2008: Year In Review

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

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

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

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

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