A Very Empty Weekend

    So what does everyone have going on this weekend?  I know I feel it's a light, no news, no events type moment.  I was debating taking my demon chickens (children) fishing, but it's raining here in Utah.  So no dice there.

    First bit of business, if you haven't seen it I did a Survival hunter walk though, which might get pulled down because I didn't discuss traps or kill shot.  Yeah, I felt like a noob.  Also, the recordering software fuzzed the background when I moved a few times which didn't happen while I was recording.  We will see what happens, I will have a Beast Mastery video following soon.

A little rainbow for ya'll

     News wise Blizzard is just being slow.  Hearthstone beta should be out soon, and I look forward to playing with that if I'm chosen.  5.4 has raid bosses being tested, and lots of content is being pushed into it.  But as I don't like giving spoilers there isn't much I can say there.  I have debated doing a few Lore posts on slow weeks like this.  Basically do a background on a character... guess on what Blizzard is planning for them, and talk about where they have been.  Basically, I am open to ideas on what I might blog about during slow moments.  The Lore thing I've considered doing as it's own separate blog already... so I don't know.

    Not that I'm unhappy about the quietness.  I have been guessing that we have a month or better still before 5.4 drops, but normally when the news suddenly goes dry it's a sign things are moving quickly... so I'm not as sure at the moment it's going to be September/October like I was guessing.  I think they definitely want it out before Blizzcon, but I think it would be insanely late on there part if it takes that long to drop 5.4.   I wouldn't be surprised if they speed it up with the recent news of another subscription drop leaving them at 7.7 million subscribers.

      Here is the question though, we have gone this expansion from over 10 million subscribers down to 7.7 million.  We know there is always an uptick in subscription numbers when an expansion is released, or major content drops.  Blizzard stated that the majority of the subscription loss was in the Asian Market, but I think they have to be looking at the numbers at this point, trying to figure out how to slow the flow of subscription losses.

     Obviously they are hoping with the in game store to give some items to help in the Asian market, like the +XP leveling potion, while pocketing a little money at the same time.  When you look at the North American Market though, I'm not sure the in game store will appeal to enough people to make up for subscriptions dropping if they keep on happening.  Let's be honest though, the game is 10 years old, it would be an amazing move if they could pull off a stunt that would bring the subscribers back into the 12 million subscription market.  No one should expect that of Blizzard, I'm not saying it's impossible, but you might have a better chance of being struck by lighting on a sunny day then Blizzard pulling that big of a turn around.

     I think the Blizzcon they will have an announcement where they do another deal if you say you will stay subscribed for a year.  This might be getting the next expansion for free if you keep up your subscription, (Like they did with Diablo III) or I would love to see them do a flat out reduced price on subscriptions if you made that promise (i.e, 10.99 a month as long as you don't unsubscribe, but it would go back up if you resubscribed after that.)  Either of those would be a way to reward loyal players.  They could offer you something like credit in the Blizzard store for every X amount of months you say subscribed without breaking your subscription.  Say, every 6 months you get a 10 dollar credit.  This again would be a nice way to reward the loyal subscribers without losing money on their part.  It doesn't cost them much if a loyal subscriber can buy a virtual item here and there.

      The thing is, they are going to have to do something.  For someone like me who has held their subscription since vanilla it would be nice to be rewarded, rather then seeing all their incentives going towards bringing people back to the game.  I understand why they put the effort there, but it's much easier to patch a bucket and keep water in, then trying to scoop that water back in after it's leaked out.  At least that's my two cents.

      Anyway, back to the grind (Valor) stone.  And I will even link my Survival Hunter walk through.  Because I can.

Have a nice weekend,

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Updatish thingy, because raid didn't happen this week 07/25/2013

     And it happens.  People don't show, raid leader is having an insanely tough day which translates to him calling raid before it starts....  Well, there were more factors then that but the tough day was a factor.

Basic campfire, because he will be the next warchief!

      I'm not going into great details here because I don't believe a public forum is the right place to vent your frustrations. (With one sentence I just invalidated this whole blog)  Well, at least your personal frustrations that should be kept just that personal.  Except for your wife.  Maybe that Co-worker whom you have worked with for 8 years.  Maybe even...

