Vanilla WOW I don't mean 1.x or the beta release candidates, I mean the first build that started it all. It sits somewhere in Blizzard HQ, gathering digital dust, only seeing the light of day as an example of design changes. My instincts tell me that initially Blizzard was designing WOW to be a very magic poor world. This is radically different than today's game where you can give your alt's epic gear etc.

There may have been a time when white gear was base gear & uncommon really was uncommon. This game environment would have made a lot of sense considering the Lore. Magic after all had caused most of the major cataclysm in the game. However as the game was refined through in house play testing, the developers made magic more commonplace.

Yesterday I mentioned this at lunch to a co-worker who's played WOW since 2004. Ironically he had also been talking about white gear to a guildie on vent the previous night. Now he's not true 'old-school' which we both define as WOW players who play tested the alpha and beta clients. He started about a month after launch. But he did confirm my instinct. Back in 2004 he like a lot of players, rolled a rogue (hunters & rogues were easiest characters to play at launch.) Being a rogue he wanted to use fist weapons for the talent build but couldn't find any. They just didn't drop until you got to higher level dungeons. So he purchased a white fist weapon & had a guild member enchant it for him.

This historical fact brings me to enchanting. If I recall originally enchanting was going to be a little different. There was talk that enchanting could be used on regular gear to make it better. And by better I mean transmute it into a sword of the eagle or the monkey etc. When I discussed this with guildies who did Alpha testing they recalled this being talked about in the forums but it was scrapped because the costs to make a white weapon comparable to a green weapon were prohibitive. It simply didn't make sense to disenchant magical items to make a non-magical item magical.

In addition there is one more little gem of vanilla wow that supports this hypothesis; Blacksmithing starter quests. Against my better judgement I chose mining\blacksmithing for Turndow (I know a smart tank either goes mining\engineering or herb\alchemy.) Regardless of this faux pas, as you level blacksmithing you may be asked to go to Ironforge which will lead you to a blacksmithing quest.

Now by the time your able to get to Ironforge & do the quest. your character is usually between levels 11-12. Yet the recipe learned from the quest produces gear that's minimum level to use it is level 6. I know of no level 11-12 toon that will use level 6 gear,since by then you can purchase greens off the auction house that have better stats. So why is this quest in game? It doesn't make sense except if you view it as an original quest from the start of WOW development.

In this light, a level 6 longsword with + 1 enchant would make a lot of sense since it gives a player comparable damage to a level 12 white weapon. And since Blizzard has said in the past that it wanted to keep old quests in the game to preserve the history of WOW, this vestige will still be in the game until the servers are closed

So you may be asking yourself, OK I get the old quests are still in game, but why is white gear being churned out by end game vendors? I also discussed this with my co-worker & he confirmed that my hypothesis on this little quirk is probably correct.

WOW design is client/server based as we know from when the world server goes down. Some of the pieces are on your computer, some are on the server. The vendor objects are all on the server. From my experiences with server clients IRL, my instincts tell me that some components of the game universe are from the original vanilla builds. And since these components are stable, (and a core rule of client server architecture is that if something is stable you don't mess with it!) they are left alone.

Ergo white gear will be churned out by vendors ad infinitum until the servers are closed down.

Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin

Turndow & The Vestiges of Early WOW: Part 1

2009-01-09T13:05:00.005-05:00

I decided (again) to rebuild my first toon Turndow. For those of you who don't know He was a warrior on the Gnomeregan server. I got to level 40 & gave up on him. This was because I didn't have any help from anyone and I got frustrated. Luckily while I was trying to kill Bloodsail Raiders I saw a Moonkin Druid and found my true calling. Still though Turndow has always held a spot in my heart since I tried so hard with him.

Due to a shortage of tanks in my current guild, I decided to reroll him (again) on Fenris. Unlike other alts I have invested time into, I have considered using 40 EOH badges to get the heirloom shoulders. I've only stopped myself for these reasons:

I. The rumors of a badge trade-in system: (X EOH = 1 EOV) my guildmates & I pray for this as we still run heroics for rep\epics & pavlovian conditioning, and are reaching the point where there's nothing we really want. I'm mulling the 100badge mammoth, but until the fix the archs in the major cities to accommodate mounts of exceptional size...Um I'll stick with my older svelter mounts.

II. Dual-Spec: With Dual-Spec on the horizon, I will be feral tanking (thanks to my learning the spec with Greathoof.) In my bank tabs I have level 80 blues and epic feral tanking gear including the Staff of Trickery that are waiting for this change. I expect also that I may need to blow some EOH badges for tanking.

III. Time Constraints: I will be frank, although I preach to players to 'Make Peace' with time constraints, & accept that you cannot have more than one well geared toon, I am human, and I want to have my cake & eat it too. So while I enjoy rebuilding Turndow, Neren's needs still call to me. So I am mindful that if I level Turndow, then I can't invest time into my other goals.

IV. Bad Memories. I mean really bad memories of playing a warrior and getting my A$$ handed to me again & again & again. I know that which does not kill me makes me stronger, but at the same time It can also leave you horribly traumatized.

Still though with the changes to WOW since I last picked up the sword & board, I've found leveling him to be quite fun. The question though will be will I pursue it or will I let him slip into toon storage?

1773 not 1773ist

2009-01-03T09:38:00.003-05:00

This post started as a response to a issue I've been seeing on my server (Fenris-US). From what I can gather this is also happening on other servers as well. There are a plethora of players who are attempting heroic dungeons without the necessary gear. On one side they're stuck in a catch 22, at the same time they're inclusion in a 5 man group may and has resulted in wipes.

On New Years Day (BTW HAPPY NEW YEARS!) I was in an UP PUG and we wiped on the 2nd and 3rd pulls. I looked at all the other members of the pug and realized that two of them were not geared for the instance. One was in blues ranging from 76-78, and the other was still clinging to his hard earned epics from Burning Crusade. I left the pug and let the tank & healer (who were geared for the instance), that it would be a wipe fest & I wasn't going to bang my virtual head against a virtual brick wall.

When I brought this up in guild chat a couple guild member's busted on me for being snobbish, but I clarified my position to them. There are 1773 players then they're 1773ist jerks.

And my dear readers there is a world of difference between the two. Being 1773 means you have a firm understanding of the game as a whole. (Note: I will not go into how much that entails.)Being 1773 means that you understand the progress treadmill and have made peace with it. And by made peace I mean that you accept that if your gear isn't up to spec well today isn't your day to run Malygos 25 man. Being 1773 means that you know runs and can give strategy to players on the fly without sounding like a know it all.
In all my hours of gametime, and all the countless players I've met I can think of only 10-20 players who fit this definition of 1773.
On the other hand I've met hundreds of 1773ist jerks in my game time. To save space i've broken them up into a couple main groups.
1.) Crustified Old Schoolers: These players I divide into two groups:

a.) Those who have been burnt so many times by so many bad experiences that unless you fit their idea of a good player your worthless. These players are like a tough stain on the carpet, it's been there for 10 years and will be there until you replace the carpet. I've made peace with these players by avoiding them unless absolutly neccessary.

b.) Those that wish WOW was an unchanging enviroment where Priests Healed, Warriors Tanked, and DPS knew it's place. With the gameplay changes introduced in 3.0 these crotchy old farts (even if they're only 21) have been hiding in a corner rocking back and forth.

2.) CotU (Center of the Universe): These players whether they were neglected by their parents or are shy IRL, need to be the center of the universe in game. You can hope they'll change but the odds are against that as I was reminded yesterday when I setup my first 25 man vault pug (a personal achivement I must admit) and watched the raid dissolve due to 1 players need to dominate the raid. From my experience CotU's are either Warrior Prot Tanks, or Healers (usually holy priests or resto druids.) The difficulty with CotU's is that some can back up the trash talk, but then it becomes a question or is their social aggro worth it.

I know what you might be saying "They're are so many more bad player types" Very true, but I wanted to just focus on the 1773ist jerks in this post. I may go over other player types in a future post.

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

2008: Year In Review

2008-12-31T08:14:00.003-05:00

As I left this morning to go to work I said to my wife "How I feel really sums up my year: Tired, Sore, but Strong & Determined." and thinking about it now I feel that this also reflects my experiences with others playing WOW over 2008. But I'll need to add three more items: Seasoned, Wiser, & Smarter.

I started the year still N00Bish and green. Although I was in endgame instances & raids it was still a over the top experience for me because I didn't have the time to commit to raiding the tier 5 & 6 content. My gameplay mostly consited of waiting for players who were late. If there's one thing I've grown to despise is players who don't show up when they say they will.

This lead me to what was my first phase of playstyle which was I now think of as solitary confinement. I started to farm companion pets which have very very low drop rates. It was in my own way showing that I wasn't just a face in the crowd. This lead me to areas that end-gamers no longer go to such as azshara.

Around April I left my guild, Sedition & joined Utopia, which was a hardcore raiding guild. To me this choice lead to the end of an era for me. Although I was in Utopia for only two months, the experience of hardcore raiding & the drama attached to it burned me out. It also opened me up to the fact that while I had thought WOW's playerbase was a brotherhood of geeks, I was very much misstaken.
This period ended with the dissolution of Utopia during Memorial Day Weekend. I was stunned, shocked & depressed but also optimistic. Because Utopia had been one of the top raiding alliance guilds there was a scramble to grab it's members. However I learned then that all of them were NMNA: No Moonkin Need Apply. Sinking into a rut I decided to do something Radical & level a horde druid. I sent myself a trust fund via the AH and decided to seek the plains of Mulgore.
My Next Phase of play I've dubbed the Summer of Horns & Roses. I leveled a tauren druid, & leveled him Feral. I joined the only horde guild I knew off (I really didn't pay attn to their names lol) and decided that I was going to show all the jerks on the alliance side how good I really was by leveling the toon up to 70 & then joining Trample, the top guild on our server & in the top 200 guilds in the world.
But at the same time, I began to see that I was really just running away from my dissapointments and problems that I had experienced on my main character. As the launch of WOTLK began to draw I decided that there were things I wanted to do before the expansion. And although I had enjoyed playing my Tauren Druid I needed to make peace with the past & switch back to my main. So I decided to get a wintersaber mount.
This choice lead to the next phase of gameplay which I think of as my hermitage period. I was on Neren, but I didn't talk to anyone. I just spent my days grinding Wintersaber rep. If someone that I knew showed up in Winterspring, or pst'd me I would say hi etc, but otherwise I kept to myself & my goal of the mount. Once I got my mount, I then went onto grinding faction rep with old school factions, Argent Dawn, Cenarion Circle, Etc for the upcoming achievements.
Then around Mid August if memory serves me correctly I recieved a most unusal email. I was selected for the WOTLK Beta. It was a life changing event for me game-wise. I learned quickly that the beta wasn't random people were selected for their knowledge of the game and for what they had done in game. My peers may have felt that I was a waste of raid space, but blizzard did not.
So not only was my malise in game was evaporated, but at the same time I was given a new perspective about WOW. I had been to the top of the mountain, I had rode Shai-Hulud, I had seen the future of WOW & it was good. Not just for me but for everyone. The old ways were going away and the new ways were coming...
I did beta until about September, and decided to stop because it was wrapping up & I wanted to have some stuff still new when the game launched. I came back to Fenris changed, Other players were still focused on progression, I became focused on seeing things I had missed. I raided Molten Core, AQ20, AQ40 etc. with other players who realized that progression now was futile. I savored Azeroth as it once was noting it wouldn't ever be that same way again.
I also found freedom in my guildlessness. I don't know if that's the right word for it but instead of feeling like I was a leper I relished in my freedom. I found others like me who had threw off the chains of guild drama. I simply logged on, contacted some friends and went for a ride.
This continued with the spin up & launch of WOTLK. I reveled in the changes & updates. I enjoyed changing my title on the fly & showing the vast array of pets to other players. I played with both a sense of fun & seriousness. I wasn't a man obsessed with power anymore, I wanted to have a good time but I could also focus in when the situation arised.
With the onset of the holiday season I found myself in an odd situation. My mornings were free because my wife is a late sleeper =P but my afternoons & evenings were booked. Luckily I fell into a group of players who were also off during the holidays & were in the same boat. This leads me to where I am now in a guild again, with players for who the most part I do like & enjoying the time I get to Play WOW.
I know that 2009 will not be the same year for me as 2008 was. My Real-Life Schedule will radically cut my game time down and this change will begin starting next week. But I'm OK with that on a level that just a few short months ago would have caused me to become stressed. For me WOW is no different that any other matured social hobby, such as golf or tennis. Will I stop playing, Yes. Will it suck? Prolly. Will I get back into it at another date? Most Definatly.
Until Next Year!
The Musing Moonkin

ARGH

2008-12-28T12:56:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the blog title but I am so pissed right now. I was in a well-gelled Heroic Halls Of Stone Group, & I got DC'd and now cannot get back onto WOW or even the blizzard Website.
I wouldn't even be so angry except that HHOS is in what I call the unholy trinity. These three dungeons (Old Kingdom, Occulus & Halls Of Stone) have been deemed to be to difficult by most players. I use shadow labs as my yard stick. and trust me none of them comes near the wipe fest that shadow labs could be on a good day.
Well at least I got my shoulders (a lil yay)
Until later
The musing moonkin

On Christmas you get what you deserve...A Cautionary Tale of Greed

2008-12-25T09:46:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas (Or Winter Veil if your still in Ironforge getting your virtual presents)
What I'm about to post just happend an hour ago, so while it's still fresh in my head I wanted to post it as a reminder that during the holiday's it's always better to give than to recieve.

This Morning I got up, made coffee, took care of the chinchilla's and logged in to get my Winter Veil presents. While I & a guild member were working on getting the winter veil achivement with our new toys, someone posted in trade that they were looking for the pet reindeer. Since I already had one from last year, I asked my guildee to give me leader, & I invited the person to our group & gave him the pet free of charge, It was a bank alt for another end gamer, he pst'd to me that he needed it for his daughter since she had gotten the Winter Helper but wanted the reindeer.

After I gave it to him & wished him & his family a very merry christmas my guildmate went bonkers! He then told me that he didn't have the pet and he only needed one more pet to get the achievement. So in the holiday spirit me & some other guild members went over possible quick pets to pick up, and we determined that he had never gotten the pets from LBRS. So instead of getting the daily runs out of the way before real-life holiday merriment, we went to LBRS to fetch a worg pup!

Once we got our bearings and remembered where we had to go, we proceeded with haste to Halcyon. After she was downed, my guildee says to us "Ok where are the pups?" We then realized that he didn't capture one of her brood before killing them. Ergo no pet worg! As he mulled over this he suddenly disconnected & dropped vent.

Just goes to show you that on Christmas whether your here or on Azeroth you get what you deserve

Merry Christmas Everyone
The Musing Moonkin

Happy Winter Veil, NOW PAY ATTN

2008-12-23T08:39:00.003-05:00

Greetings Readers.

I've been mulling over this throughout the holiday season, because it's just been bothering me so much.

With the release of Lich King my character spec has been de-nerfed. It's great, it's awesome, It sucks A$$!

The reason for such high levels of suckage is that the majority of players who are speccing balance have no clue how to play the spec. I've seen so much bad play that I've just stopped even giving advice to new moonkins.

