World of Warcraft Raid Leader of a very casual raid team talks and vents about life in World of Warcraft, and maybe a little bit of life outside of WoW.
This kept getting put off as there was nothing much to report.
To put it simply, as the holidays have struck early, there was no raiding the week before Christmas. Raid night falls on both New years Eve/New years and Christmas Eve/Christmas this year so both of those weeks have no raiding either. I am hoping right now to do some retro raids on Sundays, but we will see who shows up. I tried one for Heroic BOT last week and no one showed. It gave me sad feelings.
So right now I am focused on celebrating the holidays, finishing the book I am writing before the end of the year, and maybe even playing some WoW.... Maybe. It's not quiet the end of expansion duldrums but I have not had a burning desire to log on for the last week or two other then to burn some cooldowns and spend a few minutes here and there leveling alts. Last night I even ran a battle ground or two on a horde lowbie, and for those who know me, I avoid battle grounds. For me, It's normally, "Hey I'll take some of that black plague over there. It is better then PVP you know..."
But I have been spending time with family, kid's are out of school, I am playing with twitch and live streaming though I'm not sure what to live stream at this point. Maybe I'll even farm out in guild and friends and play with the podcast idea, who knows? It would be fun if I could spin it. I am not sure where in the WoW community my podcast could land, and any other ideas I want to podcast are still very developmental.
So, between pages of writing, (I have about 2-3 chapters left to write, and I will have those done by New Years Day. Work, and real life, I will still be in Wow. I want to get my toon on Aerie Peak leveled so I can pick on the Convert to Raid community a little more. I still have a monk/druid to level. And hey, there is LFR and possibly even Battle ground in my future. Who knows?
What are you doing in WoW, and with family for your holidays?
Wow Insider postulated, what would you pitch for the next expansion. I have my answer.
"Rise of Lordaeron"
I would have Lilian Voss make a return, she would re-appear with a new faction of scourge and bring battle across the ruins of Lordaeron against the forsaken. At the same time boats from Kul'Tiras appear at Stormwind bringing tales of undead rising and taking their island from them. After it is determined these undead are coming from Kul'Tiras by both the Forsaken and the Alliance we ship off to the tropical islands that Jaina Hails from....
When we arrive at Kul'Tiras we have to solve the mystery of why and how these forsaken have risen. As we quest through the areas of this land we find that Lillian Voss has stolen some of the original plague and used it to create her own scourge. The first Two raids involve going in and first stopping her production of undead players, and then facing down and stopping Lillian Voss.
When we beat (not kill) Lillian however, it is discovered that she had created this scourge in response to her discovery that Sylvanas has been experimenting and creating her own version of the scourge which she intends to use to wipe out all the living Horde and Alliance alike. She plans on using the current forsaken as fodder as she marches her new and improved people to war against the living. While Bolvar has been asleep fighting the lich king's influence, she has even stolen several undead from Northrend with the help of the Val'kyre. The second raid involves us going in and stopping her production of the "super" undead, with Lillian Voss helping lead the way. The end boss will be Koltira Deathweaver who had been re-purposed by Sylvanas to be the general of her new army.
No new race, but the new class "Nightstalker" will be added. Nightstalkers will be a mail wearing class that shifts from ranged to melee combat depending on the spec. Nightstalkers are specifically trained in using magic to fight off undead and demons. However, they use necromatic magics instead of the light to fight their prey. (Ok, I want Demon Hunters, but with a name that includes the undead etc.. as one of their victims.)
The last bit, and raid will be around us fighting Sylvanas, who will be the boss midway through the raid. As we fight her, we will find the burning legion has been controlling her movements. As she lies dying Vellen uses his magic to heal her, but ends up resurrecting her back into a living High elf/Blood elf. This breaks her connection with the new scourge army, and she is taken away by her sister Vereesa, and we head on to fight the burning legion and remove the rest of the new scourge from existance.
This of course will lead into a burning legion expansion, and will also set up Sylvanas' redemption story. It will also leave the Forsaken's future into question. Will Sylvanas return to lead them even though she is now living? Will Lillian Voss be the next dark lady? Having to fight alongside the horde, and the Forsaken do the Alliance now have to recognize the Forsaken's right to Lordaeran as their home?
I know this pitch idea is not perfect, and I am pitching this as an Alliance player who has always loved Sylanas' story and have hoped for since Wrath to see her story progress. But here is the real question.
What would you pitch for a new expansion? What would you like to see that hasn't been shown before? What new lands/planets/dimensions would you like to explore and why?
This week in raiding started about the same as it was last week. We managed to get past Narushun, but just past. We had some weird issues that stopped us there for the night. This fight which we have managed to at worst two shot for the last few months gave us all sorts of trouble. But we managed and got through.
Wednesday, we were short a dps so I pugged out of trade chat. This brought us Summerdawn, the warrior (on his pally which was another Summer.. somthing), Mondel the Monk, and a priest who I am going to be horrible and forget his name, but his gear and deeps made the rest of us want to bow down and worship him lol (If any guildies want to throw his name in the comments). We managed to Down Galakras after a couple tries, one shot Iron Juggernaught, and ended the night with our first Dark Shamans kill. This means I hope that we have everyone studied up on Nazgrim for next week. (hint hint)
No, I normally have been opposed to pugging folks into our raids. Sometimes that can be a mixed bag at best, however last night I have to say I was excited by the happiness and positive support from the folks who hopped in with us. I know that we were not raiding on the level they are used to enjoying, but they were willing to hop in and help us push forward, which warms my heart. I know most of the people in Wow are good folks who are willing to help out, however that one or two bad eggs know how to stick out when you come across them.
Back to my title theme, I have been thinking of community in Wow this week. It started when I listed to Tauren Think Tank while working Monday. (If you don't listen to this show, you should) Near the end of the podcast (At roughly an hour and 42 minutes into the show) In a letter that they received, a player had written in with their experience.
