A Nice Return.

I finally stepped into a raid this expansion.  And yes, it's been a little while.

    On my rogue I had a chance to step into the Emerald Nightmare on Heroic.  She has stepped over the guild "Screaming for Vengeance" on Zangarmarsh/Hellscream realm.  I am keeping the Horde side Fear Itself guild intact, but as no one has really logged onto it recently and there are no resources in the bank I'm holding it for the name only.  I might do something with it in the future, but have debated deleting it completely.

    I had the opportunity with this guild, as I had the week off of school after passing my Security+, to go in and fight a few bosses.  We downed the Nythendra fight, then the Dragon's of Nightmare, and ended on Ursoc, but not without getting him down to 10%.  We were running the dungeon on Heroic, and while I haven't talked a lot to this guild yet, they do seem to be starting their raid team so I am happy with what was done.  So far they seem a group of nice folks, and I look forward to hopping into things with them here and there.

    My own performance was somewhat lacking.... I could see some of the rust on me as I died more than once to stupid mistakes.  My DPS was good, I actually placed closer to the top of the charts than to the bottom. As it is said though, dead DPS do no DPS, and I went down more than I should have.

    What else would one expect though after not raiding for a while, and not DPSing for an even longer period of time.

     Otherwise, life is good but slow.  I am still logging in sporadically and enjoying the game at my own pace.  I am learning and working at my new job with inContact and loving it here. I am a IT Asset Tech. Which means I am in charge of ordering and maintaining equipment and I do some good helpdesk/IT crossover.  Kids are healthy and energetic and my wife as always is wonderful.  Oh, and I have officially graduated from DATC.  Next it's on to work towards my Bachelor's degree.

     There is also Fear Itself.  I am happy that when I log in there are still some familiar faces online.  Some don't see often either.  I knew there were all sorts of possibilities when I stepped down.  I knew there might be a mass exodus from the guild, or that things might fall apart.  I hoped they wouldn't, and so far things look like they are mostly together, but time will tell if things will still be there when I am ready to full time raid again.

     Of course, I'm pretty sure I don't want to go back to being a raid leader at this point.  I am done with that part of my Wow experience.  I leave it open to anyone in Fear Itself who wants to raid lead and rebuild things in that area, but it won't be me.  I just don't have a time and energy for the stress anymore.  Even were I to finish school tomorrow I don't think I would go back to it.  I will raid, I will participate as much as I am able, but I am done being the raid leader.

     I still love this game, I still love my guild and my guildies.  It's just time for me to do something else.  The major part of my heart is still in Fear Itself and I plan on always having a presence there.  Objectively though, I don't have the time and effort in me to push raiding or guild events at the moment.  If others do, let me or Gwyndolynn know.  We will give you the resources and support to build your own raid team etc...  More than happy to.

    See you in Azeroth,
Lag

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I Am Stepping Down

So… Here it goes.

       I am writing this even debating right now if I’m actually going to post it.  I have been thinking a lot lately about my role in World of Warcraft versus student, versus father and husband.  I made a decision a little over a year ago to change my life by going back to school, getting and education, and bettering my situation overall.  I am essentially working on rebuilding myself as a better person with opportunities that will benefit those whom I love.

      So, with a heavy heart I am going to flat out say it.  I am stepping down from raid leading for the foreseeable future.

     I am going to even change the name of this blog. It will probably go on as theornerywowplayer or something of that flavor.  I want to go into and explain why I am making this decision, and I want to make sure that everyone involved understands why I am doing it.

     It really hit home to me while I was thinking about a job interview I have tomorrow.  If I get this job, I will be getting up around 6 am, heading to work at 7, working 8-5, then going to school 6-9 every weekday but Friday.  This means that I will have even less time in game then I do right now.  I will probably have an hour or so when I get home before I go to bed, and that hour will belong to my wife and family.  I am not going to play World of Warcraft when I get so little daily time.