But I decided to try at least one more time since it's the holidays.

First off the back story.

In the beginning balance was the deformed olson twin of the Druid Class. No Druid Played balance, you leveled feral & then when you reached 60 accepted your destiny & went Restoration to provide the HOT's for the raid group.

Blizzard began fixing this with patch 1.8 which introduced the Moonkin Form. This made the balance tree the PVP spec for Druids. I started playing WOW after 1.8 came out and immediatly fell in love with the concept of the Moonkin as soon as I saw on in STV.

Moonkin form now was upgraded to the Red-Headed Stepchild of the Druid class. It was still not acceptable for leveling or end-game raiding but if you were into pvp then it was ok (after you were level 50 or so.)

With the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, Balance got more love from blizzard & actual tier specific gear. This moved the balance spec to the out-of-wedlock child of the Druid class. Hardcore Raiding guilds now started having 1 or 2 balance druids to provide spell crit to the dps or healer groups. It was at this time that I learned to play my class. I learned the hard way that I would have to outplay any other dps in order to be included in a dungeon, heroic dungeon or raid. Other players could make mistakes. If I made one mistake I could and was dropped from the group.

I studied theorycraft not because I liked it but because it was the only way for me to be considered useful. I encountered resistance from old-schoolers who felt I was a waste of a raid slot and made it quite clear that other less well geared players would be a better fit because while at the moment they would underpreform me, they deserved the gear that would drop while I didn't. That was an actual statement made by a Tank who's since left Fenris.

But still I stuck to my guns. Or as my friend brian said once "Yeah I can see why you play moonkin, your Stubborn, Persistant and Damn usefull when the Sh!t hit's the fan."

Now were at Lich King. Balance is now on par with the other hybrid dps classes. I should be happy but I'm not. I've seen so much bad playstyle it's made me consider going resto. (Yes Doug I'll say it again Resto!) It's caused me agita as guilds that I would've given my remaning testicle to join earlier this year as me to apply because "I'm the only old-school boomkin remaining on the alliance side." and I have to turn them down because I don't raid hardcore anymore.

Note: There is an old-school boomkin who's on the horde side & belongs to trample We know each other in game and have done formal /kneel /salute /cheer to each other if we cross paths, we've also helped each other out when were both questing grinding & pulled more than we can take.

So my advice to New Moonkins is as follows

1.) Learn your class: I cannot stress this enough study your class & figure out what you can do & what you cannot do. what works in Questing will cause failure in Instances, What's great in PVP will wipe a group in a heroic.

Case in Point; Typhoon is a great spell that should become insta-cast like moonfire but it is a horrible spell in instances since is pushes the mobs away from the tank. This is a bad thing (Wack Wack)

2.) Learn your Role. You are now equal to an elemental shammy which means that while you are viable for instances raids etc. you are not a pure dps machine, you are a hybrid this means that while you can top the dps charts (as my buddy zorch did until he switched back to resto for raiding) you need to be prepared to drop the hots on the fly to save the healer or battle rez the tank.

This also means your not a softy clothie. Your a Moonkin, a blessed form given to the druids by Elune. Your tough, You can stand up to mobs and take some hits which means you need to be ready to pull them off your cloth wearing teammates if they pull aggro & the tank can't get to them.

Also your going to have to deal with perceptions of how the class used to be wheich means that you need to advertise your skills to the group. A good example is crowd control, as a class we now have viable crowd control that somewhere below a mage in my opinon. At the same time though I have found that there is still a learning curve with tanks regarding our cc abilities. So you need to let them know what you can do.

Entangling roots is a great cc provided that the mob is melee. Hibernate is absolutly awesome for WOTLK because so many dungeons are full of dragonkin\beasts due to the nexus war\vrykrul war storylines. To Paraphrase Azrael from Dogma, "I'm a mage I can't sheep a dragon, but guess what? Druids Can."

3.) Ask questions from other moonkins Find someone who's done it pre-lk & ask questions. Experiment with gear. My general rule is that you can have some cloth gear provided that your armor is between 50-55% (So cloth bracers\belt, everthing else leather or 1 large item cloth etc.)

Until another day

The musing moonkin

MMOG play as a barrier to getting a job: My Thoughts

2008-12-16T12:00:00.006-05:00

Greetings Moonkin Musers:

I've been working on a thesis piece that will sum up my thoughts of leveling & end game events in WOTLK. This is why there hasn't been a blog post in a couple weeks. So I do apologize for my lack of updates during this Holiday Season. BTW I hope your Winter Veil Achievement progress is going well. I hope to have them all accomplished by next week (knock on wood!)

I saw this page via Massivly. I was writting a reply to add to the thread but I decided to post my reply on my Blog page not because it would be seen by more people; but because it would allow me to develop my thoughts more fully than what the forum posting would.

While they're is some validity to the recruiters concerns about MMO players, The Scorched Earth policy that the above recruiter is following is in MMO terms an Epic Fail.

In my own office the people who I know play WOW consist of the following:

1 Unix Admin \ SAP Admin

2 Factory IT Admin's for our entire business

1 Manager of Factory Customer Service

1 Mobile Sytems Admin (my position)

1 Network Admin

But as I said previously, the recruiter does have some valid concerns about MMO Players. Two former employee's allowed their gameplay to affect their work. One was involved in early mmo's\wow beta & fit the worst stereotypes of mmo players. The 2nd was hired this year & his work performance decreased as his guild progressed furthur into raid content. So if we look at the pool of wow players 1/4 of the workforce was ineffective due to their desire to play wow.

So what does this say. Well I know the sample pool is very small but it indicates a vast chasm between WOW Usuage & Work Productivity. Either your going to be hyper-productive or your going to be slothful. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground here. You either get a employee who is an shining example, or you get one that you can't even trust with your staple.

This would explain why the headhunter has clients that say no MMO Players. If they're experiences have been negative then yeah they're going to tell their recruiters do not send MMO players to HR.

However at the same time this does also point out a cultural hypocrisy.

MMO's are still socially unacceptable distractions in the workplace. If the people that I know in upper management came out and said "Yes I play WOW" they would be ridiculed. WOW talk in the office is in a hushed tone, in secret moments and is then ended with Work talk that cover's the discussion about Naxx boss gripes.

At the same time there are other what I would call OOW (Out of Work) distractions that affect far more employee's than the small percent that play MMO's

Employees who takes a 10min smoke break & has several smoke buddies who come along with him every two hours.

Employee's who spends 10-20% of his work day on his lust for sports, or it's bastard offspring fantasy leagues.

Employees who's schedule is dicated by their obligations to church, bowling league, or family.

As you read those examples who may have encountered a pain inside your skull. That was Cognative Dissonance. The examples I presented as acceptable OOW distractions have for the most part by rationalized by our society. Johnny Go-Getter smokes every 90 min is fine etc. etc.

However when they're presented next to the non-approved OOW hobby MMO gaming it caused your brain to re-rationlize them. You maybe thinking "He has a point, but sports are different, or Yes he's right but my church choir isn't something imaginary etc." Eventually your brain will either move MMO games to the same rationalized set as the others or your mind will find something else to think about.

My hope is that MMO's will reach a critcal mass sometime in the next 5 years. This will occur with two events

1.) Mass Adoption: At some point MMO's will become very user friendly. WOW is getting there with WOTLK, ("Raiding for all" as I like to say.) when the user base of MMO's reaches a point where it's easy enough for Mom, Dad, & the grandparents to play it may become OOW acceptable in the officeplace.

2.) PPO (Popular Person Effect): Sidekicks took off due to Paris Hilton etc. It's one thing for Mr T to have a night elf mohawk, it would be enterly different if a major rock star or celebrity, or a politician played MMO's. Esp a CEO, if a non-tech CEO said at a leadership meeting. "Hi I don't play golf, I raid instead, & here's what it gives me to lead my organization etc." It would start the process.

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

To Many Quests

2008-11-25T13:07:00.002-05:00

I'm on vacation this week.
For years I coveted this week because at the office is a ghost town & I I was always part of the skeleton crew that kept the light on.
But at long last I've earned enough rep to have this week off.
And my wife who is an absoulute goddess let me have yesterday to just play WOW. I had done all the RL quests that she had asked of me. It was really a rare treat for me ^u^

So I played a lot. But I will say that I really don't understand people who can do that all the time.
I mean the world is so very complex & to put all your effort in somthing virtual seems well rather escapist.

For me, yesterday was a virtual to-do day. I set a goal (reach level 76, complete zones HF\BT\DB) and got nearly all of that done.

I also scored the dalaren sewer rat (FINALLY)

All I can say is that blizzard has packed the new expansion with an incredible amount of quests & they all link together. I'm really enjoying the flow through. Blizzard has outdone themselves this time.

Why Wrath Of The Lich King Kicks A$$

2008-11-20T10:02:00.003-05:00

A Couple of days ago Game Life on Wired.com posted a review of WOTLK. One of the comments the blogger made was that he knew people were going to flame his review as being a PR piece for Activision\Blizzard.

But the blogger is right WOTLK does kick ass. Yes you can level to 80 in a couple days if you do nothing else but grind & run dungeons. At the same time though you can just smell the flowers and enjoy the sights sounds & quests of northrend.

Like I am. How else could I get a screenshot like the one above?! It was such an awesome moment!!!

Until Later

The Musing Moonkin

Thoughts on the launch

2008-11-18T17:04:00.004-05:00

Alright now that a couple of days have passed I have my thoughts straight on the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.

First off. Congrats to Blizzard on the successful launch on Thursday. It was a bit laggy but on Fenris but still playable

Item #2: Fenris FULL?!?! yeah I got that message a couple of times. It was bizzare, but my server was full. Delay wasn't too bad but as it stands the newest zones are just overrun with 70's

Item #3: Old Friends, New Annoyances: The launch brought back many old friends + chat trolls of the nth degree. Sometimes I just want to turn off general chat but then some old comrade pops up and I'm glad I didn't

which leads me to item #4

Going home: This one is a little bit difficult to post & maybe it's the most honest I've been while blogging.

If you've seen boogie nights, there's a part @ the end where mark whalberg just show's up in front of Burt Renyolds after falling down hard. And he just starts crying and saying he's sorry and asking to come home. And I had a moment like that Sunday night. But before I go there let me explain how I got to that point.

Guildwise since the early summer I've been lost at sea.

After Utopia disbanded memorial day weekend. I fled alliance & went hoard, joined Defenders of Slyvannas. Leveled, kept to myself. Didn't talk much etc.

And it was good, for a while. It was a mental break from the stresses that people layer onto wow.

The mindset required to see end game content removes the fun aspect of wow. You need to be to have a focused, serious, and commited mindset. Otherwise you can wipe the raid which in wow is bad (see time = money from previous posts)

But it was also hiding. Hiding from myself, from the sorrow of seeing something I had put so much time in fall apart. Hiding from the rejection of the major raiding guilds on Fenris. Utopia for all it's faults offered me a home. I knew it's members & they knew me. I wasn't a committed raider, I don't have, nor do I want a life that lets me raid four nights a week. But when I did raid The guild leadership understood I came in with the required raid gear, required buffs, & required mindset. So it was win win, I could see end game content when I had the time, they had a guild member who could fill in at the right moment.

Eventually though you have to come home.

So I came back to the alliance side using the pretense of the wintersaber mount as my excuse.

And for a month I just stayed in Winterspring rep grinding.
Sending gear to my shamen to sell.
It was Tetris Like I followed a path, did the quest, repeat.

When that was done I was like "Well what's next" so I started rep grinding timbermaw for the title.

Then I joined a couple of guilds hopping from one after another.
Leaving when the drama got to much.

But really I still was just lost at sea.
I mean I play a MMO & I avoid people.
The whole point of a MMO is to socialize, to work with people to attain goals
but whenever the commitments got to tight I pushed away.

Which leads me to sunday.
Starting thursday I realized I needed to rejoin a guild.

I couldn't be a free agent anymore.

I wanted to join a raiding guild again, esp since LK changes raiding radically (search google about 25thNovember and their comments regarding Naxx) Raiding is no longer just for people who can sit on the PC all day.

I also was mulling forming my own guild & taking on the responsibilites of being a guild leader. I even have the email that I was going to post on the Fenris forum page ready & sitting in my gmail inbox.

By Sunday though I had joined up with some old friends who were in The Knights who say Ni. It wasn't big but it was alright I wasn't guildless anymore

Then I saw Sno, Who was old school when I was just a noob player.

Sno: who had given me the best advice I ever recieved about marriage. I got it from him the day I proposed to my wife. I remember it well.

Sno: who had lead runs into ZG after BC released so that the lowbies like me could learn raid mechanics.

Sno: my former guild's 2nd in command

& I knelt before him, he cheered, & I just wanted to go home again.

Now I'm just waiting to hear back if I'll be back in House of Paratus. I know it won't be the same but it's where I need to go.

Way to much WOTLK..seriously put down the mouse & step away from the computer

2008-11-17T07:57:00.003-05:00

Alright, there's just something sick about reaching the level cap in under 4 days. We already have two players on fenris that I know off that have hit level 80 already. Did these people at least use the bathroom?!?! I mean come on there's more to life than WOW.

Also I have to give a shout out to my lovely wife, who I miss very very much (as do our fluffy sons) since she braved going to Best Buy & Pre-Ordering WOTLK for me. She only took a lil geek aggro but it was quickly flushed by flashing her ring of marriage and her debuff of
"It's for my husband" Alas lil best buy pally. Did you really think there were any single women who played WOW???

I'll have more concise thoughts on LK launch later this week
until then
The Musing Moonkin

Wrath of the Lich King is Out

2008-11-13T20:09:00.000-05:00

WooHoo!!!
Upgrading...fun fun fun!

A moment of thanks & a howl of victory

2008-11-11T12:43:00.011-05:00

Sunday night I ran AQ40 & saw how a god is killed.

But before I go into that experience I wanted to give a moment of thanks

First to my wife, who did not gripe once on Sunday Night that the raid started at 9pm & wasn't completed until 12:30am. You are far more patient than I sometimes give you credit for.

Second to my raid party, who apart from a single bad apple that we had to kick from the raid
took the goal as both fun & a serious endeavour. Many of you I knew from younger days & a few were new faces but I enjoyed all of your company.

With that said, one thing that is a constant throughout my life is that I tend to be at the right place at the right time. While this doesn't apply to me winning the lottery, no matter how much I'd like it to. When it comes to other events in my life I tend to just be there when it matters. At the office when no one makes it in due to a storm I'm there, when I did martial arts visiting instructors found me to be a great assistant.

How this applies to WOW leans towards rare events or items. Over the years I've collected a acquired many rare drops that other players farm for but somehow land in my lap. Such was the case on Sunday when I won this skittering beauty which also earns your this feat of strength.

Now onto my thoughts about AQ40

1.) I think it's important in an MMO to have Very Difficult if not impossible End Game Bosses. You need a sense of accomplishment. Even at level 70 the end bosses of AQ40 give you this.

2.) 40 man raids. I can argue for and against them. But I think that it would be good to have them in future content in a similar fashion to how blizzard is making raids in 10/25 man versions.