This player had an experience that is well worth sharing. He was in a guild for a few years. While he was in this guild he came across another player named OG who tanked along side him. The writer of this letter was an info nut, who describes himself as the "Oh my gosh how do you not know this stuff guy." This character OG who played with him was a good dps, but not great as a tank. The writer says he normally would give OG crap, and rib him during raids. After a few months however, the raid team decided to transfer to a more populated server, and a few couldn't afford to move over, OG being one of them.
A couple months after the transfer, the writer's old guild master asked him to hop into vent with her. She then told him that this other player that hadn't been able to transfer over, had committed suicide. The writer initially thought the worst of his personal behaviour, But the GM told him she had been talking to OG for a few months and that he had been depressed for a while, and had thought of the writer as an older brother and saw the ribbing and teasing in a friendly manner. However, the tragedy in the situation was apparent.
The writer did an info search while other guildies were getting into vent to discuss OG. He found OG by name and decided to call his family. He was able to contact OG's mother and managed to talk to her for a while, sharing some stories of her son, and some of the fun they had together. He then asked if it was alright if some other people called her. She answered yes, and the writer's guild, each took a turn to call her and share their stories of her son. During this whole time, the guildies who weren't on the phone with her shared stories of OG in vent and held their own little memorial. If you listen to the podcast, Jules reads it much better then I can type it, and I recommend you listen to it.
I was moved to the point of tears during this story. We often talk about how this is a game, and game doesn't trump real life etc... We do forget that we are a community also. As a community we are capable of some wonderful things, even in the face of tragedy. I hope that in this moment, OG's mother and family was given some comfort in the face of one of the worst things a family could ever go through.
It is so easy to forget when your tromping through a pixelated landscape that the characters you come across are real people. That the person you come across who just swiped your mining node is a person who may have not seen you. Or is someone that might have an emotional response when you berate them in trade chat. It is so easy to forget we are dealing with players feelings, and that you could do damage to someone emotionally if you say the right thing at the wrong time.
We are fragile beings folks. Even the strongest of us have moments where they can be hurt deeply. Some may never even show it. We never know what the power of our words are, until they break the wrong person. I don't believe that OG was effected negatively by his Wow mates and experience from the reading of the letter. I feel rather from the way writer reflected the GM talked to him, that Wow and his guild mates might have been a bright light in a difficult life. I hope that this guild was a shelter to OG at times when he needed it, and it sounds like that they likely where.
So, as you tip toe through Azeroth this week, think about your actions. Are you a positive light in you fellow players lives? I know I haven't always been. Being human there will probably be lots of times where I fall short after this again. I do strive however to do my best to bring a positive experience to those around me.
This weeks raiding experience was interesting to say the least. We struggled. We didn't struggle because we didn't know the fights. We didn't struggle because we had a couple folks along who were under geared and under experienced. (Though the both were true) We just seemed out of sync with each other.
Tuesday we got a late start and got to Sha in the first wing of Orgimmar flex. That means in one raid night we got three bosses down, when we have been doing this wing in about an hour previously. Once again it's not that we didn't know what we were doing, things just seemed to be running rougher then others.
Wednesday we managed to get Sha down after three attempts and got stopped on Galakras in the second wing. This means for the first time in a few weeks, we didn't get further then downing the first wing of Flex. This of course breed frustration, and when people get frustrated they tend to speak out a bit more.
Now, as a raid leader I promote feedback. I think when people are allowed to voice their opinions, and you can listen that you can get a better picture of what is going on. When you are healing, tanking, or dpsing it's hard not to get tunnel vision and ignore everything that going on that doesn't relate directly to you. It means that as times, you may be focused on keeping life bars full, or catching rampaging adds rather then calling out what is happening in the raid to those around you. This means, if people are used to you calling stuff out, you have ripped a crutch out from under them.
I am not the best person at calling stuff out. I admit this. Until a few months ago my wife would do this for me because she is fantastic at noticing what was going on, and calling it to the group. Now without her I'm starting to feel like I need to be more aggressive on speaking out and leading the raid verbally. I am going to experiment a little with this, so that I may do better.
Circling around to the reason I am discussing this however is that when people give feedback in raid, it isn't always in a positively re-enforcing manner. If I walk to a boss and my re-action is, "Crap I hate healing this" then it effects the group around me, if only slightly. If I do it constantly it makes everyone around me start to feel negatively towards me and my attitude so that eventually everything I say is undermined by the over all impression I give of myself.
This also goes with calling out reasons why someone believes we are wiping. There is a world of difference between approaching something with "We don't have the Dps to get this down," versus "Hey, the adds are going down a little slowly, any suggestions on how we can pick that up better?" Both essentially say the same thing, but one comes off as, "Meh, lets admit defeat," and the other is "Alright, how can we pick up and do this better?" One opens possibilities, one closes them.
The other thing to keep in mind when you call something out, your not always going to be right. Even if you are right, sometimes things will still not go your way. People will not agree with your point, and even I, in my raid leaderlyness may not agree with your. By calling it out instead of whispering the raid leader though you need to recognize a few things.
A. You put me in a position where I have to answer you. If I don't agree with you I have to do it in front of everybody. If you whisper me, I can go back and forth with you in a manner where we are both not in positions that may look bad if the calls are wrong.
B. You are not just speaking to me, you are speaking to the raid. If you are saying the DPS is too low, you are calling out every member on the DPS team for their performance. If you say the heals feel low, you are not just telling me, but you are calling out the entire healing team on their performance. When you say something over vent you are addressing everyone, not just me. If a group needs to be called out over vent, I need to be the one doing it. If someone else is doing it, they are just building animosity towards themselves.