      You get the point though, like on facebook anything you put on the internet is there to stay and you have to assume that it can't be removed the moment you put it up.  I don't advocate drama in public forums because I have seen too many posts put up that are the equivalent, or more crazy then most soap operas on T.V.  I refuse to become that.

      But we are here to discuss Wow, and more importantly raiding in Wow.  Like I said, this week on Tuesday it didn't happen.  We were down one main healer whose internet went out, and being short him and one of the usual tanks, plus having a regular DPS whom didn't sign up as well, I put out some feelers but no one I knew wanted to pop in.  Instead we did a LFR or two together, got Scorpiack a little further on his legendary quest, and still enjoyed playing together in one fashion.

     I will take the blame for last night.  I had several frustrating things hit me all at once, and I just wasn't in the mood to raid.  One of the healers had contacted me to let me know they wouldn't make it, and that would have brought us up to 7 signed up.  So, I logged on shortly before raid long enough to cancel it, and put up a note on the message of the day, then I kicked off and spent some family time.  (The 24th is a holiday here in Utah, so I ended up taking the kids out to fireworks in the neighborhood and talking to people that I barely know despite living in this house for 10 years now) I needed something different to cool me down, and sitting in LFR, and scraping people up for raid wasn't going to work last night.

      Is it wrong to not raid occasionally if you just can't do it emotionally? Or if your heart is in the wrong place?  I think occasionally bowing out is good for some of us.  I can count the number of times I have done this since Wrath however on one hand.  I feel responsible for the raid team, so when I feel back when I make a choice not to be there, or have to step away from things.  I push myself in game to make the team better, and even though I feel I needed to step away last night, I still feel like I let people down.

      I know I need to fight some issues I have anyway at this point.  I need to be willing to go to trade chat to find people when we are short for raid.  Normally I don't do this as I worry about bringing people outside of our guild into raid and having them poison the atmosphere.  This is a silly hangup as I will invite Joe Blow who just joined the guild 10 minutes ago if he is ready to go.  Maybe if I get Khallon to pick on me about this hang up....

And a farewll to Oxhorn....

     Anyway, that is the short skivvy on our non-existant raid week.  Next week will be interesting as there is a chance I may end up working Tuesday night, and in that case I will designate raid leader cover, or move the raid night depending on what makes us more likely to get some time in.  It also depends on who shows up, or signs up.

Until next week,

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Raid update 7/18/2013

     This feels like it has been a long week, and truly it has been.  But let's get to it.

     Yes, up top is proof that Batman watches over me while I work.  I didn't want to do another picture of one of my characters standing, so I picked a random picture for you all, and this one won.

      Tuesday went off well.  Due to one of the tanks moving this week Amelmi stepped onto his Dk Creap, (which honestly was the first toon I think he had in the guild) and filled in.  I stepped on to Dizzty my disc priest and Gwyndolynn took a knee and bowed out to allow others who had signed up to go.  We took down Jin'rokh in short order and moved through the horrible trash (I will never look forward to pointless trash Blizzard!) a lot more efficiently then we had previously.  We spent the rest of the night on Horridon and felt good by the end, and we had made progress to the point of getting past the last door and fighting the Dino himself!

     Wednesday we had exactly 10 people signed up, (though I have to give a nod to Easybake who was on, and signed up as tentative.) So it was a pretty quick trip to Throne of Thunder again.  This time I was on Lazyeye my hunter, as Gwyndolynn was back and healing.

     Now, last night was frustrating, I won't lie.  We didn't get as far as the previous night and something just felt off.  We swapped up strategies a few times to try and figure out where we were falling short, and a couple of switches seemed to have a little effect, but nothing that pushed us through.  I think while we  didn't get as far, a few of us might have a better feel for the fight though.  I even played around with my Beast Mastery spec towards the end, to see if more straightforward damage on the elites would make a difference.

      Horridon, and I've said it before is supposed to be the first wall in this raid.  I have heard of several raid teams that struggled with him for a few weeks.  Once we get past him I expect bosses will go a little more quickly for a little bit.  Well, I hope so anyway.