And finally here are some selected screenshots

1.) A full 40 man raid

Raid Wipe #1: a full group of level 70's in Tier 5\6 gear taken down in under a minute

After the 2nd wipe due to an overeager hunter. We got in a faced C'thun. This was taken after I got tagged for about 3millon in nature damage. Luckily I resisted 1.5 million but still I fell =P

And finally our raid triumphant. I guess third times a charm

Until Later
The Musing Moonkin

A Place I thought I'd Never See..Molten Core

2008-11-09T10:01:00.005-05:00

I want to say thank you to shrapnel & the rest of the crew in classicraiders (no space because it's a channel) for inviting me to last nights raid of ... Molten Core!

The Raid took two hours due to the cooldowns on the Aqual Quintessence (we only had 4 amongst 35 people.)

Still it was awesome. It was just great to be with old friends and ally's from my younger days. People may transfer or stop playing but still some remain, & remember a different time when WOW was a different game. I'm not saying it was better game, just different. I encourage any new players who never have seen the old content to run it. Yes the gear is weak, yes you could be getting badges or arena points. But if you want to see why the raids are the way they are now, you need to see how they used to be

Here are two screenshots:

I look forward to tonight's raid of AQ40. I want to see how a god is killed...

Election Duel! Obama V. McCain - Who Get's Pwned?

2008-10-29T20:35:00.001-04:00

Absolutly Brilliant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Kg-K7em20

And I'm voting for Obama
I should start a guild
Druids for Obama

George Romero was right.

2008-10-27T12:15:00.002-04:00

The Scourge is Upon us & the capital cites have become paved with skeletons of the Lich Kings victims.

My Shamen was zombified as soon as a I logged in to check on the ah (which you can still do as a flesh eating undead monstrosity) I got stomped by a city gaurd within 20 seconds.

Neren fared better but not by much. I ported from shat to sw. I got transformed within a couple seconds. Then went on a zombie killing spree turning most of the mage quarter into the hungry dead.

After I got downed by a hunter I rezzed and stayed non-dead. I went to EP picked up the event quests & headed back to SW. This wasn't a big mistake but it was I think intended by blizzard to happen. The information given to you makes it sound that the Scourge is attacking the capital cities. But they're actually setting up shop in out of the way zones (WS, BL, EP, etc.) But you need to see an Argent Dawn Quartermaster to find this out.

Still though onto my post's title. Stormwind was a zombie nightmare. Between the players, the NPC's & the Plauge Zombie's coming out of the stockades it was very Dawn of the Dead. A raid was formed to clear out SW. Starting with the Castle & moving down through each section. & like in DOTD we failed because it became every man for himself.

Freaky Friday

2008-10-24T09:45:00.005-04:00

This friday was just an Odd day for me. I mean just really weird.
First off Patch 3.02 came out & they nerfed the rep
So I got my Diplomat title in approx a day & half of grinding
The screen shot is from completing the quest chain.
It ranks there on my top 5 experiences in WOW since I began playing it back in 2006.
Then Friday Night I was grinding rep for the Gaurdian of Cenarius Title
And I check my friends list, and see my old buddy zorch outside AQ20
I pst him to say Hi & next thing I know I'm in a AQ20 Raid with him & his guild.
This lead to us going to AQ40
and yes I saw C'thun. But we didn't down him
For whatever reason when we took on the twin emperors they got bugged as the raid healers began rezzing people.
But still...WOW
That's All I have to say

Missing my wife..and WOW isn't my security blanket anymore.

2008-10-05T11:39:00.003-04:00

Some months ago, I wrote in a post that while my wife traveled for her career I would play WOW non-stop. This last week she was in England (In fact this was her longest trip since we met), & I didn't use WOW as a security blanket to keep my mind off the fact that my love was far away. And I used to do it. I will say it again. I used wow as a security blanket.

This time though I didn't. And frankly I can't see my self ever using it again as one.

Somethings changed within me. A metamorphisis so to speak. I'm still trying to figure out what's changed.

Onto other notes.

I. I'm having my doubts about The Diplomat Title. I wanted it because I felt it fit me and who I try to be in life. But with my current work commitments I don't think I'll be able to do it. With the way the rep is setup, It'll take a very large amount of winterfall beads\feather etc to accomplish the rep. If anything I'll focus on dailies for the next couple of weeks. I suggest everyone also do the same. Cold Weather flying will cost money now.

II Lich King: I fished up one of the new pets in Dalaren. Very Cool. Also for anyone who's not in Beta. You'll be able to get a penguin too. You'll just need be exalted with one faction.

III. A Shout out to my friend Matt. For inviting me to my last ZA run before the Echoes of DOOM patch goes live. Although it didn't get off the ground due to people who signed up not being around It was very nice of him to invite me, since I haven't raided since at least May.

Until Later
The Musing Moonkin.

One Down, One to Go

2008-10-01T07:10:00.002-04:00

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-reputation.xml?r=Fenris&n=Neren
As you can see at the very bottom of my rep page, I am now Exalted with Wintersaber Trainers. I got the mount last night around 11:02 pm EST.
I then did a victory lap around Shat, IF, & SW.
There were two funny moments.
1.) In IF I had about eight players surround me. I regret not taking a screen shot of that
2.) In SW a NE Holy Priest had recieved the transporter malfunction buff and came out as a Tauren Holy Priest. He then took a winterviel firewater effectivly making himself and his war talbuk 30% bigger.
We just stared at each other cheering and laughing away.
Now I'm onto the timbermaw hold. I'm at honored I figure it'll take all of oct to reach exalted.
Until another day
The Musing Moonkin

Odd Moment..a quest completed..but feeling unfufilled

2008-09-26T17:08:00.004-04:00

In life (both real & virtual) you set goals for yourself. Some are long term, some are professional, some are personal etc. Thursday night I completed a personal goal for me in WOW, I acquired the reciepe for Elixir of Dream Vision http://thottbot.com/i9297 someone was selling it on the alliance ah for 800g/900g buyout. I bid 800g and won the auction.

As you can see by the drop rates on thot, the only chance you really have to get this is by killing a dragon of nightmare. This puts the drop in my view at the same level as a tiny emerald whelpling. But unlike the whelpling, where your investing your own time to get the drop, with the 4 dragons your talking about an entire raid to get this recipe, and then it's only a 10% chance.

Here's the irony, for a long time I considered this to be the holy grail of my personal quests for wow. No matter what if I scored this reciepe I would be on par with those players of old. Of course players of old means from 2004-2006 so is that really old. In an MMO it is but in real life not really. it's just a short couple of years.

But I didn't get it through downing a world boss, I bought it on the AH, and maybe that's the problem. If it had dropped from one of the mobs I had farmed for it, or out of a chest in it's level zone then maybe I'd be jumping for joy. But I bought it with gold from ah sales and from farming rep. So it made it feel like I was cheating. Like I really didn't earn it I suppose.

Drunken Rage, Nerfy Goodness & Chicken Cordon Meth

2008-09-23T07:20:00.005-04:00

Importante: This post was originall supposed to go up a couple days ago...but life got in the way

As I've posted before I haven't had much time to play WOW 2.x or 3.x as of late since SAT season is in full swing. I have to prioritze after all and as it stands with the launch on 11/13 and only so many free hours actually avalible to play WOW, I'm putting my focus on getting my wintersaber mount. If my calculations are correct. I have to run the 3 quests 24 more times to get the mount. I think even with my limited time I should have this done before launch. After this is complete I'm going to farm rep with the Timbermaw Hold to get the Diplomat title for WOTLK.

I did though take some time to do the brewfest events for this year, and I like many other people are infuriated by blizzards change with the Brewfest mounts. Last year I didn't have enough tickets to purchase one so I consolled myself with the fact that I'd have enough for 2008. Of course I didn't think they make the ram a drop from Colin Direbrew in BRD. I did the BRD slog twice and said fuck it, it's not worth my time for the mount. Kodo or no Kodo.

on a second note. I'd like to make a comment about the nerfing that's going on in WOTLK. From what I can tell blizzard is taking the next logical step with bringing MMO's to the masses with their release of WOTLK. For those of you who don't already know a lot of the mechanics of the game have been modified to make them more casual freindly. For example, Elixirs and Flasks are now 2hrs and 4hrs respectivly. Aura's and Buffs are now Raid wide etc. While I like it on principal at the same time I think it loses some of the mentality of setting up a raid and balancing the groups.

And to furthur complicate matters, Blizzard is trending towards shorter instances. Again I see this as an attempt to reach out to a wider audience that frankly doesn't have the time to spend hours in instances. But this also may be an attempt to keep existing players happy. Since the release of burning crusade a signifigant number of players have developed one of more end game alts that are played as much if not more than their main character. By shortening the time to complete an instance the player base can have all his characters on par.

To Sum up here is the time de sink

WOW Classic: 2-3 hours to complete an instance

The Burning Crusade: 45-90 minutes

Wrath of the Lich King: 30-45 minutes

I wouldn't mind this downward spiral except now the dungeons seem so Small...I mean you can make a dungeon seem big and impressive, and don't get me wrong blizzard has succedded in that but 4 rooms is still 4 rooms. & it kinda made me feel shortchanged with the experience.

And lastly...now there is no reason to ever ever logout of wow

http://www6.popcap.com/promos/wow/

I have to concur with the gents over @ penny arcade. This is chicken cordon meth. Still I did load the addon to my interface and played it last night (and a lil bit this morning). I would say the most intresting moment was last night on my shaman\bank alt. I sat glazing over the many jewels...my wife sitting next to me on her laptop..looks over...sees me bejewelling away..and replies

"You're such an amatuer...you don't even see that combo over there"

It's good to have a n00B moment every so ofter...

The Rumors of my dissapearance...

2008-09-16T20:19:00.003-04:00

Are completly false.
Right now the real world has to take priority.
So my WOW time has been drastically reduced.
If I have time to play I'm on the Northrend test server as Fingolfin.
Give me a shout if you stop in.
See you on the virtual side
Neren\Greathoof

Labor Day Beta Blues...

2008-09-01T08:09:00.002-04:00

I got into the Lich King Beta about a week & a half ago. On one end it's kinda of an honor to be selected for beta testing by blizzard. I know that they say it's a random selection, but the quality of the players doesn't lead me to believe it. There are too many armani war bears & too many twin blades of azzinoth for me to believe it's a random selection of users who opt'd in. I've also seen both mount drops from ZG too.
On the flip side. The beta can really suck. For anyone not in the beta, the joy of being allowed into northrend before your friends is tempered by Quests that are partially implemented (btw anyone have a hair trigger =P) Talent builds that are in place but don't appear to be working. And having to deal with your tradeskill leveling past 375. And of course new builds that take several hours to download and then patch into your system.
Oh and the most annoying thing. is that since there's only two servers (pve & pvp) your name may have already been taken. Hence I'm Fingolfin on Northrend. Two points for anyone who can figure out that refrence wout looking it up on wikipedia!

@!&!@&@!!!

2008-08-21T06:41:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the expletives, but that's how I'm feeling right now towards Blizzard! Over the last week I've been cutting back on playing WOW in order to spend time every night grading essays for my part time job. It's a real life daily quest, complete with rewards & theorycraft behind it. Plus there's a huge glut of essays that piled in the queue & I want them all. In fact I'm annoyed at the moment because I wanted to grade some essays before my full time job but I can't since the site is down atm.
So I've kept my WOW playing to leveling rep with the Wintersaber trainers. Which means..Yup I'm back on Neren & I'm sending the greens & firewater to Peda to sell on the AH. I usually put in an hour to two hours on the rep grinding, it's not a lot esp for the wintersaber rep grind but I felt that when WOTLK came out, it would be L77T to have that cat as my mount through 70-77.
Then yesterday I got my draft notice from Blizzard in my email. "You've Been Selected for the Wrath of the Lich King Beta" Of all the times to get it, when I am trying to cut back on WOW to go clean, they send me a Beta invite. I installed it of course, I tried to be strong and resist but it's so "wrathful". Luckily for me I forgot that Blizzard never has the latest client available for download, so I was able to grade essays last night at a good clip as I downloaded & patched & re patched the Beta Client. Maybe sometime tonight I'll be able to login to Northrend but I'm having my doubts. I think this client will still be patching when I get home.

The Long Grind

2008-08-18T07:37:00.003-04:00

Although my summer goal was to level a tauren druid. I've been hitting a mental barrier. Now that my character is almost level 68 I don't have the same drive to play him like I did a few months ago. Most of this is real life. I'm beginning to see there's a whole lot more to the universe than WOW & frankly the time requirements of the game are a bit of a nuisance.

With that said my wife reminded me that "Everyone needs a hobby" so I haven't hung up my Shadowstaff just yet. I decided to set a goal & that would still be epic but wouldn't require group time, so I can be more flexible with my schedule.

Therefore I'm going for the long grind, & earning myself a Wintersaber Mount. Although it's a long grind it's a goal that fits where my life is right now.

Update: I just realized I never posted this entry. Right now my rep is at 4k in Honored with the wintersaber trainers

A bit of RL musings..Why my wife is uber L77T

2008-07-30T11:12:00.005-04:00

I try to keep this blog on topic, focusing my insights about human nature to what I experience playing wow & not what I go through in my real life. But this little instance run that I had last night was just such a funny rl moment that I had to post it.
My wife & I are busy professionals & our work week schedules are not always in sync. I tend to have steady hours (albeit long) & predictable patterns, while she has travel, friends that need to be visited & family to have coffee with. We do try to spend more time on weekends together, but this is usually 1 part chores & then 1 part exhaustion. Date nights have in earnest become few & far between. I'm to blame for this as much as my wife. As I try to tell my SAT students, your parents appear dull & boring to you not because they are inherently that way, but because the obligations of adulthood made them that way.
But I want to say though that my wife is l77t and it's because she has an ability that is a prized in raiding. She can call the raid. Last night was her night out & we went to see Mamma Mia comp'd. She was excited to see it regardless of the reviews (or strategy guides) if you will. But when we sat down & the movie started she realized that the film stunk. Like a good raid leader she did try to make the best of it. & like a good raid leader when we reached a point where we had hit the brick wall of wipes (or in the case of this movie Mr. Pierce Bronsan signing "S.O.S") and she called the event. We then left & she apologized for making me going to see that stinker of a movie.
This is big, I mean there are a lot of reasons I love my wife, but this ability to concede that what she wanted to see was a bad movie & that she was sorry for making me sit through that schlock fest. Many women lack this ability, but she has it
Just wanted the world to know

Hot Summer Day & No Lich King Invite!

2008-07-20T18:14:00.002-04:00

The Beta started Friday morning. Like many addicts I awaited my fix that let me into Northerend, and as for Sunday afternoon it hasn't shown up. I know I'm one of many but I want my key now!!!