C. Your attitude will matter more then your words. As I said above, people don't have the luxury on this game of knowing you face to face, so what they hear and see is all they have to judge you on. If you are constantly calling stuff out, and it ends up being wrong, or you sound like your talking out of your ass, it will effect the whole team negatively.
I normally wait a few pulls on a boss before I start suggesting ways to fix things. I find that often, people will realize they are standing in the poo, not seeing adds going down quickly, or feel they are struggling and work to self correct. If two or three pulls later we are still struggling on the same mechanics, I will start to suggest and ask for suggestions on how to fix the problem. I am not making us pull several times to slam our faces against the wall, but I am seeing if we are repeating the same problem, or if someone just happened to make a SNAFU, and if they fix it without being called out in front of everyone.
I recognize when people are calling stuff out and giving reasons for wipes they are trying to help out. Even if they are doing so in a negative manner, or in a manner that rubs people the wrong way, it is in the spirit of trying to help the raid team. I do not want to stifle anyone who is trying to help, but I would like to build them to do so in such a manner that it builds the team. If it's bringing the team down, or making people feel negative about the team, eventually I will have to address it.
Next week, I am putting forth a lofty goal. I want to get the first wing down in the first night, and the second wing down on the second night. All our fights are posted on the guild website, so there is no reason for anyone to walk into the raid not knowing what they are doing. If you have time to cap valor, and run LFR's during the week, you have time to watch a ten minute video.
One of the things we have now is a long wait until "Warlords of Draenor" comes out.
We know when it's launched it will have ten more levels for us to work through, along with new raids, new areas, and all the good jazz that normally is introduced with a new expansion. We will have to work to get our professions maxed out so that we might build new toys and armor. There will be a new learning curve with new talents and changes in gear. That is all coming our way.... not quite soon.
Most of the expansions have taken roughly a year after they were announced before they are released. Mists may have been the shortest wait at about nine months after announcement before it was released. This means that if they manage to cut some time off the wait, we are probably looking at May if they manage to do it in six months, but more likely June-August before we are playing the new content.
I have goals to get me past that time. I want to finally get to the point where I have a level 90 of every single class. I have 9 of the 11 possibilities. All that remains is to max level a druid and a monk. I have both equipped with BOA's to the hilt, it's just a matter of getting them the rest of the way to 90. When they are capped, I will finally have a Skinner/Leatherworker at max level as well. This means that I will finally have all the possible professions maxed as well. This will give me a good base to work with when Draenor drops.
I also want to work on my horde side. I have a very neglected rogue hanging on Zangarmarsh who would love some love. Now that Hellscream is Joined with us, I can add more Horde toons to my stable over there, making use of BOAs So I look forward to seeing more horde side content and catching up with some of the Mists content I may have missed while working mainly on Alliance.
Of course, I also want to spend this time building raiders. I would love to grow our raid team from about ten people to about 15. When we start raiding in Draenor it would be nice to be able to field a starting team that has the option of running when not everybody is available. I am looking forward to doing some flex raiding until then, and still may find a time to do ten man once we have everything beat on flex.
So, of course the big question is, what is everyone else's goals in the guild, to keep themselves busy?
This was a short raid week, we only ran Tuesday night and we worked on the second wing of Flex.
We ran on Tuesday, and it was a good feeling raid. We didn't get any new bosses down, but we managed to pull in some folks that hadn't run with us before/or in a while. Galakras only took two attempts and Iron Juggernaut one if I remember correctly. The thing that ate up a lot of our time was A. Getting started, people weren't ready to go on time, (including me, I was running late getting back from work and I wasn't the only one.) and B. We over thought things.
This first one happens. We were working on getting things ready, and people were still stuck in dungeons, Heroic Scenarios etc.... That being said. The second I get 10 people together, I am starting the raid. We didn't start until almost 9:30 (now 10:30 server since out merge with Hellscream) and most of that was waiting on people who normally raid with us at the same time, and we didn't have the group until then.
The trash before Dark Shamans took a bit of time too. I hate it when Blizzard puts a large amount of trash before bosses, and on this one it doubly sucks because half of it is hidden in side buildings etc... So we finally pulled the bosses and we wiped at about 40%. And this is where we lost our second chunk of time.
Now, I'm pretty laid back. I welcome discussion during raid, and suggestions etc... However, the next ten to fifteen minutes was wasted on people arguing over needing the three tank method on this fight, and saying that we couldn't do the two tank etc... I politely disagree personally, I think if we worked at it we could do the two tank method, however at the end of the day, Scopriack was nice enough to swap to heals and I hopped on my tank and we three tanked it.
To the three tank option opinions, I do agree this method is easier. A lot easier. We almost had the boss down and if we do three tank option again I think we will have him this upcoming week. My opinion is however, that while one method is easier, it doesn't mean the other method isn't possible. It might be harder and take a little more work, but possible sometimes means a little more work. We might need to learn the two tank method, or there are going to be weeks that we don't clear this boss, even after we down him. Which means, I might look at who we have when we start raid next time, and we may start on third wing if there isn't another tanking option.
In other news stuffs this week, Hellscream and Zangarmarsh are now joined realms which means I now have a couple alts on Hellscream with BOA gear. I look forward to building some horde alts to help out my lonely rogue over there, though I am also torn with working on my horde alts over on Hyjal where I can help my friends who are rebuilding over there.
Trade chat is fantastically entertaining right now, though it will settle soon. The biggest douches from Zangarmarsh,and the biggest douches from Hellscream are still competing for biggest douche of all. This means constant pointless arguing which you can pop some popcorn and watch. Me, other the then change to server time I haven't noticed my life changing for the worst with the merge. I was able to do Celestials four times on Monday and get my priest his legendary cloak. This never would have happened before the merge, which means, more world boss love, more opportunity for everyone.
And that's pretty much it for this week. I am going back to a once a week blog. I was trying to do two, but it didn't work out for me with scheduling etc.... I might go back in the future, and I'll throw up extra blogs when there is news I feel like needs being covered, but for now, only expect one a week.