      On the bright side, and on a personal level, the company I work for (Excellence in Healthcare http://eihnet.com) held it's first Lunch and Learn in Utah, and I think it went well and I looking forward to helping with another one tomorrow.  I will then spend all weekend unplugged from technology camping with my family and some friends, so hopefully I will be locked, loaded and refreshed for next week.

      So, on and on to tomorrow.  Next week is a new week and we will sally forth and hit the Throne of Thunder anew!!!!

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

In game Auction House.... coming in a Blizzard near you!

     If your in Asia, a new feature is coming in 5.4.  An in game auction house where you can buy various things, like a potion for 100% Xp increase, is being implemented.  Another item they are talking about selling is those "Coins of Fortune" that you trade in for your bonus rolls every week.  This of course brings up a lot of forum rage and discussion.

     First of all, it needs to be mentioned that the Asian market for World of Warcraft is very different.  Instead of paying monthly, players have to go to a cyber cafe and pay for time played as they go.  In some countries (Like China) not only are they limited by that constraint, but the government adds other constraints on how long people can play.  So, unlike us, they don't pay a monthly fee and call it good.  They pay for every moment they are online.  Which means, while we spend time when we are bored running circles around Stormwind/Ogrimmar, they have to maximize their game play and be productive every moment if they are going to raid, or participate in any type of content.

      The question becomes will Blizzard implement something like that over here if it's successful.  With 8 million players, we are still a long way from being at a point where Blizzard drops the subscription model, however with the pet store being a success they would be crazy not to be looking at additional types of micro-transactions.  So far everything you buy is cosmetic, from vanity pets to the transmog helms they just teased are coming.  You can pay for shiny things but none of them give you any type of advantage for end game content.

     But what happens if they start selling stuff like the potion for 100% xp increase.  You can already kill a rare mob for a potion like this, but paying for it? Does that cross a line? What if Blizzard decided you could pay to buy a max level character? Would you consider that?   We already can get a character level boosted through recruit a friend, or scroll of resurrection.  Does it make a difference if you could plunk down say $25 dollars to pick and choose a max level character on your account?  What if they put in a requirement of already having a character at max level?  At what point do these services break the game and start giving unfair advantages to people who are willing to plunk down some extra cash?  What if Blizzard where to decide to let people buy gold?  People could use that to buy gear to get into raiding more quickly with the advantage of higher gear....

      There is a precedent too, with Diablo's Auction house they let people buy gold, sell items for money and in game gold etc...  However I think we can all agree that it was a minimal success at best and a crap storm of negative media at worse.  When Diablo 3 hits consoles here soon, it's not a surprise that the live Auction house is not going to be a big part of that.  Blizzard has hopefully learned their lessons from Diablo 3.

      Now, I think we will see more and more stuff coming to our Blizzard store.  I can't say I haven't benefited from it either.   I have my sparkle pony that was a father's day present.  (My BE's love the mount) I bought my wife the cennarian hyppogryph mini pet for her birthday, though to be fair part of the justification for that was that all the profits from blizzard where going to help out Japan after it's Tsunami.  The big part of the Blizzard store though is that NO ONE is making you pay extra money for the in game mounts, pets, etc... it is all completely optional.  I think Blizzard is smart to do this and establish the in game store now, because some day in a  far off future they are going to have to go free to play.  I don't think that day is anytime soon, but the game is 8 years old, and it is hard to imagine they are going to gain more subscribers then they lose from this point on.  If they have a well established store before then, it will help them with that transition.

     How do you feel though, do you want Blizzard to offer additional services as long as they aren't game breaking?  What if they border on game breaking and sell some beginning raiding gear, or even boss kill experiences?  I guess the big question is where would you draw the line?  I know I am good as long as they don't cross that line where people get an unfair advantage at the end game content.  I could care less about leveling boosts etc....

So let me know where you stand.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

   

Out with the old, lets beat down the new!!! (Raid update 07/10/2013)

     I crack open my Apple Beer with joy (http://www.applebeer.com/) because we are now done with old content.  But let me backtrack a little.