A Memo To Blizzard

2008-07-12T10:49:00.003-04:00

As I write this my Tauren Druid sits a mere 60K from level 58 & the glory that is the outlands. While on one hand I feel a certain joy of reaching my accomplishment that I set out to do back in the beginning of June I also feel a certain malaise about returning back to the expansion zones that I fled @ the end of May. This feeling came over me around level 55 as I reached the dead zones.
What I mean by dead zones is the end game zones that are no longer populated by any players. Whether it's the Eastern Plaugelands, Western Plaugelands, Winterspring, Burning Steppes, or Silithus. Players go here just long enough to do their quest level their toon & jump through the Dark Portal. This also extends to the various old world end game dungeons that are never run anymore. And I put this blame squarely on Blizzard.
When the Burning Crusade was launched back in January 2007, Penny Arcade made a joke (and a funny t-shirt) that said "Green is the new purple." This gear reset was a flood that evened out the playing field and allowed WOW to continue to grow, gain market share, & keep it's player base. While some old school players bemoaned that their hard won gear from MC\ZG\AQ20\40 & Naxx was devalued, for many players who couldn't invest the time into the old world raids this was a boon of titanic proportions. I was amongst that crowd that felt the same. I came to Outland on Neren. Creamed my pants over the gear & never paid attn the the complaints of the old schoolers.
But now I can see their issues were valid. I've compared gear from level 56 old world drops & level 58 outland drops and they are more powerful by a factor of 3. Which if I was an old schooler who had put in hours & hours only to be swept aside by outland gear I'd be pissed to.
Therefore I have the following suggestions
1.) Create a gradual gear curve from 45-58 that doesn't cause the gear angst issue.
2.) Create new dungeon quests that link outland to the old dungeons (consortium rep, orcs looking for gear in UBRS etc.)
3.) Make going to outland an attunement. (we need brave souls to go forward) nothing impossible, but something that feels earned.
If you implement this as future expansions are released you will not have players leave due to gear resets
Regards
Neren\Greathoof

On Leveling...Part 2

2008-07-02T18:35:00.002-04:00

My first post covered some of my thoughts on leveling Greathoof. (Yes I'm outing my horde toon) I know I have alliance friends who read this so if you see me wave & say Hi! There were some other items that I didn't cover that still needed to be put to the digital page.

Item #1

New Players: Believe it or not new players are still out there. I've encountered some on my leveling journey. I thought them to be myth, but several indicators alerted me to their newbie status.

1.) No Omen. By far the biggest indicator of a new player is whether omen is loaded or not. All the end gamers w alt's have it loaded. The 2nd indicator is if they don't know what Omen is.

2.) Where to quest: Again a reliable indicator of level is do they know where to quest & where not to go. Granted I had to shake off my cobwebs but I remembered that feralas is for level 30-40, shimmering flats for 35-40, Stranglehorn vale covers 30-45 etc. etc.

3.) Threat: again something I discovered as I learned feral tanking. Players with alt's know about threat, new players however don't understand the math behind it.

4.) Gear: This one screams new player vs. alt\new server transfer. New players have gear that's a mis-mosh. End gamers\New on Server have gear that's built with bc in mind. That is to say. I will level up but as I do I will get the best possible gear that is available.

Item #2

Patch 2.4.3: In Patch 2.3 Blizzard upped the xp from quests by 30%. This was designed to allow end game players to level characters quicker than before. The feedback was this was not a great a boost as intended because of travel time from quest to quest. With Patch 2.4.3 the level that you acquire your mount will be lowered to 30 & the cost of the training will be lowered to 35 gold (without faction discounts.)

Now at first I viewed this as blasphemy, as sacrilege. But I came to my senses & understood that things change & this is a good thing. This will allow players to get through those large zones that usually are reserved for the level 30-40 players.

That concluded on Leveling...Part 2

On Leveling Pt 1.

2008-06-30T11:45:00.004-04:00

As I've posted previously after the dissolution of Utopia on Fenris, I became depressed and disillusioned with my NE Druid Neren. I was stuck in a rut due my spec & my lack of options that it left me with raid progression. I also had reached a point where guild drama had made coming home & playing wow not fun, but as much of a chore as work. Luckilly I had rolled a tauren druid & transferred a trust fund of gold over to the horde side of the fence.
That was around Memorial Day, it's now almost 4th of july. I think since then I've logged onto the alliance side maybe three times since those events occured.
Over the last couple days I've been mulling over some thoughts I've had while Leveling. Since I didn't have an end game toon on the horde side, The experience has been close to what it was like when I leveled Neren. which is to say I don't have the feeling of juggling my time between my main character & my alt. Regardless though I've done it before so I have the blessing of experience.
Here are my thoughts.
1.) Smell the flowers: Blizzard has stated that WOW is about the journey. You start out a level 1 noob & end up a level 70 L337 toon w phat lewtz. The point is that while your on this journey smell the flowers, explore the world, see what's out there.
2.) Blues vs. Greens: This was something I forgot, and I think a lot of end gamers lose when they're spending all their time in raid dungeons. Old world gear is on a different scale than outland gear. Blues last a long time compared to their outland counterparts. If any Blizzard Developers read this blog, I would recommend that the gear be tuned so that moving to outland is a smoother process.
3.) Quest rewards: Again another item I noticed that may be in the works with the developers. The old world quest reward system is built for a game universe where the players don't have access to large sums of gold. The rewards for completing kill x trolls etc. were designed so that a player who's broke could get by on quest rewards.
Now we have a game universe where players have access to large sums of gold, and the majority of low level character are in fact end game players who are leveling an alt, so this enviroment renders the system broken. I find that overwhelmingly the gear I get is sold within a couple of minutes.
From where I see it there are two options.
1.) create a system where players are 'taxed' for transferring gold to lower level characters.
2.) update the reward system so that players have more than one choice with gear rewards.
This concludes part 1 of 'On Leveling'

WOTLK Lust

2008-06-10T17:35:00.002-04:00

As I've posted before my summer project is to level a tauren druid. But I know in my heart that my main toon is calling to me every day a little bit more & more. So it's a lil struggle, keeping my sights on my goal & resisting the urge to login as Neren.
On the flipside. WOTLK is coming out shortly, & I'm lusting for the changes to the moonkin spec. Yet I also am resenting it. What made me level moonkin was two things
1.) Seeing a moonkin druid for the first time
2.) Not doing any theorycraft research & realizing I could've leveled as feral & switched.
Now with the talent changes in WOTLK Balance will be a viable spec to level which makes me actually annoyed. Ok I'll confess resent the changes. Which now makes me face something I don't like elitism in Wow (or in the real world.) because now I can see the argument.

Thoughts on Leveling

2008-06-09T06:26:00.002-04:00

My tauren druid is almost level 24, total time played is less than 1 game day. This is still stunning to me, because I remember leveling balance pre-bc & I can't remember how many times I died. Not to say I haven't died leveling Greathoof, but not like I did leveling Neren.
I understand that Blizzard makes a leveling spec for each class, and that at level 40 you can move into your desired spec to learn how to play it. But it just annoys me a little bit. Esp after leveling Peda to 50 as an Ele Shaman. It wasn't hard & it was a lot more fun than Enhancement.
Feral though is interesting, The problem I see is that you have to gear properly. There's a sudden switch @ 20 to Cat Form, which means you need Agility gear & Tanking Gear.
Personally I like bear form better but still leveling is leveling...

Taking a break from your worries...

2008-06-06T08:01:00.002-04:00

As of right now. Neren is sitting in hibernation. Sleeping in the emerald dream, while my shammy sit's in IF gaining rest state. I haven't logged onto Neren since Monday & I don't think I'll touch him for a while. I need a vacation from WOW, or more specifically the end game obligations that I had.

But then again that all went up in smoke over memorial day weekend when my guild disbanded.

(Anyone who wants to read greymantle's dry statement can go on the Fenris Forum)

I wish I could lie but this left me devastated, and depressed. I was left in a very tough place because there was no where for me to go..so to speak. We were at #3/#4 in guild progression on the server. The top raiding guild was horde. The Top Alliance Guild has a no moonkin need apply policy. The other alliance guild @ our progression was selecting which ex-guildies they wanted. I joined up w my friend Brian's guild, but they were so low on the progression that I wasn't an asset but a liabilty, since my dps over shot the tank's threat, even when I used a SF only rotation.

Yet in darkness there's is light. And from my experience in both the real & the virtual worlds, it's always in the oddest places. The Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I had decided that I wanted to roll a horde toon for shit's and giggles. So I rolled a orc hunter, (with a sweet handle) transferred myself about 425 gold through the ah & a friend helping me, and went over to the other side. I didn't like the hunter (I will admit hunters are so boring.) But it sparked an idea, the kind that bugged me until I had to do it.

I rolled a tauren druid.

And the Universe smiled on me, and Lo I got a good handle. I struck platnium with my toon's name. I mean a really good toonname. One that has sparked envy in other players. One that actually urges me on to level the character. It's one thing to be Neren, Champion of the Naaru. It'll be another to be Greathoof, champion of the Naaru

I told you it was good.

But the best thing about leveling this toon, is there is no stress on me from guild obligations, It's just fun & fairly new. I had tried leveling a horde toon before, but I never got past level 12 since I didn't have the alt gold. to make the process easy.

Now it's easy and relaxing.

On the flip side. I sometimes feel like I'm a crippled toon. since I've been up to Sunwell trash, having the lowbie abilities is rather odd. Also no one knows me. so I can say what my toon is etc. But it could be just BS. And lord knows WOW has a lot of that. And lastly, there are still new players in WOW, so you can mark like you would in a heroic & you may have never seen those marks before.

Still though It is a breath of fresh air. But I know I can't hide from neren forever

Maybe another week.

A nice two week vacation

Where has the Moonkin Gone??

2008-06-06T07:57:00.002-04:00

I started this blog back in the winter & I wrote dilligently.
As the real world crept in I stopped writing daily.
Now I look & see that I haven't posted since April
This Will Not do!
I will start posting again!
Sorry
Neren

Guild Drama: Stopping it before it happens

2008-04-25T07:21:00.002-04:00

This will be a frank post, that is to say I will speak my mind, share what happened, & expect the nuclear strike from readers who will be enraged by my observations. Others may agree with me but will lack the courage to speak their minds. I'm talking about the silent killer in WOW: Guild Drama.
Originally this post was going to be about my success in stopping it from occurring in my current guild, I began to think about Guild Drama with a clearer mind. Specifically how does it relate to real world interpersonal conflicts? Can you identify the types of Guild Drama & the Real World counter part. Because after all WOW is an MMO & what makes it special isn't the story as much as the players & how they interact w the virtual environment. Also I've noticed that WOW seems to have built in filters to resolve guild drama. The further you progress in end-game content, the less guild drama can exist since the instances require 100% co-operation. A guild that is cliquey & full of catty members cannot progress to the Eye, they will not have the cohesion and teamwork to handle the boss fights.
So Far I've identified the following types of guild drama:

1.) Nepotism\Cronyism: This type of guild drama occurs when guild members give preferential treatment to their real world family or real world friends. They get first pick @ gear & loot. The downside of this Guild Drama is that it's prevalent with the 5 man instances & 10 man raids (I recall on guild on Fenris 'since-disbanded' that was leading the progression through Kara. It's leaders were all brothers & their friends, so they got their tier tokens before anyone else. This however cannot progress past the 5 man \ 10 man instances since the requirements of the 25 man raids demand some system be put in place to distribute loot fairly.

2.) Cliquishness\Exclusion: This guild drama occurs when specific members of the guild become a clique & determine who can come to guild runs & who can't because of interpersonal differences, not because of requirements. Ergo, your one of the best healers in the guild, we're running gruul's but since you & I don't like each other, I had the raid leader who's a buddy of mine not invite you. This drama can progress to the 25man content, but it gets stopped @ Tier 4 content since you need specific classes for the Tier 5 & 6 boss fights.
This occured to me in my current guild about a month ago (it's been resolved since!) One of the raid leaders felt my character offered nothing to the raids so if he was doing the invites he'd never invite me. This climaxed with a Gruul's pug run where I didn't tank ziggler the crazed, Which raised the attention of three other guild officers & the guild master. He was summarily told to start inviting classes that he had dismissed as ineffective, or he would be gkicked.

3.) Sex\Cattiness: In other words Vaginal Aggro.
This was the topic that I was most concerned writing about because I never know if someone is going to flame me about my opinion. In general I find that women cause the most time consuming drama in the game. Since playing wow I've seen the following.
Women using sex (real-life or chat) to
get gear\gold
dominate guild politics
Get preferential treatment with guild runs
(we can't run until she's back from the grocery sorry ppl!)
Have guild members kicked\stripped of rank
Have gear that guild members found through grinding\non-guild runs be given to them through intimidation.
- This one strikes a chord w me, In my previous guild I found a BOE 280 JC recipe & was told to give it to WomanX since she was a JC. However the alchemy world drop that she found was put on AH & I was told that she didn't know I was a Elixir master & that she really needed the money for her epic mount.

So there's the Sex Aspect. On top of that they're the cattiness between women. As I've mentioned before about my pet chinchilla's, we like to joke in my house how female chins act like human females, plotting scheming & willing to kill a woman who's not in the tribe.
This also extends to WOW. If all the women in the guild get along, I heartily recommend that you never ever leave that guild. This means they're all friends & the rank structure has been hammered out. If you get a women who decides that she wants to be queen bee, flee that guild! unless the GM steps in (and mark my words it takes a tough GM to be willing to go into that fray.) it will turn ugly & nasty & no guild progression will occur until the other woman nip her back into place.

This leads me to the title of my post stopping guild drama before it happens. Last week I noticed on of my ex-guildies (specifically the one who caused all the vaginal aggro in my old guild) on my guild vent. I asked the guy running the 10 man kara run & he said yes, she's running w us tonight. Faced w the possibility of her joining my guild I proceeded to inform every female guild member who she was & what she did in my old guild. I also made it clear to the female guild officer that I would gquit on the spot if she was accepted. I then contacted another old guildie, who was a woman & had to deal w her antic's. She informed me that she was blacklisted from the top raiding guilds (except ours) because she would pull her vaginal aggro during 25man's.
Since this occurred I haven't seen her sniffing around.
Thank God

The Burdens of responsibilty

2008-04-15T06:19:00.004-04:00

As I've posted previously at my office several co-workers who play wow. We're all married men, some of us have kids, & all of us no longer have a life were we can work, then go home & play all night then go back to work on 4hrs sleep. Nor can we spend all weekend sitting in front of the computer until we pass out in the middle of an instance. That time in our lives has passed away.
So for me it was a bit of nostalgia when we got a new temp in our dept. He's 22 lives with a friend & is a young geekling. Within an hour of him starting I knew that he played WOW had started after Burning Crusade & was in awe of our 733T'ness. He was cute, it reminded all of us of a simpler time, when the burdens & responsibilities that we have to deal with everyday were not placed on our shoulders. When our lives revolved around just going to work & coming home to play games all night long.
At the same time it also reminded me of how small my world used to be. Last week he called out 'sick', and my co-worker & I both knew he wasn't sick, he had been up all night in Kara (his guild finally went into kara..they spent 7 hours on the first 5 bosses) That alone was worth a good half hour of guild chat as we all reminisced about when we were lvl 70's in blues trying to get our first epics. When we dreamed of seeing hyjal \ black temple. Now we are there and with it comes all the burdens of that level of the game, the preparation, the reading up on strategy, the guild drama not because who isn't invited, but who can't go because they're not ready yet.
As I said the burdens of responsibility.
Yesterday when I got into the office, He looked like he hadn't slept, he had the greasy, waxy skin & hair that gave away an all weekend session without pausing for basic hygiene such as washing the face, hands or brushing his teeth. When I asked him if he got sleep over the weekend he replied "I got tons of sleep."
At that moment, I felt old. Not because I was jealous of his single life, but because I knew that he was lying to me since I had done the exact same things at his age. I felt like the father of a teenage son who'd gone to a party & came home w beer on his breath, and didn't think his father could tell.
He's a good kid, I like him & it's nice to have a youngling around, but if doesn't start growing up soon, he'll be gkicked from our office without an ounce of pity.