November is killing me, but I can't complain I am doing it to myself.
Tuesday was fun, but a little frustrating. Our pace wasn't quite what it's been and we managed to get the first three bosses down in Siege Flex wing one. We probably would have gotten Sha (boss 4) down but we had an unfortunate disconnect, and that ate up time trying to figure out if we should wait for that person, or if we should go ahead and pull. I finally swapped toons, and we pulled but didn't quite make it. Of course our poor raider managed to get back on about half way though the pull.
Wednesday was awesome. We did pick up a few people for Galakras fight from the guild Lotauna is now running with. (I can't remember the guild name or I would properly shout out to them) We still have her shammy, so we were good. Galakras went down fairly well with little trouble. Iron Juggernaut took us a little work but we managed to get him down too. We got a few pulls on Dark Shaman, but at the end of the day we did not manage to get them dead. However, we did get them down to thirty percent, which on the first night on our own wasn't a bad shot. We did the two tank method this week instead of the three which was a swap up from our first attempt, and I can see us getting it down with this method once we get our stuff figured out.
So I count it as a good raid week even though no new bosses went down. This week we will only be running second wing on Tuesday, as Thanksgiving had killed our other raiding day. We will be walking in and trying progression. My goal is to eventually cut the first wing out altogether, then the second wing, and since flex is gated only work on the wings that are pertinent to us at the moment. As much as I've stated I want to get to 10 man this expansion, I love the way flex works so much it is becoming less and less of a priority for me. Heaven knows it might be better to have a flex team instead of a 10 man team built by the launch of Warlords of Draenor.
This is coming out late, and my month has been disrupted by NaNoWriMo. (NaNoWriMo.org) It's a challenge I have always wanted to do, and finally dove into this year. So far I feel I have had great results personally, and if your an aspiring writer the challenge makes you sit down and write consistently to meet the goal. For me, I can write about 1,000 words in about an hours. This means I have been pulling an extra hour here and there to accomplish it. This also has left me mentally burnt out here and there. So, next month I will be better at posting this blog, This month has been hectic.
Changes are coming for us here on Zangarmarsh. Tomorrow, (probably today by the time I finish and post this) Zangarmarsh is merging with the Hellscream realm. This means I will first hand get to see how this realm merger works out. If it works as well as it's supposed to that means I get 11 new character slots I can use to build up more of the community on the horde side and alliance side of Zangarmarsh. (And Hellscream) I'm curious at how this will effect the guild, the raid team, and even the whole realms economy and dynamics. It's going to be a fun ride, (I hope working on being the optimist) and the guild will ride it together. I have already had a couple discussions with Gwyndolynn about scenarios we may have to look at for the guild depending on how the merge effects it.
Anyway, that is it for now, I will have a quick blog again this weekend to comment on A. how the merge seems to be effecting things, and B. How we do on our raid night this week.
On "The Instance," one of my favorite pod casts recently there was an interview with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, (Whom apparently stopped monitoring Magilla's vent so he can wipe us when we are cocky for Blizzcon) and in the interview Ghostcrawler was asked about flying in the next expansion.
Ghostcrawler mentioned it had been DISCUSSED that they hold back flying until the first patch (6.1 respectfully) because they want to make sure everyone takes the time to explore the new content in the upcoming expansion. By forcing players to walk instead of flying, it makes them interact with the world more, and they don't skip areas or content while leveling, or after.
Of course, people blew up at this. Trolls came out in force on the forums threatening to quit the game, and even making passive aggressive comments like, "Well if Blizzard doesn't like flying mounts they should just take them out of the game" (Paraphrasing.) People started firing off their mouths (fingers?) in disgust, anger, and I think just for the fun of trolling because this apparently is a big deal.
Blizzard has since then come out and confirmed that flying is not likely to be available until that first patch, and of course that hasn't eased the anger at all. If you take the time to go through the forums right now, you can find enough righteous anger to feed power to an army of Paladins. I do suggest taking some heavy medication though before going into the forums. That place is scary.
How do I feel about this? Let me tell you!
I'm not a fan of this, but I'll get over it. I enjoy flying, I use it to work on my professions a lot once I get to max level. It sure is convenient when you want to get around and not get sucked into the mess of fighting bunch of mobs just to get your mining node ninja's by a hordie. I don't think I am among the people that they are choosing to do this for. I like to finish all the zones in an expansion at least once, so I can get all the story. Even after flying is in, I will go back, run through quests, and see what is going on in each area. I still haven't done this for the horde side in Pandaria, but as my need for LFR is lessening, and NaNoWriMo is over in a month or so, my rogue may get some play time to do the horde half of Krasarang Wilds and any other areas I've missed.
Will this break the game for me? No. Do I understand why they are doing it? Yes. Do I think they should? Not really. I think they have stressed "play the game the way you want to play it" enough that limiting people like this is not a smart thing to do. I don't think the people that skip through quests and ignore story lines are going to be any more invested because they are forced to run around for a month or two after the expansion drops. I know what Blizzard wants to accomplish, I don't think they will get anything but headache over it.
This brings me to a dilemma on my part. I normally think when Blizzard makes a decision they need to stick to their guns and see how it plays out. However, they have listened and changed things when the community rails against them before. I think if Blizzard has made this decision they do need to see how it has and effect on game play, because I could be completely wrong and this could get people tied even more deeply into the world. However, I predict that Blizzard will 180 on this if the shouting gets two loud and give us flying right when we hit 100, and the other part of me thinks they should do that instead. So, in my head I am split on this issue.
What do other people think about this? I would love to hear the feedback from other people who are more sane the forum trolls on how they feel about a delay on flying when they hit 100.