     Tuesday night we ventured into Throne of Thunder.  We went in and quickly took down Jin'rokh.  After wading through the fun trash that some psychopath at Blizzard dreamed up we found ourselves face to face with Horridon.  The giant Dinosaur err.. Rhino himself

      I honestly didn't expect much here.  I know that Horridon has been referred to as the first wall in Throne of Thunder where raid teams get stopped for several weeks. Often he takes a lot of pulls and practice to work through.  So I was very pleased with the progress we made against Horridon through out the night. We kept pushing and were getting to the third door consistently.  This week I may be looking up strats that IcyVeins.com uses....

     Of course, Tuesday came to an end and we found ourselves in the Terrace of Endless Spring.  I also found myself not recording the beginning of our fight with Lei Shi, as someone (Carder, cough, cough) Ninja pulled in the middle of the explanation of the fight.  O.k., It was funny and we still love him.  Plus, we one shot Lei Shi on a ninja pull!!!! First time down for Fear Itself!!!!

      On to the Sha of Fear next, Carder was told to wait on the stairs... (yes I'm giving him crap) and we went through the boss fight.  First couple pulls where unsuccessful due to early deaths, but guess what, Third pull, and Sha went down!!!!

     That's right folks, Fear Itself is now done with old content and will be focusing only on the Throne of Thunder!!!! This makes me excited as I now believe we have a shot, and a great shot at finishing Throne of Thunder before the next raid is released.  I know it's possible, the official raid team of Convert to Raid has finished Throne of Thunder running just four hours a week.  I am excited and I know if we push ourselves a little we can do the same thing.  Then we can punch Garrosh in the face, which really, who doesn't want to do that at this point? 

     We had time and went back into Throne Last night as well.  We only had a few pulls, but we managed to get to the 4th door on Horridon.  We still need to figure out how to get through the third door more cleanly, but I think with enough effort, Horridon may be chopped next week.  I openly hope he is.

     Also as a side note, I'm happy to be raiding on my hunter Lazyeye now.  Yes I know I've had a bit of toon switching here, but I am trying to fit into the best spot I can on the team.  Right not that seems to be dps, and I will keep my Priest and Paladin on standbye should I need to step in on one of them.  Us 

altoholics can do that.

  So gratzy to the Tuesday team, (Laroth, Magilla, Gwendolynn, Ithoriuol, Shaqia, Carder, Easybake, Lotauna, Scorpiak, and Lazyeye (me)) for great progress against Horridon.  Gratzy to the Wednesday team, who was the same make up except Lotauna took a break and we brought in Moldievenom.  You all rock, and next week I look forward to bringing some more pain to an over sized Dino!!!

Lag, Dizzty, Lazyeye.

Nerdtacular 2013 (Woot, woot!)

    So this post is going to be a little less Wow related then my normal ones.  I just spent the last couple days at Nerdtacular which, if you don't know is a small pod casting convention held here in Utah.  It was originally a very Wow centric, but has grown over the years as Frogpants studios (http://frogpants.com/) has grown and added more and more podcasts to the line up it puts out.

    This is web comic and podcaster Scott Johnson's company, and I first became aware of it when I started listening to "The Instance," (http://frogpants.com/podcasts/the-instance/) The World of Warcraft podcast that Scott Johnson, Willy "Dills", and Turpster put on.  I have been listening to this show since 2008 or so, and I have rarely missed a week.  They do a general mix of Wow information and news and are just fun to listen too.  Of course Scott Johnson has a guild on Earthen Ring Server named Alea Ecta Est (The Die is Cast) and I know at one point it was officially the larges guild in World of Warcraft.  I myself have a toon in that guild I log on to sometimes just to kill a few minutes and listen to that community chat.  Illyrea on Earthen ring.  (Yes, that isn't my only toon of that name.)

       I highly suggest if you can finding something like this near you.  Nerdtacular was a bunch of panels around podcasting.  Their shows are all based around Wow, gaming, Books, New Tech, and other such geekery.   Stuff that makes  people like me happy, and even if like me you don't talk to a lot of people, it's nice just sitting in a group of like minded individuals.  Cryptazoic (http://www.cryptozoic.com/) even donated a bunch of their board games and wow TCG games so people could chill and play between panels.