Love in the time of Warcraft: A primer for the married man

2008-04-13T21:16:00.003-04:00

My wife hates video games. Although she'll deny it or say I was too extreme in my belief, she really does hate video games. In her heart she views them as childish & immature. She's not alone, she holds onto a view that many adults cling to from the earlier ages of video games. That they're for kids & teenagers, that grown adults don't play them. Or if they do play them they're acting childish.
Of course the paradox is that her along with many other adults who share this archaic view but play videos games. She loves Zuma, but to her Zuma isn't WOW, it's a diversion. Just like the Wii she bought for her conferences. The adults who come to her booth & will play Wii Sports aren't gamers, they're just goofing around.
And I'm the Pope.
It's cognitive dissonance, it's the ability to hold the matter\anti-matter together, Adult's don't play video games, When I play Wii sports I'm not playing. I'm not going to rake my wife about this, I'm just saying that she & a lot of people have this view.
With that said, I have started to come up with advice for married men (or men who are in relationships) that may help you with your significant other if she's not a gamer.
1.) Sometimes you'll need to logoff: I cannot stress this enough, the dailies will be there, there will be another daily heroic, they're will be another raid. Logging off when she least expects it goes a very long way.
2.) Don't bother explaining the game: Again, she may fawn interest, but it's not the same interest that you friend who doesn't play wow but plays COD 4 will give you. Also you may annoy her as you explaining game mechanics, talents, & lore.
3.) VOIP may be beyond her: VOIP is getting more common, but for most non-geeks they only see it through the office or a digital phone. Headphones & Mic though may be beyond her. Therefore be prepared that while you chat over vent, she may be baffled.
Take care for now..

Guild Drama it never ends

2008-04-08T17:19:00.002-04:00

Over the last couple weeks I've been slacking on the blogging, it started in late march when I went on an epic quest of my own design to bag the greatest of wow lewt, My wife. I spent a week farming for the blue dragon whelpling in azshara & in the process I offered one to my night elf queen, she who rivals Azshara in Beauty, as a simple lure to get her to play WOW, it failed, she dismissed it as simple male tom-foolery. Although it did grace her mind breifly that if she played wow I would have to give my gold & gear (just like real-life) but she went back to her own machinations.
The 2.4 came out & I committed any free time to grinding rep with the SSO & the new daily quests (fishing anyone?) While this was going on I noticed that I wasn't being called for raids. Which was making me ancy since I had left my home to join w my new guild. In fact I almost left & went Ronin, but @ the last moment I was saved by the casuals...AKA they in the guild who have a life besides wow.
I realized quickly that my guild was split into two factions, those who only wanted to progress & would only play w players of the same 'caliber' & those who understood that to complete the end game you needed more that a L337 Tank. You needed the right groups with the right makeup & the right skills. Our leadership was able to view above this bickering & keep the peace, but he's been slacking...well slacking isn't the right word...real life has taken a priorty...apparently buying a house is more important than running a raid =P Regardless though without his leadership the guild is cleaved between the two camps.

Is attunement neccessary?

2008-04-04T16:31:00.002-04:00

I've been slacking on my blog the last couple of weeks. Mostly because if I'm not working, doing chores being a good husband etc. I am doing the new Heroic Dailies. I am such an Rep Whore it's not even funny, the need to be exalted w a faction can make me into a daily running machine. But hey on fenris we're not even @ 60% of phase II & I'm already revered with SSO.
In the mess that is 2.4 Blizzard removed attunements. While at first I supported them on this change, after experiencing several sunwell pugs with players who don't know their ass from their elbow I have had to change my view on the attunement process. Attunements in the game are necessary, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it needs to be balanced with letting casual players have access to content. Otherwise you get players who cannot complete the content becoming frustrated & frustrating fellow players.

April Fools

2008-04-01T06:43:00.003-04:00

Blizzard has outdone themselves again, the molten core console game & the new bard class look awesome.
Have a great April Fools Day!

New Posts on Patch 2.4\Mag Terrace & De-Attunement Coming Soon!

World of ChinCraft II: Chinchilla Talents

2008-03-23T06:40:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter Everyone!
After my fluffy sons throughly sniffed around the house to verify that no long eared rodents made it through the proximity mines, I decided to finally post the Chinchilla Talent Line for World of Warcraft

Note: For any non wow players reading my blog here are a couple links to help you understand talents:
The official blizzard site
WOW Wiki's Page on talents & talent builds

And with that here are the chinchilla talent lines for world of warcraft!

Cuteness
The Cuteness line focuses on behavior that will endear to hairless chinchillas.
Cute chinchillas are able to get caught doing bad things and get away with it.

Insolence
The Insolence line focuses on craftiness & wits. Insolent chinchillas are
able to get others to take the fall for their misdeeds & have long term
schemes come to fruition without detection.

Nimbleness
The Nimbleness line focuses on senses & agility. Nimble chinchillas easily
evade predators & hairless doe's!

Cuteness
Tier 1
Opportunistic Sneeze (5 Ranks): You Sneeze more often, increasing positive
attention by the alpha doe by 10% but raising your chance to be found by
her by 1%
Chortle of Clarity (5 Ranks): Each rank increases by 10% the chance for
your chortles for treat to be heard over the din of the nest.

Tier 2
Kit Faced (5 Ranks) : You appear cuter & more kit like. Each rank increases
by 4% the chance that some minor misdeed will be ignored
Improved Beg (5 Ranks) : Each Rank increases by 4% that you'll get a major
treat when you assume a begging stance.

Tier 3:
Well Timed Bark (5 Ranks): Your Bark coincides with an intresting moment
around the nest! Each Rank increases Attention & Affection by hairless
chins by 10% for 10 minutes
Serene Shoulder Stay (5 Ranks) : You've mastered using a hairless doe's
shoulder as a perch. Each Rank increases by 10% you will get a major
treatle by the doe.
This talent leads to..
Sweet Nothings (1 Rank \ Instant \ 24hr cooldown) You squeak sweetly into
the alpha does ear, guarantying a raisin!

Tier 4
Aura of hairlessness(5 ranks): Your mischief will appear as innocous as if
it was done by a hairless kit. each rank increases by 10% that a major
misdeed will be ignored outright by the alpha doe & increases by 5% that
the misdeed will be regarded as cute by the alpha doe & will garnish either
major gnawwood\major treat
This leads to....
Wave Hands (1 rank\instant\12 hour cooldown)
You can wave your hands! This guarantee's increased positive attention by the
alpha doe for 30 minutes.
Tier 5
Mark of Whisper (1 rank\instant)
You've mastered the art of adorableness & assume the guise of Whisper. If
caught by a hairless kit, buck or doe no harm will come to you.

Insolence
Tier 1
Improved Cunning (5 ranks) : Increases intelligence by 2% per rank.
Improved Helplessness (5 ranks): Each rank increases by 15% that your helpless stance will get
The alpha doe's defensive attention.

Tier 2
Kit Bark (5 Ranks): Your barks sound weak & kit like. Each rank increases by 10% that you'll get 5% more treat than you normally would. At the same time it increases by 2% that the Alpha Doe will pick you up & hold you out of concern.

Silent Patter (5 Ranks): Decreases detection from out of cage movement by 10% per rank

Tier 3
Mark of the Doe (1 rank): Your lies, falsehoods & fabrications bear the seal of the Alpha Doe! decreases chance of for other chins to disbelieve your whoppers by 75%
This leads to
Improved mark of the Doe(2 ranks): Each rank allows you to lie convincingly to Doe's!
Rank 1: Seal of the Grand Alpha Doe. This Rank allow MOTD to work on Alpha Doe's & Below 60% of the time.
Rank 2: Embossed Fiery Seal of the Great, Grand, Alpha Doe: This rank allows MOTD to work on Grand Alpha Doe's 60% of the time, and allows MOTD to work on Alpha Doe's & below 90% of the time.
Important Note: Do not attempt on Great, Grand Alpha Doe's, they are far to cunning to fall for your simple buck lies. The Best advice from end game forums is to let them in on your schemes & hope they give you a 1% cut & don't send you to a furrier!

Improved Decoy (5 Ranks): increases decoy mis-direction by 20% per rank
This leads to
Patsy(1 Rank/instant/48hr cooldown): Allows you to place blame squarely on a lower rodent (Mouse, Rat, Squirrel, Chipmunk, Rabbit) if said rodent is available. This will get you out of a minor & significant misdeeds by 100%

Tier 4
Improved Lackey (5 Ranks): Each rank increases by 20% that your Lackey's will follow your order's without deviation.
Master of Strategy (5 Ranks): Increases plotting by 15% of your intellect per rank.

Tier 5
Disciple of Pete (1 Rank \ Instant \ 24hr cooldown) : Your ability to manipulate hairless bucks is the stuff of Legend. Like Pete, you decided who lives & who dies.
When cast this puts the Alpha Buck in a trance state for ten minutes. He will then do as you command. The following actions will cause the trance to break.

Commanding the alpha buck to harm himself or by cause of action allow him to be harmed
Commanding the alpha buck to harm the alpha doe or by cause of action allow her to be harmed
Commanding the alpha buck to harm another chinchilla or by cause of action allow another chinchilla to be harmed

Although buckling your may be a disciple of the feared one, you still have much to learn. And after all Pete did take the many secrets over the rainbow bridge...

Nimbleness

Tier 1
Keen Ears (5 Ranks): Increases hearing range by 10 yards per rank
Keen Nose (3 Ranks): Improves Treat Detection by 10 feet per rank
Improved Fake Sleep (2 Ranks): Improves your Fake Sleep ability by 10% per rank.

Tier 2
Controlled Panic (3 ranks): You can control you flight response. Decreases fur slippage & accidental injury by 25% per Rank
Improved Sight (2 Ranks): Increase your vision by 5 feet per rank
Misdirected Bark (3 Ranks): Each rank increases by 25% that your warning barks to get the alpha bucks positive attention & will guard nest for 30 minutes per rank
Improved Taunt Doe (2 Ranks): Each rank increases by 10 minutes the run time caused by your Taunt Doe ability.
This leads to...
Tactics (2 ranks instant): Improves the base chance that your Misdirect: Alpha Buck will work from by 25% per rank

Tier 3
Ignore Fooey Instant (5 ranks): Allows you to gnaw on Fooey sprayed wood for 1 minute per rank.
Hidey-Hole (3 ranks): Each rank increases the duration your Annoy Doe: Safely ability by 10%

Tier 4
Improve Evade Doe (5 ranks): Each rank increases the duration of your Evade Doe ability by 5 minutes
Adorably Defensive (5 ranks): Your cautious & your cute! Each rank increases the chance that when your in a peeping stance you'll garnish treat from the alpha buck or doe!

Tier 5
Trance of the Viscacha (Instant/36hour cooldown): You sucked it up, went back home, & studied under your country cousins! There your learned how to sit still for hours on end..until the time is just right. When activated you'll enter a trance that allows hairless chins to pick you up because they think you want to be! Once you reach your desired destination, you de-trance instantly with 200% of your normal abilities for 30 seconds. Woe to those unprepared hairless chins...

Happy Easter Everyone!
Neren & Family

Power...Unlimited Power...

2008-03-21T11:42:00.003-04:00

Being a married man with a life means that I have to schedule my game time. I don't have the luxury of playing every day or night. This was something that I discussed with my guild master when I switched over to Utopia. With that said, I've noticed that Murphy's Law has made me it's bitch! When I've blocked out time for the 25man raids, I'm not called to battle. And when I'm logging on to do a couple dailies or grind, because of real world commitments I get invited.
I try to stay positive & appreciate when I am included in the raids. After all you only appreciate something when you don't get it all the time and I've lost track of how many conversations have been about how grateful everyone is to be included in the End game content. So even if he never reads this thanks to Fugasi & the rest of the guild council for their time & commitment.
But getting back on subject. This Tuesday we were supposed to clear the Eye up till Kael, & since I blocked out the time to raid I wasn't called(Murphy's Law you cruel tyrant!) So I decided that I had two options 1.) level my alt or 2.) Farm for the Elixir of Dream Vision. I went with # 2. Emptied out my bags, & started farming in Azshara. I spent the next 4 hours slaughtering the Blue Dragonkin that were added in patch 2.3, hoping to get an Azure Whelpling. Instead I got Kang the Decapitator, which marks the 3rd Epic World drop I've gotten since starting playing back in 2006. It's sitting on the ah now I priced it at the median per Allakhazam.
In those four hours I sent my ah bitch, 40 items for ah including Kang. I actually had to run back to Astranaar twice because of lack of bag space. When I got back to Azshara, I saw a level 60 hunter trying to farm the Dragonkin, and I watched for a few seconds, decided to buff him & his pet, & proceeded to slaughter all the Dragonkin. Then it hit me, for the first time I felt more powerful than someone else. Here he was trying to take down one elite, while I had just killed eight of them not in Moonkin form. I had never felt this before in game, because I always tempered my progression to appropriate levels. I never went back to old world content, & when I farmed Azshara for my elixir drop, I never saw anyone else there unless maybe a level 70 farming for the dragon pet.
I hate to admit it but it felt good. I can see now why Power can be addictive. I sure don't hope I goto the dark side!

An Imperfect Azeroth

2008-03-16T06:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning, I finally went into Maraudon. I never did the instance on my main I don't know why but I just remember not doing the instance when it was level appropriate. So when I picked up the quests on my alt, I made a choice yesterday to run the instance. Luckily I got a guildie who wanted to help since he had been in there only once.

Before I ran Mara, I had held that of all the instances in WOW, this one had the best back story.
From the world dungeons site:

Protected by the fierce Maraudine centaur, Maraudon is one of the most sacred sites within Desolace. The great temple/cavern is the burial place of Zaetar, one of two immortal sons born to the demigod, Cenarius. Legend holds that Zaetar and the earth elemental princess, Theradras, sired the misbegotten centaur race. It is said that upon their emergence, the barbaric centaur turned on their father and killed him. Some believe that Theradras, in her grief, trapped Zaetar's spirit within the winding cavern - used its energies for some malign purpose. The subterranean tunnels are populated by the vicious, long-dead ghosts of the Centaur Khans, as well as Theradras' own raging, elemental minions.

Then yesterday I actually ran the dungeon and I changed my mind!

Maraudon was the first dungeon released after WOW came out. And after one hour clearing it with a level 70 end game hunter and accepting we were only 30% done, it dawned on me that my disillusionment that I was feeling with the instance was because it reminded me of an all too human trait. The designers had overreached when they built the dungeon. They built the dungeon so big, to show off how good WOW was, that you actually get tired of the instance!

To me a good instance is like a good story, there's a clear starting point a clear middle & an well defined ending where all the loose ends are tied up. The best example of this is Black Morass, which is why I ran it twice one day & enjoyed both runs.