If you want to hear Ghostcrawler's interview it's on "The Instance" Show number 347. Also, on the most recent show 348 they discuss this a bit more and give you their take on the flying thing. I recommend you listen to this podcast anyway just because Scott Johnson, Willy "Dills" Gregory, and Mark "The Turpster" Turpin are just fun to listen to.
Tuesday night has me excited. Not only (once we got the group together) did we clear the first wing of flex in about an hour, but I don't believe we wiped but once. On Trash. That has me partially excited. The thing that really had me excited was the fact that we abused the flex feature. We started with about 13 people, and then two people came in between the first couple of bosses. We had a DC before the third boss, and when they got back on, a different person needed to leave and get to work.
This means, our raid size shifted constantly through the run, and we were able to handle it just fine. This is with one DPS who admittedly should have been left out, but I want to develop people where I can. Despite low dps, this person was one of the last people to die on the fights, and listened well. If he keeps running with us I have no worries that his DPS will catch up soon enough. Part of the reason I love the flex system is it gives me the freedom to look over, and develop people.
The night ended with us killing Galakras. That's right, I got to pop an apple beer as we managed to down a new boss.
Wednesday night was pretty good as well. We fought the big Iron Scorpion for about an hour before we took him down, (thats 2) and by the time we cleared the trash out of the next room, we got three pulls on the Dark Shamans. The last two pulls were 2% and 7% respectfully. That means I think there is a good chance we will have them next week and move on to Nazgrim. (I'm not 100% sure because we used the 3 tank method, and we may have to swap to a 2 tank method next week.) We were lucky to have Zios from Exile pop over and help on the second night, and Jinbar (Who I may by mispelling or mis-naming) hope over and help us as well.
All and all it's been a good week. Spirits where high, we downed some bosses, and I think we will be able to re-down them next week. There are certainly no complaints on my end.
The dust has settled and Blizzcon is now over. If you were fortunate to have the time and money to go gratzy! If you were like me and just sat back and watched the news feed.... here is a review of things that pertain to Wow that jumped out at me.
First thing first. Next expansion is "Warlords of Draenor" which if you living in a hold you may have not heard by now. This refers to the orc Chieftains/Warleaders that lead the orcs into Azeroth when the black portal opened. Garrosh has apparently escaped the Pandaran (Bunch of ninja pandas can't keep him locked up) found a mysterious friend, and been whisked away to Daenor 30 years earlier before it was blown up and turned into Outlands (Burning Crusade!) Garrosh has changed the time by keeping the orcs from being corrupted by the burning legion, and now plans on shaping them into the iron horde, which he will lead back into Azeroth to defeat us all. In doing this he has created a separate time line which he has now linked to ours via the black portal. So, not time travel, more hopping into a time puddle, or alternate dimension. So, timey whimey wibbley wobbley stuff. Long story short, we can kill anyone there and it won't effect our timeline.
Stats are changing. I about stood up and cheered when they announced hit and expertise are gone! Tanks will be losing parry and Dodge as well. They are being replaced by a movement speed and cleave stats. Movement is pretty self explanatory, and cleave will randomly make you hit extra baddies when you attack. Which I see as nice, but very situational on when it will be a needed stat. Along with this, reforging is going away, there are going to be less gem slots, and less items will be enchantable. They did say these gem/enchants will be more powerful and have a lot more choice to them
Gearing is changing as well. Instead of having to carry two, sometimes three sets of gear for your character, it now should be fairly universal. Tier gear will switch stats to match the spec you are in. So if a Pally goes from ret to holy, the gear will change with him. No more intellect plate either, holy paladins will convert strength to intellect when the put on armor. This doesn't mean that some pieces might not be better for some specs then others, but it will mean lugging around a lot less armor.
Bag space is going to be better. Tabards, BOA leveling gear, quest items, and toys will no longer take up space in your bags. Using the new interface/drop down menus for these means your BOA gear will truly be account bound now. Any of your characters on any realm will be able to access it. This is an awesome change in my opinion.
When you buy the new expansion there are many features you would expect (new levels (10), new monsters, new land to explore) one of the big ones is you get a free level 90 when you buy the expansion. This means I will have a higher level monk/druid when the expansion comes out to join my stable of high level characters. For now this is a one time thing, but as there is a loophole where someone might buy another copy of wow, including the expansions make a 90 then pay to transfer it over to their main account, Blizzard is considering making this a paid feature. They want to wait and see how people react to the idea first.
Instead of player housing, you get a garrison. You can place your garrison in any of the new zones on Draenor. After you start this you can upgrade and build your garrison to give you access to professions you character doesn't, you can send minions you earn as you level to forage for mats, or even run dungeons and raids for you earning you random loot. You can earn trophies for display with achievements and can even invite friends to come into your garrison. They said they are not doing guild halls at this point, but with this advancing, I wonder if that is just a matter of time.
Raid changes. The new raids will have 4 different raid difficulties. LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic. The first three will all have the Flex ability so you can take anywhere from 10-25 people. Mystic will have a 20 person requirement. Loot on the last three will adjust itself to the amount of people in the raid, and the loot master will hand stuff out once again.
There is a lot more changes/stuff to cover, but these are the things that popped out at me the most. What are you all looking forward to the most in the next Xpack? Or what do you not like that they are changing?
Let's start with the good. The raid team managed to down the first wing of Flex in one night. We started a bit late, and finished just after 10:30. This means that if we had started on time, we would have had 45 minutes to work on the second section of Flex this week. Right now I'm being pretty lenient on gear and DPS since we have been low on raiders, but that is likely to change in the future if things keep rolling the way they are. We have had people signing up again for raid, and it gives me hope that we will soon be working a 10 man team. At least for the rest of this expansion... but I will get there in a moment.
Wednesday night we worked the whole time on Galakras. We did not manage to down the boss this night, but we came close. The add management is getting to where it needs to be. I don't think we will get through another week without seeing him go down. There were internal issues in the raid that were stopping us. They will hopefully be gone by next week. If not then I will have to deal with it in a fashion that is a little more direct and confrontational then I normally would as the insanely laid back person I am.