      The shows we caught were the Battles of the Frogpants all stars (A group of Frogpants Podcasters split into two teams and trying to outdo each other at games and trivia) Film Sack (frogpants.com/podcasts/filmsack/) Where they did Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Costume contest, Prizeocolypse,  The Saturday morning Stream (Normally the Morning Stream http://frogpants.com/tms/) and a couple of other things.

     My only big complaint this year is that during the Prizeocolypse I didn't get my name pulled for a third year in a row.  That is more a Karma thing then anything else, I guess I need to yell more or become more social.  Me and Matt (Shaqia) were sitting in the row right behind Scott Johnson's family, which was cool. Until when they were tossing shirts one of the dudes there blocked a shirt thrown straight at me, and then picked it up and tossed it way back into the crowd.  Matt, offered to punch the dude for being a douche, but we decided to shrug it off.  Wouldn't be good to get kicked out for picking a fight, 'specially with the hosts family lol.  (Not that we would pick a fight anyway it was just annoying).  Unlike last year, where I left with a bunch of blizzard shirts, this year I had to settle with just my swag bad and a T-shirt I bought.  (The Instance T-shirt)  There is something inherently disappointing about  that, but at the same time, I know Scott Johnson had asked blizzard not to send so many T's because anything left over he has to take home, and there was a crapload of T-shirts last year left over even after the attendees picked over the remnants.  So I'm trying not to be unreasonable in my head with this, because I know it's just me

       I am lucky to have a understanding wife who lets me do this once a year.  I've known and heard of people who don't.  But I do need to shout out to her for letting me express my nerdyness, and hopefully I will be able to drag her along one year.

      All in all, it was a fun wonderful weekend, but I'm ready to spend time with my family again and return to Azeroth with my adopted digital family.  And Moldie.  (Hee hee)

       Next post I will talk about Wow, I promise.

Dizzty, Lag, Lazyeye,
     

For all the Bugs I've Squished Before

This was what one would call a very good week.

       With an overwhelming return of people I actually had to see if someone wanted to sit out of raid Tuesday, (thank you Lotauna for volunteering) and Wednesday we were full quickly as well.  Sadly, had to leave a person or two out of that one as well.  But we shook hands with our good friend progression.

My hunter Lazyeye who is getting geared now.  Mwha ha ha.

       Night one Jin'Rokh went down again, then we burned some time on trash (sadly) and got a few good hits off on Horridon.  It felt like a good start.

       Then Wednesday we stepped in to do Grand Empress Shek'zeer.  We had an issue with a DC on the first attempt that killed us.  Lag, had to strap his shield back on and hop in to tank, And we took that giant bug down!!! This means, we don't have to do Heart of Fear again peeps! No more HoF

       It was then a trip to Terrace of Endless Spring.  Now we had killed the Council before, but it had been a few months and I wasn't sure how this was going to go.   It did take a few tries... but we got our bearings and those Jin'yu breathed their last.

First two bosses we killed

     The next part is the part that makes me most happy.  We stepped up to the Giant Tsulong!  We had experienced tons of trouble trying to take down this dragon previously.  We hadn't attempted him for a few months either So with about 15 minutes of raid left, I wasn't expecting to take him down.  However we walked in and gave him a great smacking on our first attempt.  I said holy crap we decided to do another attempt with 5 minutes of raid left we stepped in, and went a little late while getting our first kill of Tsulong.

 It was a good night.

First Downing of Tsulong!!!!

      So that means, if we can down the last two bosses in Terrace next week, we can focus solely on Throne of Thunder!  I don't think that is an unrealistic goal after last night to think that is possible.  So off to a happy weekend and We shall beat things down next week!

       As a note, I probably won't have an opinion post this weekend like I try to do, since I will be at Nerdtacular on the 5th and the 6th at Snowbird, Ut.  If anyone else is there that reads this, I hope to see you.

Dizzty, Lag, Lazyeye.  Yes I am having an identity crisis.