Mara though felt like a Victorian novel that's major plot points are separated by 50 pages of dry dialog & unnecessary details. Of course this also may be due to when it was made & the designers using older MMO dungeon designs as a template, But unlike the Victorian novel, Mara can be changed, it's a virtual world after all, & if Blizzard is moving Naxx for WOLTK, I think they could compress Mara so that instead of it taking 3-4 hours run, they could remove some of the extra corridors so that's it would take 1 to 2 hours. If they do this, I would expect that a lot more people would run this as they level up their characters instead of passing on it to do other quests.

World of Chincraft: Part 1

2008-03-15T06:46:00.005-04:00

I'm sick today, & before I get into dailies. I wanted to post this hope you enjoy..
As I've mentioned before my wife & I have two pet chinchillas. For anyone who is considering children I would strongly recommend chinchillas prior to attempting to breed as they are a great warm up to the level of changes your lives will go through if you decide to have kids.

Also if any pet store employee tells you that chinchillas are an easy no hassle pet, I sincerely urge you to beat them until they are twitching on the ground. And finally if you don't believe me please goto chincare & read up on my fluffy sons. Right now is one of those times I wish I had a dog, at least dogs don't avoid you because your sick & they don't want to catch the buboes

With that of my chest here is what I have to say about the World of Chincraft. In general my chinchillas love that I play WOW for purely selfish chinnie reasons. As far as they are concerned WOW = Alpha Buck in Nest Room = No Gaurd Duty for Us!

Allow me to explain for the non-chinnie owners. Chinchillas are nocturnal like almost all rodents. During the day they will take turns guarding the nest for any predators (hawks, foxes, Hairless Doe's wanting to hold them.) But unlike other rodents, chin's lives in herd\clan groups & identify they're owners as members of the herd\clan. Albeit larger, hairless chinchillas who've mastered fire & tools & will not share their secrets with them. Still though members of the tribe. I am the Alpha Buck (aka, butler, fetching buck), my wife is the Alpha Doe (she who must be obeyed.)

So when I sit & play WOW, to my sons I am on Gaurd Duty, keeping them safe from the myriad predators that they've never seen, heard or smelled but still are expecting to show up. There I sit, focused, alert, & above all Quiet. TV will either be very quiet or off, and I'm just being a dutiful alpha buck watching over my sons.

Of course the fact that this also allows them to BOTH sleep & not have to take shifts keeping watch suits them just fine! Since of course I am a negligent father during the week & they have to keep watch while I'm gone, it's the least I can do to atone for my since. This also means that when I leave on Sunday's to teach in the afternoon, I come home to find one or both of them glaring at me; eyes brimming with the injustice of the situation. That they had to take turns keeping watch instead of me fills their little chinchin eyes with fury!

In addition, when I used to let them out for run time & played WOW (this has stopped per the wife,) even though I was watching them (most of the time =P) in their scheming chinnie minds I was occupied & they could proceed with nefarious deeds undeterred. These deeds mostly consisted of nipping the pillows my wife uses on our couch (take that doe! hold me & use me for photos...hmph!) & of course gnawing on books. They'd also periodically run across the keyboard of my laptop, which made for some interesting chat on trade. Neren says: "Need Elixirs or Flasks? pkjdenhes"

As I said before in general they like me playing WOW, there are times it conflicts with their needs . And of course that simply will not do!

Being nocturnal , Folgers time for them in around 8:00.8:30 pm. At around 9ish they get the daily treat (seeds, vitamins etc.) This also coincides with my raid time, which wouldn't be a problem except that the Doe is stingy on the treat, (again in their minds keeping the choicest bits for herself) so I'm expected to be the one doling it out. If they see that I have my headphones on. I will get glaring looks & lots of noise in the cage as a reminder of what time it is. They also use this to get treat early "Uh Daddy, better give us treat now before Phase 2 of Vash"

And finally any time after 10pm we need to be paying attention to them (regardless of if were getting ready for bed\next day!) They're awake & demand amusement! If I'm home alone & playing WOW when I turn my head I'll see them looking at me wondering why I'm not being a good chin parent & juggling in front of the cage.

One last thing before I go, my next post will be about chin talents. I'm not into Furry, but if you were to play a chinchilla in WOW, I came up with talents for them.

First Time

2008-03-13T09:57:00.003-04:00

We got to phase 3 last night
this was my first view of the Sunstrider himself

Why Blizzard Succeded where others failed: A Response to Risen's Statmen

2008-03-09T23:02:00.006-04:00

So Risen has decided to stop raiding because they feel that WOW has become far too casual, and they are infuriated with the injustice that 'casual' players can attain gear that's on par with the Tier 6 gear that they've worked hard to acquire by raiding BT\Hyjal.
My first reaction to reading their post was pure anger. I read it, re-read it & felt the moonkin fury welling in my gut. I've heard this argument before & not just with MMO's but in any sub-group that has new members join it's ranks.
During my years of martial arts practice students\black belts who had come up the ranks in the 70's, 80's & 90's & had to jump through hoops to prove their abilities would often complain about how the 7th & 8th Dan's that ran the US organization had become soft on the new students, how the standards had changed, how what passes as good technique today would've had the student grilled for sloppiness 'Back in the Day' .
I view this thought process at the most basic social level is is Elitism with an asterisk. The asterisk is the following: unless you were part of the group at this time, or at this place (alpha, beta, release etc.) you can never belong. You can surpass us, you can accomplish goals we never attained, but since you didn't belong 'Back in the Day', we'll never give you the same respect that
we'd give our peers. This is vastly different than elitism based on accomplishment. (I've got my tier gear, I've got my pvp gear.) With this form of elitism you can still earn respect amongst your peers.
But I digress, my main point of this post is that this Elitism, fails to recognize something important about WOW, because those who practice it forget something important. WOW succeeded because blizzard learned the lessons of the past. Those like Risen have forgotten them.
In the beginning there was Ultima Online, Followed By EverQuest, then Dark Age of Camelot. These games required players to invest huge amounts to time & created the image of the MMORPG Addict, because frankly you had to be either unemployed or extremely maladjusted to progress in the game. When I think of MMO's back then I think of people spending 12-14 hours a day to improve a tiny bit.
Then in 2004 City of Heroes came out which in my opinion was the first step towards casuality; which I define as being able to progress in an MMO and invest less than 3 hours a day. I use 3 hours a day as a standard because that's about how much tv a person watches here in the US per night on average. This was the first MMO I played & I could play it for 2 hours & then put the game down.
WOW came out later that year & it was designed from the begging to grab this casual market. If only 5% of the user base is going to see UBRS & the other 95% isn't, then your going to design for the 95% of the user base. What Blizzard did very well was motivate people to attempt to attain what the 5% of raiders attained. You may not attain Grand Marshal of the alliance but you could try. They also gave out talent points, which determined how you wanted to Play the game, but it was layed out quite clearly that if you were a druid, well your going to be resto, because the tier set only gave a bonus to your resto spells. And this wasn't only for druids, it was for every other class as well.
But what blizzard learned over time was that if you want to increase your user base, you need to not peg your users into one role, you need to allow your users the freedom, to play how they'd like to play & be able to see the end game content. The more players who can see then end game, the more subscriptions, which means more money, which means more content.

New Discovery

2008-03-07T06:02:00.001-05:00

Look what I discovered!!!
Yeah Hooray for me

WOW = Golf

2008-03-07T05:41:00.003-05:00

I discovered about two weeks ago that a large group of my co-workers had a WOW guild on Blackwater Raiders. We more specifically they all belonged to a horde guild on BR. (I later found out that the gm was not a co-worker.) After speaking w a good friend in the guild he told me where they stood on Guild Progression (Hyjal, BT) & if I level up a toon there I'd probably get in since I knew about 8 guys in the guild from real life. At the same time he understood that I had almost two months of real life invested in Neren & that if I did this I would be putting an end game toon in cold storage. We then discussed Vash strategy & joked about being end game druids. Also one of the VP's at the location was in the guild but he was into PVP, so he & I talked WOW but not in the same perspective as my other co-worker who was into end-game content. Still though both of them thought my Blog was awesome so that's cool!
I told this to my wife as she was cooking dinner. She then looked at me with eyes that were infused with seriousness & told me that she wanted me to level a character on that server so I could play with them since it would help me with my career. I think she even checked on me once to see if I was on my main or working on my new toon. I explained that it would take about 30 days to reach were my friends were at in WOW. She was like ok that's a month, to which I replied no 30 days (or 720 hours) to non wow players.
To be honest my heart just isn't into it. Leveling a character to play with my co-workers (who aren't even at my location) because it might help my career doesn't feel right. I think my wife relates it to Golf & I can see the analogy, but it's not the same as Golf. We can talk WOW, we can share experiences, but it's not like a golf PUG, where you can chat and make deals. Raids are focused events, you don't discuss anything other than the raid.
Still though I can see WOW becoming like golf over time, servers are clubs, guilds as groups, etc. One time I helped my friend Meatpuppet IRL with his company's cell management issues.
But I see it taking time for WOW to develop into the networking atmosphere that the golf course is famous for. Real World relationships take time, as opposed to WOW relationships which form\fail at an accelerated rate.

Gary Gygax: A Eulogy

2008-03-04T21:51:00.004-05:00

I am still stunned that Gary Gygax has passed from this world. I think that Penny Arcade put it best I cannot imagine where my life would be without the world that Gary & his brother created. as a young geek padawan learner, D&D & AD&D were so important to me & to my fellow learners. I still remember the first time I played it, across the street from my grandmother's house with my friends. I played a premade & was killed one of his characters. It opened up a gigantic world to me. It opened up obscure rules to fantasy that had limits, to consequences, to choices, to calculated bravery. It led to socialization & friends that I would never have met.
Gary Gygax's contribution to this world are far greater than people can imagine. Whole industries sprung up because of what he created; And I think that's what I'm seeing today online. Everyone is realizing how big of an impact his works made. I never got to meet Gary but if I could've I would've said this:
"Mr Gygax thank you for what you created, I would not be the man I am today if it wasn't for you."

Vash down...I wasn't there =(

2008-03-04T06:34:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it sucks being a dutiful husband. I had to pick my wife up from the train station last night. I missed the raid invite by 10 minutes. Utopia downed her in 3 attempts. Next stop Kael'thas Sunstrider!

I hate cloth gear

2008-03-03T10:20:00.004-05:00

The title of this post says it all. Normally I don't like wearing cloth gear. I hate it in fact. To me it feels like I'm cheating. I don't know any other way to explain it other than I'm a druid, I'm supposed to wear leather & I'll be damned to be wearing some silken breeches that should be on a glass cannon. One of my guild mates in fact called me a leather supremacist, and if I could I would have it as my toon's title.
As I've progressed through endgame I stood firm & kept my Kurnai Kilt, even though better dps cloth pants would drop. Then last Thursday the Trial-Fire Trousers dropped off the Opera even in Kara. These pants offered me something that my kilt didn't stamina. So for three days I mulled over what to do with them. Then on Sunday I bit the bullet, loaded them up with 3 smooth dawnstone's
Slapped on a Runic Spellthread & got my new pants. I've included my current armory link if you want to check them out.
The irony of course is that I know the next time I run Gruul, my tier 4 will drop. This is how the universe works. I drop 325 gold on upgrades & I'll need to do it again when my real pants drop.

A'lar Down \ Vash down to 3%

2008-03-03T09:56:00.003-05:00

I took this last night after we downed the Phoenix God, normally I don't take screen shots but this one was so impressive that I had to.
I wasn't able to stay on for Vash due to ISP disconnects, but my guild mates got her to 3%. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to stay on to actually be there when she goes down

Update Why I'll never goto BlizzCon \ Husband Talent Points

2008-03-01T10:21:00.002-05:00

After my wife read this post she added this comment:
"No one would get close enough to you for me to threaten them because I emit Keep Away Aura."

Why I'll never goto BlizzCon \ Husband Talent Points

2008-03-01T09:25:00.003-05:00

As I've posted before I'm a happily married man, who's been blessed to have a geek wife to call his own. She really is the best thing to happen to me & she makes sure to remind me several times a day! She also is a very protective wife, and when I say that I mean that she watches over me like a hawk. Not because I'm a cheating man but because she has put time & effort in leveling my husband skills to end game progression & she gets concerned that another woman will loot her epic goods so to speak. I relate this to our pet chinchillas specifically female chins.
Doe's (as they are called) are very territorially. Unless two Doe's are related by blood, they cannot be put together! If one is bigger than the other the Big one will beat down the smaller one until submission. If they are the same size they will literally fight to the death for dominance. The only time my wife has been bitten by chinchillas were by Doe's that viewed her as competition. As we say in our house Doe's hate Doe's. Doe's are also crafty & shrewd, again similar traits in human women. Another rule in our house is KTDH: Keep the Doe Happy. When in doubt always refer to KTDH.
So where does this lead, well last week I was watching on the HD Videogame channel a show about BlizzCon 2007. I wasn't able to attend because we had just gotten married. But my wife had agreed that it would be ok for me to attend the 2008 convention if it ran. That was until she saw some 20 something girl dressed as a level 20 Draeni mage! My wife looked @ me & said "No Fucking Way are you going there unless I can come with a death bringer!" I then had to correct her & tell her it was called the bringer of death! http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Bringer_of_Death
It's always important to use correct verbiage!

Ok fast forward to last Saturday night, I'm in SSC & we're trying to take down Vash. More specifically we're learning the fight. I tell my GL that I'm pulling out @ 8pm. He was like "No Problem I know you had to pull strings to raid on a Saturday night." I tell my wife I'm done & she says to keep raiding because she was working on scrapbook. I jump back on vent & my GL says "Wow what skills do you have to get back into a raid, I'd like to know!" So we joke about Husband Talent Point's which I'll go into the end of the Post
Now fast forward to Thursday's Badgeazhan run: My wife comes over to me & does an impersonation of the Draeni Mage that damned me from every attending BlizzCon. She added the
some more details. She heard I was end game, that I had Tier Gear, that I had a lot of gold & could I come back to her room to show her how to setup macros on her laptop. Meanwhile the PTT key was on so everyone in my guild that was part of the run heard her skit & was laughing their asses off. Yesterday I was thinking about her little skit & I thought, hmm what would my wife really say to that girl if she was at BlizzCon w me & small gamma doe came up & was flirty.
Here is what I think she would say
"Hi I've got a level 70 DOE stick that I've had enchanted with Doeish Fury. Ron Pardo & Chris Metzen's wives told me to tell you that if your around after we get back from our Pedicure's I need to show them the proc rate on it by using you as a Advanced Targeting Dummy."
With that said how do I keep my wife happy.
Here is part of my talent build ( I wasn't allowed to post it all..you can guess why)
3/3 points - Sense wife's needs
2/2 points - fetching which I then put all 5 point into Advanced Fetching
3/4 points - Improved foot rub (i'd put another point but I'm afraid I'll be rubbing her feet forever)
3 points - Improved Listening
3 points - Detailed Housecleaning

The Bittersweet Joy of cleaning out Bankspace

2008-02-28T09:59:00.004-05:00

Last Night's raid was called at 8pm due to a lack of group mixture. We broke into two kara groups (adults & teenagers\young adults) We set a goal of clearing Badgeazahn within 3 hrs. Our group due to a couple wipes did it in 3.5hrs. We actually wiped on the trash before opera so after that we took it a little bit more seriously
When all said in done it was a Monty Haul for Me
http://www.wowwiki.com/Idol_of_the_Avian_Heart
http://www.wowwiki.com/Trial-Fire_Trousers
http://www.wowwiki.com/Cord_of_Nature%27s_Sustenance
http://www.wowwiki.com/Pendant_of_the_Violet_Eye
http://www.wowwiki.com/Nightstaff_of_the_Everliving
It got to a point where I felt bad needing on all this stuff, but I did win on the Violet Eye (99 on need roll), and everyone else has tier 5 or equivalent gear & didn't want it. What was weird though was that for my healing set, this was such a major upgrade. But it was bittersweet. Checking my bag space I had a lot of blues that took a lot of work to get, but there was no point in keeping them. So my two healing staff's My Blue healing belt, gloves, My Feral Pants & Belt. Lots and lots of time and effort, sold in a few minutes.
It would be nice for blizzard to create an archive or a museum feature where players could put notable gear in so that they could look at it for old times sake. I'll leave it at that

The first time I've ever been upset at Blizzard...