Despite the fact we didn't get further, there was definite progress on both wings. We had not gotten through the adds before on Galakras, and on the first wing we made it through with only a couple of wipes. Things may have been avoided here and there, but as we tighten up week to week this will get better.
So, despite the fact we didn't kill any new bosses, and my applebeer remains untapped in my fridge, (I normally pop one when we kill a new boss to celebrate.) I feel we are moving forward. Now we just need to get the last couple of links secure and in place.
I know This is a little later, and the first day of Blizzcon was today. All I am going to discuss here is the raiding announcements. My take on the other things from Blizzcon I will put in a later post.
I am excited to announce, (And to have been right about) all raid being flex next Xpack. There will be four different difficulties. LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic. The first three will allow anywhere form 10-25 players. The raids will adjust difficulty depending on how many people are present. So if you grinding LFR and a couple of people drop, you will be able to keep moving forward.
The exception to the flex ability will be Mystic. Mystic raids will be set at 20 people, and will be a step ahead of heroic content. I didn't predict all of this, but I was in the camp that predicted normal and flex would be the same thing next expansion. Sometimes, against all odds, even I am right.
Anyway, keep watching the info flow in from Blizzcon. I have been checking www.wowinsider.com constantly to keep up on all the announcements. There is a lot of cools stuff. And the new expansion....
This weekend is Blizzcon. It is a Blizzard fan's holiday and the excitement is in the air for all we will learn this weekend. The slow news is going to stop, and there will be a torrent of information thrown at us. Diablo, Hearthstone, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and anything else Blizzard with be discussed, thrown before the masses, and devoured by millions of fans everywhere. So what are the bets on what we will see? Well my predictions are as follows.
Diablo- We will get game play and more information on the upcoming expansion "Reaper of Souls." I don't believe there will be any big spoilers or announcements on this one as Blizzard has already given us the expansion trailer that highlighted upcoming new class, changes etc....
Hearthstone- I imagine that there will be an announcement on when this game will go live for everyone. As those like me who have played with it in the beta know, it feels like a finished product at this point. It' finished enough that the announcement could even be, "November 10th, day after Blizzcon, Hearthstone goes live!"
Starcraft II- We will get a preview and trailer from "Legacy of the Void" the upcoming Starcraft II expansion. I don't think there is going to be a world of surprise here, but a lot of excitement as we see what the Protoss expansion of this game looks like for Starcraft II players.
World of Warcraft- Here is where my excitement is. I think we may see some promo footage for the World of Warcraft movie, however, I don't believe it starts filming until January so we won't see actual movie clips etc.... We will have an expansion announced. Blizzard would be insane not to have an announcement for the next expansion at this Blizzcon, and whether you still believe the expansion is going to be "The Dark Below," (which had been fairly well debunked) or "Warlords of Draenor," which was just copyrighted by Blizzard, or something completely different, you will find out what is in store here. Also, after the success of the program last Blizzcon, expect another deal where if you promise to keep your sub active you will get a goody for free. Last time it was Diablo III, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are targeting the same audience if the do the same deal with the Diablo III expansion. However, if they do that I think Diablo III will be included, otherwise the offer won't pick up anyone new. They could also do this with Starcraft II and Heart of the Swarm, positioning more people to want to buy the new expansion when it comes out.
I would also like to see them talk about their past product. For those who don't know, the Blizzard game "BlackThorn" which was released for the SNES is available to download for free to your computer right now. You just have to go to battle.net and find the right spot to download the client.
Now, I don't expect them to talk about Titan this year, after the project was reset earlier this year it's unlikely it's in a place where they are ready to promote it. I also don't expect them to have gnomes in the new trailer for whatever Wow expansion we are about to be faced with.
So, if your fortunate enough to be going to Blizzcon, give an extra Cheer for Blink 182 at the ending concert for me. If you bought the streaming package, enjoy. I will be sitting here, sifting through news excitedly, ready to give my take on the different things we are about to learn.
This week was better then last week. Next week I look forward to progress.
Tuesday night... we gathered, we grabbed friends, and we managed to get 3 out of 4 down again on the first wing of Flex. On this night, I used my hunter Lazyeye. Not much else to report, a couple people came and went, but all in all we had some fun.
Wednesday night, it was 9:30 before we got rolling, what looked like it might be a short night as not a ton of people had signed up, ended up going with 13 people into fight Sha of Pride. Sha.... Went... Down... With the help of a couple friends from Exile and a couple of others that we scrounged up at the last moment.
This makes me happy because the last two weeks, Wednesday night has not happened. We have been 5 people or shorter, and we just have passed rather then pug in 40-50% of the raid. I am working on different things I can do to mitigate this problem, but for now this is a swing in the right direction. (Thank you to Xalen and Takki from Exile BTW, Along with Easybake and EvilAlan whose schedule does not work with our raid time 100% for the time they put in) We ended up cutting the night a few minutes short. But attitudes were positive, and I look forward to moving forward on this next week.
The other note on this week, is that I'm happy (strangely) that Zangarmarsh is not going to be a connected realm anytime soon. We have a medium population, and apparently on the latest batch of connected realms they have had a flurry of issues, such as Characters disappearing, requests for name changes, and customization screens popping up. Apparently, despite how smooth the connections up to this point have been, there are still some bugs to work out of the system..
Short post with it being Halloween, sally forth and beat down the candy monsters....
And no, not that Affleck is the next Batman, I have no issues with this as Nolan is attached to DC's Superman/Batman movie, and he has pleasantly surprised me with his casting so far. But that is a discussion for another time.
Once again, the raid team is in trouble. I keep working on rebuilding, just to see things fall again. With the people that just left, as I mentioned last week, we are now stuck in Flexville, and even then we can't fill our roster in order to run both nights.
Tuesday, with the lack of a couple of people who have walked another direction, we found it tough. We made 3/4 on the first wing of flex. Part of me believes this is a good thing and that eventually it means that we will build a stronger team. It also means that we have lost one of the crutches the team has been leaning on. It is now time to not only groom dps to come into our raid team, but to push them into doing higher numbers then they have needed to do previously. Heals, for now, are covered. Thought with Shaqia not being able to play his next semester of school, Shimmer may be geared for healing. Not because I "need" too, but if we are healing, I would rather not stack healing classes.
Wednesday raiding didn't happen at all. We had two tanks, three heals, and one dps. That's right we are falling short on DPS. I didn't want to pull in 4 out of 5 deeps once again as a pug, so instead we went off and did our own individual things for the night. I ran a few BG's With Gwyndolynn and then logged.
So where do we go from here is the question? I plan on building things back up. At this point my goal is to have a team in place, with a plan for kick off by next expansion. As a matter of face, when the next expansion launches, I want a plan in place for how quickly we plan on being in the new raids and content. I want to be back into the game in a way where I am giving the virtual smack down to bosses. I want a team worthy of those who have stuck with us the whole time.
I am still fighting. I have had some rough times this summer, and I kept things going. The last couple months have shown that things are getting better though, and i'm hoping at the beginning of next year I can go back to working only one job, which means I won't be stretched as thin as I have been between work, and kids.
The call out this week goes to those on the raid team. See if you can find one dps in the guild who is interested in raiding. Invite them on one of our flex raids. Help them see if their gear is gemmed, chanted, and reforged correctly. Help build this team back up. We can do it.
I propose "Fireys" for the next playable race BTW.
And we will lay low the words of those who try and stop us.
We all have suffered through LFR, so this might be familiar.
Right now with LFR being rough in places, you think people would use some common sense and patience. This isn't was happened to me the other day. We had a person in the run whom I will call Johnny DeathKnight, now Johnny from his broken typing may have not understood English very well. Johnny also could have been a fifth grader. Most likely Johnny was a high school drop out who was in his mid twenties now playing in mommies basement, and using the broken understanding of the language he had bothered to pick up. Yes, from the get go I am tearing into Johnny Deathknight.
You see, I zoned in on my priest into the Dark Shaman fight. As you healers may know, this fight sucks to heal with all the movement involved, normally with people running away from you as quickly as their little sprinting characters can move. This means your heals are constantly being broken by line of sight issues, or you having to move or be nuked by the death being dropped at your feet. So, from the get go, I buckled in and got ready for some horribleness.
This is where Johnny comes in. The tanks called the pull and he was immediately floor tanking. He spent the first half of the fight asking for a Brezz, and then swearing at people for not Brezzing him. Now, I'm not sure if you have ever played a class that can Brezz a person in the middle of a fight, but the last person you Brezz is the douche sitting there swearing at you because apparently the fight completely rests on their shoulders. I groaned inwardly at this but healed on while his swearing and berating tirade moved on in raid chat. Of course, as soon as people started dropping and it was apparent we were going to wipe little Johnny DeathKnight started asking which tank was supposed to grab Skull?
At that point Johnny's tirade was against a tank who apparently couldn't hold aggro, because he had been on skull and had aggro immediately. Now, anyone who had been watching life bars during the fight, and at the pull could have told you that Johnny had grabbed the target before the tank had established aggro. As a matter of fact, Johnny had grabbed the add, and gone down before the tanks lifebar had moved period. Meaning of course, Johnny had fallen to that old saying of you break it, you tank it. He had pulled the mob before the tank. I said as much in Raid chat.. and of course Johnny couldn't hear reason. He just tiraded on about how the tank sucked. The tank to his credit dropped, making us have to wait for a new one. I should have followed.
The very moment a new tank dropped, but what should happen? Johnny DeathKnight pulled the boss. Once again, he was mad that he was floor tanking immediately, and when things fell apart withing seconds he started commenting on how people shouldn't worry, we were getting another 5% buff. At this point, several people started explaining to him the meaning of a "douche move." Somehow, Johnny DK still believed he had done nothing wrong. And strangely he was kicked as soon as everyone was rezzed. Even more strange, then next pull the bosses went down without a hitch. Johnny may have been right about that 5% (eye roll).
The truth is that in a game like World of Warcraft, it's easy to shoot your mouth off at a bunch of strangers your never going to see again. I try not to, but I can't say I've never made a snarky comment in a LFR to taunt someone, or to comment on a player's fail. I am not perfect. However, I work hard not to create a situation such as the one I mentioned above. It does no one any good to build frustration into a group. You never know either. I have run LFR's only to realize at the end that there were a few people I recognized from Zangarmarsh in the raid with me. While your reputation in LFR is fleeting, your reputation on your realm can effect yourself or your guild negatively.
This includes actions within game. If you stock a player, even slightly, it can look bad for yourself or the people who play with you. I know I have been approached before by people who had run a random with a guild member, and had a negative experience, and I'm not even the guild leader. I have also had people whom dwell on Zangarmarsh comment when one of our members has harassed them in any way, and I take that harassment seriously.
Long story short, everyone should work to not be a Johhny Deathknight. You can be the best player in Wow, but if your a jerk, your going to have a lot less options if your looking for people to play with.
Lets start with the good. Tuesday we once again downed all 4 bosses in about an hour and a half. Norushan and Sha of Pride took a couple of tries, but we didn't bring in any extra help and we blew through the content pretty quick. We then went to the second section of Flex and made an attempt on the first boss. I think we would have done better on him, but a bit of RNG took out a healer quickly, and after that we fell during the second tower.
Wednesday was a no go, only 7 peeps showed, and down three dps I didn't want to chance 60% of the dps being question marks. Instead we headed in and got some of LFR done for people. Not the choice use of the evening, but it was at least something.