2008-02-24T12:05:00.004-05:00

happened today.
I went to bed last night at 10pm sick, & got up @ 7:15 or so, about an hour later than I had set my alarm. I feel better, but still out of sorts, so I determined that laundry would either be done tonight or tomorrow after work. My wife still sick w flu merely wanted an ice pack & occasional checkups.
After getting coffee, letting the chinnie's run around for the first time since Thursday (they get twitchy if they don't get exercise time every two days...they're cage may be 4X2X3 but still they need open exercise) I logged in to check on how we did last night in SSC. Utopia is on Vash & when I tapped out @ 10pm we were still going. Apparently we didn't down her because we're on again @ 6:30 for tonight. We battled that naga from 5:30 to 8 then 8:45 until god knows when. But it was necessary to learn how the fight works. You can watch the videos but you actually need to get over the chaos of that battle.
Anyway I picked up the daily cooking quest, and lo and behold...the heroic is Shadow Labs...Somehow the gods must favor me because I got a mixed pug up by 8:30 & was in sl by 8:45 (with two replacements, since I didn't realize my guild pally was ret & the rogue he brought w him wanted to run it only w him.)
Progress was going slow & steady, no wipes until after 1st boss & we had to change tactics because we realized we didn't have a shadow mage to mc one of the mobs during the six pulls. At 10am we started seeing warnings that the instance was going to reset in one hour. I had never seen that before (as well as others so we thought that the time meant that we had an hour to take down the 2nd boss.) Wrong. @ 11am the server resets all heroic instances. So what did this mean for us? Well we got to Grandmaster Vorpil with approx 3 mins left before server reset.
Now here is the kicker, before the pug was filled I had noticed a herb node spawned in the river by the Scryer Village in Tekkor Forest & I had reported it the GM's. Well the GM answered @ 10:55. was blizzard able to help? No. So this left me & five other married men with chores that beckoned with an unfinished quest. And were not talking the daily, we're talking the champion of the naaru quest. For me at least this is the last part before Mag.
I want to be angry at Blizzard but one of my best traits stops me from going into a blood fury. The problem here is that Blizzard hasn't adjusted their maintenance schedules to the changing demographics of players. Namely Adults who get up early on weekends. And what's really sick is that I can understand this.
I'm a gamer, I've played video games since I was at least 3-4. I can remember how nervous my uncle was letting me play on his Atari 2600 because back in '78 that machine cost $199. I was weaned on Laser Blast & Pitfall, I learned to play Summer Games on an AT&T clone, I had a C64 & had friends who were jealous because they had vic20's or PETS. I stopped Tarjan in his tracks twice. I skipped Nintendo, went to genesis, played my fair share of Sonic, Went back to PC's (Xwing\Tie-Fighter\Might & Magic.) Played Doom, Played Aliens PWAD, Downloaded QTest, submitted Bugs to ID, Bought Quake through the 1-800 #, played Deathmatch for six months on lvls that only the people who had called ID directly could access (remember it was released in June & didn't goto retail until December.) Fallout 1&2 & Tactics. Diablo for 36 hours straight. The point is I've played a lot & I know the mantra that is instilled into every young gamer..Game all night sleep is for the week...caffeine is a powerful ally..it makes you stronger, gives you focus..but beware the dew lest you get addicted. & if you run game servers, never do system maintenance late in the evening, do it late morning when no one is online.
The Problem is that the gamers have grown up, & even if I can stay up all night on a Friday I have things to do Sat Morning. & it's not just me it's everyone I know that raids or is endgame, yes you have your fair share of teenagers & kids but the demographic is getting older. & so you need to adjust. I would recommend that Heroic's be reset @ 6-7am Server Time. That should resolve this little issue.

Ironic

2008-02-23T11:13:00.003-05:00

Well if anyone who's reading this blog has noticed this week's posts have been very light. This was due to me attending Blackberry Enterprise Server Training for Lotus Domino in Edison NJ for the last two days. So before I left the office my team leader had a host of items for me to take care of before I left, and the Server classes was actually a lot more involved than I or my co-worker actually thought it would be. Plus the commute was about 90 minutes 1way. So needless to say I was fried by Thursday night. Then as I was falling asleep Thursday night, my wife asks me to make a hotel reservation because of the incoming winter storm,
I awoke Friday @ 5am to a winter wonderland...If I didn't have to drive down to Edison, I quickly got out the door, and while cleaning my car the owner of a small mom & pop gourmet grocery store advised me not to take 287 south so I trudged for about 2 hours taking route 17 south to route 80 to the NJ turnpike. The only accident I saw was actually when I got to the Raritan Center (some dolt drove to fast around the jug handle & hit a light pole.) Class was still on, my hotel room was ok'd by my boss (I'm known for being cheap on trips.) I go to the hotel room, get settled, get logged in & guess what..
I kept getting disconnected
And disconnected.
And disconnected.
So there I was no where to go...nice chair, no distractions. & I couldn't play WOW
Ah the irony..

Thoughts on some recent changes

2008-02-21T09:10:00.001-05:00

So online there have been major\minor changes since I last posted:

Peda: My shamen hit 40 on monday, I let my wife pick out the color of my ellek (purple).
I'll create a seperate post on my thoughts of the new quests.

Milbert: Milbert is the new ah bitch. He spends his days in Stormwind running from the mailbox to the bank

Turndow: I made a realization w my Warrior on Sunday. You cannot go into the past & fix the errors you made. It hust doesn't exist. So I sent all greens to Milbert. All ore & stone to peda, sold his gear, sold his bags, mailed the gold to Peda & deleted Turndow. He was level 22, but I did it without any hesitation.

Neren: Survived Solarian\Died On Legothras the blind (we got him down to 1%),\Vas on Saturday. I'm not going to work on alts for a bit, I've been neglecting Neren too much lately

My thoughts on WOW Addiction Part II: Stay at home mom's & others...

2008-02-16T08:48:00.004-05:00

One of the best WOW Websites on the net is The Guild http://www.watchtheguild.com/ I've watched the episodes since the first one came out, & even my wife who won't even try WOW laughs hysterically at the antics of the six members of the Guild. Yet the commentary that the actors are making about real life issues mixing with online issues do strike a chord. Esp in the case of Clara, the stay at home mom with three kids who are being neglected while she plays her gnome toon all day.

In my wanderings on Fenris, I've met several stay @ home moms who play wow ALL DAY. And when I say ALL DAY, (in bold & caps to make the point) I mean it. I've broken my wow game day into five phases (see below)
Phase I is the early morning phase. This is the part of the day when I check on Auctions, level my alt's professions, maybe finish 1-2 dailies on my main before I goto work. Phase I is limited to 30-45 minutes since I need to get up early for 3 reasons:
I. I am the dependable early guy at the office, this was thrust upon me years ago when my boss moved to south jersey & couldn't get in early anymore. Prior to that I was a night owl (and if my wife's reading this YES I was!), but having to be up @ 5am to be @ the office for 7am transformed me, (transmuted me if you will) into an early bird.
II. Since I have ADHD, my Ritalin needs time to spin up. This takes about 60 to 90 mins before the effects become apparent. If I don't get up early, interesting things & events have happened.
III. Our Pet chinchillas have been conditioned for their free time to be early am, since I'm up anyway due to items I & II. Since a good exercise time for my little puffs of attitude is 30-45 mins every other day, regardless of schedule I'm up letting them run around the living room.
Phase II. Is normal after work\early evening phase. This is when I do dailies, guild runs, raids, quests Etc.
Phase III. Is weekend phase; this early morning\late afternoon game time is rare now since I'm in full swing with teaching, but I value it above all since I can play unfettered with the need to get chores done, etc. etc. It's my quiet time to sip coffee & listen to the news
There's also the uber-rare Phase IV & V.
Phase IV: Sick Day, I attempt not to play wow but end up because I'm bored.
Phase V: Wife's away the husband will play. & Play & Play & Play. All major progression is done when my wife is away on business trips. Epic Flight Form (check), Tier Gear (check), level 70 (check) This is when I can play from the time I come home till the time I goto bed. It's a rare event & I enjoy it, but I am so glad that my wife returns else I become like the guy from Make Love Not Warcraft! Remember kids: Moderation in all things is key; Even the blues say so!
My point in this is that in all five phases, the stay @ home moms are online, either on a main, on a alt, doing the ah, crafting for a friend, running dailies, doing a dungeon run, doing a pug kara or za. They are always on. If your on vent, you can hear the kids in the background & once in a while they need to take care of one of them. What upsets me is that when you ask them about the kids, they seem to have an indifference to them, that I shouldn't have to change my life because they are around. That's not an exact quote but it's pretty close to what one woman said to me one time over party chat.
So how does this relate to online addiction? Well in my opinion, what these women are doing isn't the signs of an addict, but the signs of someone who's desperately lonely & looking for friendship and socialization.
In this day an age, the amount of women who stay at home with the kids is very small. This means that the systems that used to exist in the past to occupy a women's day while the husband & the rest of the family was gone & she was stuck at home with the babies & toddlers have dwindled down to a few possible choices. So what these women (and men I presume) have done is taken an MMORPG & hijacked it to fulfill their need for social contact.
The problem that I see is that WOW is a very poor substitute for real world social contact. First off the unwritten rules of ettiquite that we use to determine who are in the tribe & who isn't are not easy to apply. Secondly, the real world choice-bias of height, age, sex etc cannot be applied...yet. What this means for not just the stay at home mom's but anyone else who is @ home all the time is that they need to cast a wide net to meet their socialization needs. Which leads them to being online from the time to wake up to the time they goto bed.
The more I think about this the more I think of Harlow's monkey experiment's & the long term effects that it had on the monkeys that were raised by the wire\cloth substitutes. when they were introduced to the normal monkey's they were extremely anti-social & in the case of the females lacked the ability to raise their young. What I've noticed w the stay @ homes is something similar, since they are online all day, real world social skills are either missing, stunted or in the case of people that I've met who began using MMORPG's as a coping mechanism, atrophied. This still isn't addiction, but a survival mechanism, as my Sensei said to me when I went to California to train "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", these men & women have adapted to survive prosper & grow in an online world were the old laws of socialization are gone.
The question I have though is as more and more of the real world enters the virtual world what will happen to these men & women? My gut tells me that it will not be good, though I don't know if it'll be a case of just looking for a new coping mechanism or turn to something more dangerous.

Other Updates

2008-02-15T06:40:00.003-05:00

As I just posted I haven't played much WOW since Monday, but some events did happen since then.
As of Monday February 11th I am no longer a member of Sedition on Fenris. All 3 of my characters on the server left the Guild between the 11th & the 12th. My main character, Neren, joined Utopia on Monday Night at 5:46pm after a two week application process (guild runs, discussion with the guild master over a period of several days.) The main reasons for this decision were because Utopia's runs are from 7-10 w a firm end time of 1opm (unless they got the boss to 2% and they want to try one more time!) which fits into my schedule since I am on the east coast and a early bird & the guild progression of Sedition which as a guild was tied more to a casual playstyle which is great but leads to issues when it came to the end game 25 mans raids. Also when Sedition did run raids then tended to start 9-10pm which did not fit my time schedule.

Below is the post I left on Sedition's guild forum on Wednesday. It stemmed from several in game events that happened on Monday.

Hello Everyone,
As you all probably know I left Sedition last night & joined Utopia.
First & foremost this was not due to any personal conflicts with any members of the guild. Sedition has been a great organization & I've met a lot of incredible people through our dungeon runs, quests & raids. I was approached to join Sedition back in July of 2007 when I was still in House of Paratus, and If it wasn't for Sedition I would've just pugged around for god knows how long before going into Kara. I did a lot of things in WOW that I could never have accomplished without all of you. With that said, why did I decided to Leave Sedition? It was a multi-faceted
choice, but in the end it came down to several things.

1.)Scheduling: This was by far the highest on my list. I am an early bird\a creature of the dawn if you will, (Ironic that I play a Night Elf) and Utopia's raids usually start @ 7pm & are over by 10pm.

I was done last night w SSC by 9pm. My wife was absolutely stunned, I mean she was so stunned that I thought she was going to get on vent & thank them for running a raid at a time that didn't cause any conflicts

2.) Progression: Sedition is a great guild but because of scheduling conflicts I felt & had seen that we were not progressing with end game raids. Even if these were resolved. I felt I couldn't commit to any raids unless they were earlier in the Day.

In addition just a few more items

New Members: Don't Worry about Sedition, this guild is a great organization, do not leave because I left. I left for specific reasons due to my own needs as a player. Sedition is a great place w great people!

My Friends: Please do not ask me if I can see about getting you into Utopia. I am an initiate & have no sway. I was invited after several runs w the guild & the application process took about two weeks of back & forth before a formal invitation over the weekend. I still want to be friends w all of you guys & if you need me for 5man\10 man etc & I'm not committed I will be more than happy to join you.