Now, my frustration is directed at raiding again. I have wanted to get us to start on 10 man raiding, and out of flex pretty quickly, but I was told at the beginning of raid that two of our raiders have joined other raid teams, but will be around for Flex. This was a surprise, but one we will deal with. I had mentioned several times since Siege had begun that I planned on moving into ten man as soon as I could get things solidified, and if I wasn't moving quick enough for other folks, that's fine, but it leaves me having to rebuild more to get to that 10 man point.
To address this point, I am going to make a couple of changes in how I handle things.
I am not going to sever ties to other guilds that I know, however I will not longer recommend people in our guild to help them fill in spots when they are missing raiders. Normally when this happens I will hand pick people who are exceptional that they can ask to come in and help with the other guilds raiding. I won't do this anymore. If I am free I will go in and help with the run myself, but it seems the people I suggest for this are the ones that eventually end up leaving us for the raid teams I recommend them for. This may be construed as a dick move on my part, but I am done suggesting people that can help out with a raid or two, only to have them eventually go over and get absorbed into another team.
It's not that it happens often, but it has happened a few times in the last few years, and always to our detriment.
I will try and work up a couple hours a week to do work with developing guildies. I will be doing some runs on a tank or a healer where I bring people in who haven't raided/run dungeons before. I will take time to study and renew my knowledge of other classes and specs again, and I will do my best to ask and find people in the guild who may need help. Maybe even a raiding 101 class once a month might not be a bad idea. But I want to start working on developing people in our guild. I would love to find someone to put over this as it may end up being a bigger project, and creating an officership around it might be something for us to pursue.
I want to make it clear, I am not blaming anyone for leaving the guild, or raiding team or focusing any negativity that way. People outgrow their raid teams, sometimes they want something different. It might be atmosphere, progression speed, or many other factors. We are a laid back family guild. We don't push the content in a hardcore fashion. That doesn't appeal to a lot of people. But to some people it does. We have an open door, if someone wants to leave, they are welcome to, and they are welcome to come back as long as they left on good terms. We have been fortunate that despite this policy we have only had one or two people in years that have had to be kicked from the guild for their behavior.
A little late, but it's time time to discuss Fear Itself's progress in raiding.
Tuesday was a very good day. I ended back up on my pally tank Lag, as Kedec and Creap were unable to make raid Tuesday, and i'm proud to say I did not embarrass myself. As a matter of fact we cleared the first four bosses on LFR on the one night. I plan on moving us into ten man eventually, but I want to almost wait until we have a more stable team. I have too many question marks right now to feel that some of the folks we are bringing into the equation will still be running consistently in a month from now. Hopefully they will be, but I have to see how things work out.
Now, we did get some help to step in on the last boss. We kept getting close to killing the Sha of Pride, but kept dying at below 5%. Which is amazing since we were down to 2 healers at that point because one of our heals had to run when real life hit. Big gratz to Shaqia and Orheim for working that hard though. A couple people joined us at the end of the run, allowing us to get Scorpiack on heals as well, and the boss went down!
Wednesday we decided to go into the second wing of flex. This night was a little more difficult and we did not manage to down the first boss. We did make some progress on him through the night however, and I feel we will have him down as soon as we learn to manage the adds there a bit better. As people in the guild work on getting more gear, and work on upping our dps, heals and tanking skills it will help too. Right now we have people in different states of raid experience, and as soon as some get adjusted in better, we will see a lot more success. I think eventually we will just fly through the flex modes, and that it won't take us long to get to that point.
So, to put it shortly, things are coming together. I think Flex is very good for out guild as it allows us to stretch out and bring a couple folks I might worry about bringing otherwise. Not because they are bad players mind you, because experience wise, or gear wise they just aren't quite as ready for the 10 man SoO yet. It also allows me to bring extra folks when I want to as well. We have normally had between 10 to 15 people in a raid with flex, and it's been nice if someone shows up late to just be able to invite them in, or if someone has to drop, we don't have to stress out over it. I hope Flex continues to be a thing that Blizzard implements as it is a big success, for at least my guild.
Yes, I'm posting this a couple days late, and writing it short, but here it is!!!
Well, there is a simple answer to that question. BLIZZCON 2013 baby!!!! This is my 50th post, which I feel is a milestone, and not much is going on.
This is normal. It seems every time we have had Blizzcon in my memory at least, the news shuts down from Blizzard for about a month before the event. Oh we will get patch notes, updates on the systems etc... but no actual news about what is coming up soon in our World of Warcraft.
I have noticed this expansion that after almost every patch, we have started hearing news about the next patch immediately. Mists dropped, they started talking features for patch 5.1 that were upcoming etc... And because every other patch has been a true content patch it hasn't been as noticeable because we were not discussing the next raid right after a raid patch dropped. However... when you talk about the next feature they are working on, it keeps some excitement in the air about "What is Blizzard up to next?
Now a few folks have commented that they think we may see a Hearthstone release before Blizzcon. I am not sure if I agree with this, as Blizzard is working hard right now getting things ready for the big even, and with it being a month away, that is a real short time for an announcement of a release date. Of course since Hearthstone is going to be free to play, there is nothing stopping them from just saying, "it's ready!" and dropping it on us.
I am hoping we see a few more connected realm before then as well. They have one set hooked up, and I imagine they plan on watching it for a while before connecting others to make sure any bugs are worked out of the system. I imagine once they feel that the live release is working perfectly as intended we will start seeing connected realms pop up left and right. Since this is something that will completely be effecting everyone on those realms they have every right to be careful about the way they implement this. I am looking forward to seeing how it effects us here on Zangarmarsh, if at all.
Yes, it's country, so sue me.
Anyway, slow news week, I'm fairly certain that is how things will be for a bit. So, have fun in game and I will see folks soon.