See you all on the Virtual Side
-Neren

I'll post more as time permits

My thoughts on online game addiction. Part I

2008-02-15T06:07:00.005-05:00

My WOW gametime has been practically zero since Monday! A combination of several forces has kept me from logging in other than to check mail\auctions. But it makes me feel good since one thing I've battled with is the concept of online game addiction. Especially since I come from an addict\alcoholic background (both sides of my gene pool..so I'm double damned!) However I did come to a realization last Friday night that may shed some light into the WOW Addict Debate.
As I've posted before I work a part-time job & so does my wife. She was working late last Friday (it happens once every six weeks.) This permitted me something which even with our new home network is still very rare. Friday night guild dungeon \ raids!!! But alas my guild was fairly impotent on Friday due to a majority of guildies offline and\or doing PVP for rep. This left me lfg for about two hours & when we finally did get a group running & into the daily heroic (Auch Crypts), she had come home (bearing gifts of love & very tasty ice cream) only to find me going over how to clear the treacherous first room of the dungeon. Needles to say she was not happy.
Once I logged off because we couldn't get the pulls right w the tank we pugged, my wife asked me to quit WOW, she felt I was ignoring her & she didn't like the fact that I was playing 5 nights a week. I then realized that was she was saying was that she didn't like me running heroics \ raiding 5 nights a week. She didn't care if I was doing dailies or leveling an alt, because I wasn't involved with other people. If I needed to stop mid quest no big deal, I stopped was w her & then started the quest later. But when I was in a run\raid I was just a lump of flesh on the couch. Also even though I was actually playing less WOW (due to my part time job eating up my weekends), I was now playing during prime hours which cut down on us spending time together. Which brings me to my main point.
In one of my earlier posts I talked about Digitalization of Obligation, taking real world commitments and applying them to a virtual settings. This also means that there needs to be Digitalization of Moderation, the same level of prioritization & self-control that you apply to how often you play poker w the guys or meet w the girls for coffee needs to go towards social activities online.
Also, if your going to be at the higher level of sociability online (Vent\Voice Chat) then you need to have a space apart from the Real World group to do this. In my case I'm debating if I want to start running my raids in the dining room instead of playing in the living room,since I can chat without bothering her while she watches TV. I've noticed on a majority of the people who complain that their loved ones are wow addicts, that one of the biggest gripes is that they are in the same room as the player but being ignored while the player is talking w friends\guildmates online. So main point respect your offline friends need for quiet & attention!

The Champion of the Naaru Progress Report

2008-02-11T10:34:00.000-05:00

Here is the Champion of the Naaru Progress Report for Monday February 11th 2008
Mercy: Complete
Strength: Still need to vanquish Murmur in Heroic Shadow Labs
Tenacity: Completed on Sunday Afternoon. Millhouse Manastorm Saved!

What's the greyest race?

2008-02-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about World of Warcraft, is that it's very grey. No race is good or evil, every race has done unspeakable actions in the past. But the question remains which one is the grayest which has the darkest shade?
After pondering this question I've come up with different ranks
Dark Grey (In descending order)
Night Elves: The night elves have done horrible things in the past, the world of Azeroth is scarred from the War of the Ancients. On the opposing side they've spent the last 10,000 years atoning for this catastrophe. In WOW the night elves are the Germans, still atoning for what happened in WWII. Ironically my main is a night elf & I'm jewish..go figure. In my opinion the Night elves are the darkest of all the races in world of warcraft.
Trolls: The Trolls of Azeroth are almost to par to the Night Elves, They may not have blown up the world but if that one band of trolls hadn't settled by the well of eternity then the night elves wouldn't have sprung up. But what makes them so Dark is the history of wars & ethnic purges between different troll tribes.
Orcs & Humans: The Orc & Human Races are on par with each other for the atrocities committed. Granted the Orcs were under the demonic influence of the Burning Legion, but that cannot be a blank pass for what's been done 'For the Horde'. Draenor was ripped into Outland, The Slaughter of the 1st & 2nd Wars, the Felling of Cenarius in the 3rd War. The Orcs now are where the Night Elves 9,999 years ago, taking their first steps towards atoning for their sins.

The Human Race as a whole reminds me of Dorian Grey, Nice Looking but Blackhearted. If you think humans are the good guys, because well they're human, I'll just make one point: The Defias Brotherhood.
For Most low level alliance players, the Deadmines are a standard part of a leveling breakfast, it's a quick run with good drops. But most players don't delve into why you have to take out Van Cleef? What was his crime? Did he conspire with the Scourge? Did he help the Horde? No, Edward Van Cleef was an architect & engineer who's leadership is the reason Stormwind was quickly rebuilt after the 2nd war.
So, what happened when he and the other craftsmen asked for payment the work they did? The nobles of stormwind refused. They felt that they're thanks were enough. Imagine that "Gee great job on rebuilding this place after it was razed to the ground, you can't even smell of burnt women & kids anymore, Thanks Ed, hey if you need a reference for any work in Ironforge let us know Ok. Great, the guards will show you out..take care & tell the wife I said hi."
So what did he do, he organized, he created a union if you will, of men & women who were also screwed out of payment, and became a major thorn in the side of the humans of Stormwind. Now your involved & instead of just paying him for work completed, Stormwind asks you to bring his head back to Sentry hill.

To Quote the ledger on Van Cleef that you recover during the quest chain "May the light have mercy on our souls." The nobles know they were wrong but they still do not admit it & send you & your party to take care of their 'problem'
There are more examples (Thrall's captivity, The Nations of Arthor Betraying the Human Kingdoms in the 2nd war.) But my point is that the Human race hasn't destroyed the world like the elves did or preformed the ethnic cleansing of the trolls, instead they just screw each other over again & again as they just smile & look pretty on the screen.
Medium Grey
Tauren: The noble Tauren, are the middle ground of grey in WOW. The Tauren are a noble race, that has systematically preformed ethnically cleansing the centaur & the quillboars from the areas that they . I held the Tauren in high esteem until I thought about the Razorfen Down instance & what it's saying. I don't know if it was intentional by the developers but after reading the lore I see an analogy to some Muslims feelings on American Troops being in Saudi Arabia. The quillboar are a noble people, like the tauren, the area they live in is sacred area where their god fell uring the war of the ancients & that no one should live there besides the Quillboar.

The Tauren settle in their sacred land & the Quillboar become sick, they become demented, They're elders tell them what must be done, the Tauren must go, but the Tauren don't go & instead begin to kill the Quillboar, who lived in that region first. (Remember up until Warcraft III the Tauren roamed the Barrens & were almost extinct due to the wars with the Centaur.)
The Lighter Grey: The following races fall into the lighter grey side, I've broken these down until the following
Residual Effects: The Dwarves are an side effect of the War of the Ancients. They were Earthen, created by the Titans as a subterranean race. The War of the Ancients hurt the planet, and caused the Earthen to split into two sub-races, the Scottish Speaking Dwarves & the bestial troggs.
The Dwarven history does not have the same degree of degree of slaughter or deception as the races, but they do have their sins. The War of the three hammers unleashed Ragneros from his prison under RedRidge Mountains.
Survivors: The remain four races the Gnomes, the Draeni, the Blood Elves & the Forsaken are survivors. I know some of my readers may feel the trolls fit into this scheme, but as a species the trolls are still numerous, it's the Darkspear Trolls that were almost wiped out. In World of Warcraft what does it mean to be a survivor? How does it color the world view of the races that must pick up the pieces and move on?
Forsaken: The Forsaken are the most tragic of the races. Yes they looks all evil & nasty (since they're former members of the lich kings army) but they are just men, women & children who's will freed them from mindless undead existence & now must fight enemies on all fronts. As a race they're full of people who's stories are full of sadness and despair, & yet for good or evil they try to move on with their lives.
Gnomes: The gnomish race is on the same path as the forsaken, except small of course (sorry couldn't help it.) What strikes me though is that the relationship of the gnomes & the dwarves reminds me of a dysfunctional family.
The Dwarves delve into the mountains looking for clues to their ancestry. They awaken the troggs (which remind me of danny devito in twins: Arnold got all the good genes, Danny got the crap!) The troggs don't invade Ironforge but instead invade Gnomereagan. Do the dwarves help the gnomes? Nope, they gnomes take care of it themselves. A disgruntled gnome who couldn't ever lead due to party stacking attempts to take care of the troggs himself & we end up with a city that can't be cleared even though it's full of level 30 mobs.
So fast forward, do the dwarves help the gnomes, well if you call a lil slice of irontown help then I suppose so. But really they don't help much. The only other outpost they have is again a couple of buildings in Outland under constant attack by mobs.
The Blood Elves: In my opinion, the blood elves are the most outright grey race in World of Warcraft, I think this was intentionally done by the design team at blizzard. When I say outright, I mean that you cannot try to delude yourself that they're noble or wise, or the good guys, They were slaughtered by the scourge, abandoned by the humans, & are all mana junkies Just waiting for their next hit. They've had to make alliances with races they've warred with & had to flee their homeworld to one that has mana on tap because it's been split in two.
The Draeni: The Draeni as a race in world of warcraft are held up as holy warriors. But one thing I love about the design team is that even the noble are not free from Sin. The Draeni are noble and kind, in a way thats amoral. Firstly, the Draeni are racists, specifically against the broken, those Draeni who lost their connection to the holy light, & degraded to a lesser form. The only reason that shaman are a playable class is that the Velen had the the vision to let go of the normal racism towards the broken & allow the Far Seer Nobundo back into the fold.
Also the Draeni seem to have a capacity for acceptable losses that borders on the military. But I digress
So there you have it my breakdown of the grey races of the world of warcraft.

Champion of the Naaru Status Report

2008-02-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

Here the status report on the Champion of the Naaru quest chain For the Evening of Friday February 8th
Trial of the Naaru: Mercy - Done
Trial of the Naaru: Strength - Steamvault done, need to vanquish Murmur =P
Trial of the Naaru: Tenacity - Not Done, see post about ettiquite during dungeon runs on why it's incomplete.
That concludes the champion of the Naaru Progress Report for Friday February 8th 2008

Leadership Lessons

2008-02-08T10:44:00.000-05:00

As I posted Monday, I successfully led a pug group through Heroic Crypts on Super Bowl Sunday. Since then I've tried my luck at leading other runs (some guild\some pug) through daily heroics. Of those 3 attempts I've noted some important characteristics for a successful run.
1. Attitude: a good heroic dungeon run requires the right attitude. I've decided that one guildie is off my dungeon run list because his attitude towards a challenge was dismal. There's a reason that a heroic dungeon is called a heroic dungeon, it requires heroism.
2. Communication: Bad Communication leads to wipes. Good communication leads to no wipes.
3. CCC: Cool, Calm, Collected: Bad pulls happen. Mobs are aggro'd, party members run ahead & have forgotten about that Caster above the ramp. It happens don't panic do your role & your group survives. Panic & you die or your party wipes.
4. Do Not Exploit: I cannot stress this enough, there are no shortcuts through heroic instances. If you attempt to use the 'short way' around to save time because a raid is in 45 minutes you will wipe. There is a linear path in every dungeon, Even if it feels like it's a giant circle, the dungeon has a start point a middle point & an end point.
5. Accept the end game progress: This is for all newly minted level 70's, Blues do not a heroic dungeon make. The designers progression to heroics is as follows
-> Get to 70
-> Get Flight,
-> Get into Tempest Keep
-> Get into the Arc
-> Start Kara Quest Chain
-> Get Key to Karazan
-> Raid Karazan, Get badges\Get Intro Epics
-> Start Running Heroic Dungeons to Get Badges for better gear
If you have all blues you will wipe in Heroic Dungeons, unless everyone else has all epic gear.
Also regarding PVP Epics. I am a believer that Epic PVP Gear is for PVP not for Heroic Dungeons \Raids, They're EPIC for PVP combat not dungeon runs.

Who Let the Alt Out???

2008-02-06T05:42:00.000-05:00

So for anyone who knows me on Fenris, I have my main & then I have my main. I'm not known for having lots of alts of different levels\progression etc. Because I don't have the time & I don't like the concepts of alts in general. I find that most players have their play style & the alt is usually just a variation of that play style. Although I do see players w dual nature (Main is Tank alt is a healer is a good example.) There are those who have alts as a way to boast or brag (I have 3 level 70's two are kara key'd etc.) But for those of us who have lives we can't do the alt thing. As my friend Zorch says I have Zorch & that's it.
This brings me to Peda my elemental shaman. I started him back in may of last year when I was very busy @ the office & couldn't commit to raiding on my main. I leveled him to about 27, then he became my ah lackey. He just sat in the Exodar & anything Neren got went right to him, I viewed it as just being time efficient etc. He was originally enhance spec, but I was told by other shaman's that if enhancement didn't suit me try elemental & if that didn't work well u don't like the class
So from May of last year until Monday Night he sat @ level 27 doing my ah bidding...
And then for some reason that I can't explain on Monday night I decided to take him out of cold storage, & within about 15 minutes he was level 28, & then Tuesday Morning before work I took him out again & now he's almost 29.
I figured out that I like the class I just needed to setup my interface to make separate the abilities better. Playing a balance druid this isn't a problem since my DPS is based of three spells. & if I have to off heal (which comes up from time to time.) I shift out drop a couple hots & then shift back to moonkin form.
But this taught me something, I was attempting to level Turndow again to make up for my mistakes that I made as a Noob. & I realized that I can't undo those mistakes. I made them & that's cool. So I'm deleting Turndow this morning. He was a good toon & I learned a lot but I'm not that person, I can lead & not be the tank.

The slow dissolution of my guild - Part II

2008-02-04T17:59:00.000-05:00

I logged into my guild website this evening at 5:30 pm & read a thread that talked about the frustration with our raid progression. I laid out 4 points that I needed to get off my chest. Now we'll see if I'm still in my guild or not when I login later tonight.

A coincidence...I don't think so!

2008-02-04T09:54:00.000-05:00

As I've posted previously I work two jobs, full time I'm an IT Geek who works in mobile tech (one of my guildies was happy to find this out since I helped him w his real world quest for a cell phone management solution!) & on the Weekends I drive around Rockland\Westchester county teaching SAT Prep. Not that the SAT season is in full swing. My wow playing time is cut down to about 10-15 hours a week. For the average video game player this might seem like a bit but for anyone who plays wow, this translates to about an hour a day (checking auctions, doing 1/2 daily quests, herbing, farming motes for primals etc.) Some weeknights I might make a guild run, but I usually have to block it way in advance.
So Sunday Night after tutoring in the morning & teaching during the afternoon. I sat down exhausted to watch the giants\patriots game. I punched into WOW figuring well I can at least farm or make a chunk of gold doing a slew of dailies. The Netherwing give you the most gold but I prefer the Ogrila\Cooking quests (They require less mental effort esp cooking since it's either A.) Skettis B.) Ogrila or C.) Eco Dome Mid-Realm D.) Ancestor Grounds in Nagrand.) Instead I ended up leading a pug run through heroic Auchenai Crypts. So as my local team battled the heavily favored Patriots, My pug group consisting a frost mage decked in blues & greens, a shadow priest, a holy priest & a arms\prot warrior plowed through the crypts & didn't reach our first wipe until after the first 4 pulls. This alone is a major accomplishment since many heroic crypt runs end at the first pull, with five players Around the same time the giants won the super bowl we were standing over the corpse of Exarch Maladaar just as the Giants won the game.
Most end game groups will not take on crypts because of the difficulty of the first room & the additional mobs, but we kept our cool, burned the adds down & kept the communication channel open. Being the leader made it difficult to keep the dps going, but I quickly learned to just mark & let my group preform their roles.
It also helped that the person who should've lead kept giving me advice from time to time. He also encouraged me when I wanted to give him leader, and he helped me convince the tank to keep going since he never had tanked in Heroic Crypts before & didn't have a frame of reference to how difficult the crypt run can be without the right group cohesion.
So Giants win, We Cleared Crypts. I got myself a nice Potent Fire Opal to go into my Armwraps of the Kaledori Protector, but lost the need roll for the Sash of Arcane Visions to the Blue\Green frost mage, (but really she need the boost in gear IMHO.) For a long time I fought leadership, until it was thrust onto me, Now I'll accept the responsibility & the perks!