     I have also been looking at my education down the road. I am going to graduate from DATC when I finish the course I am taking, and that will be around January give or take.  I am going to continue to attend and earn some more certifications, (Project+, Administrators, Linux, Citrix) so I will probably be enrolled until the end of summer at the earliest which is a bit longer than I had originally planned.  After that, I may go on to try and get my bachelors in computer science with an emphasis on Networks and Administration.  Needless to say, that means I will probably be looking at a couple more years at least in school.

     Between these two things it hit home to me.  I am not going to be able to rebuild the raid team.  I don’t have the energy and the time.  I am not going to keep pushing forward on it, because that would not be fair to anyone who is there right now.  I am officially calling quits on raiding leading, organization, etc…

     What does that mean for the guild?  I don’t know.  If someone wants to rebuild the raid team or start one I will support it.  If the guild become just a place where folks leave an alt to hop in and keep in touch I’m ok with that too.  The end line of this is I am taking a step back from any sort of big responsibility in World of Warcraft.

      I am going to keep playing.  This game is my big stress relief and I love chatting with folks.   There are people who I have played with for years that I worry about such as Scorpiak and Magilla.  However, it is selfish of me not to say, feel free to move on if the right opportunity presents itself.  I will still probably get on Sunday nights to run dungeons, LFR, and other such things with my family and people, but I am not going to set my clock by it.

     I am going to be doing my own thing.  I will probably be leveling a couple of horde alts, and a couple of alts on Aerie Peak.  I may find a raid team or two where I can step in as an alternate, but I don’t plan on being the big main raider in any shape or form.  I have grown to the point where this game cannot take priority for me.  It is not fair to myself, or anyone else involved for me to keep going on like I have.  I am done for now, and will be doing my own thing.  I hope I see folks in game, but as everything must come to an end, my time as raid leader has.  I have raid lead since wrath, so I had a pretty good sprint.  It’s time for someone else to pick up the mantle.  Or we can just let it lie.

     Either way, I love the experiences I have and thank everyone for helping me become a better person through this experience.  I wish I could remember everyone.  My family Gwyndolynn, Fantaa, Aeryn, Shaqia, Whatever Toon Jon is helming right now.  (Love you Jon, but you switch more than me.)  And those I’ve played with outside,  Bromli, Laserfina, hummock, Sochia, Bannanahamock, Zhamora, and even the guild leaders in midnight, years ago who picked me up and let me run with them no matter how that ended.  All deserve an amount of thanks.  And yes, I probably misspelt more than one name there.  I have forgotten to mention so many others.  I could sit here thinking for hours and coming up with even more.  But I Won’t bore folks with that.

So, for that last time, as the ornery raid leader,

Thanks for reading,

Lag

No Raids Yet

This expansion is going strong.  But where are we?

     First of all, the state of World of Warcraft is better than it has been in a long time.  If you believe that Ian Hozzikostas told a reporter, allegedly, that Wow is back up to 10.1 million active subscriptions, then there is evidence this may be true.  Despite Blizzard later denying that Ian said such a thing, as they had officially stopped announcing subscription numbers, I think it was clever marketing to get the numbers our unofficially.  If you hop in game right you can feel the resurgence.  Dalaran is well populated again.  The world seems full of players, and there is plenty to do.

     World quests have been a nice way to spend some time every day.  There is dungeons, LFR, I hear that PVP is not bad right now (I don't PVP so I have to take folks word for it.) and we already have a lot of 7.1 announced to look forward to.

      We are already a couple months in and things feel like they are going strong.

      But Fear Itself, is not raiding.  We are not in a position to raid, and I don't know when we will be.

      I find this fascinating because gearing is not hard at the moment.  Just doing my world quests every other day I have managed to get to a ilevel of 844 now.  I have tanked a mythic, and found that those are about as hard as heroic last expansion.  I have done my class hall quests, and spending an hour or so a day on average managed to be at a level where I could be raiding.  I know some others in the guild are in the same boat.  Several are not.

      So this leads to the question, what do we do from here?  I could try and rebuild a raid team, but I am full of social anxiety over inviting a bunch of new people in and figuring out where they fit.  I have done it several times, and happily built what we have, but as I've stated before, I don't know if I have it in me.

     I could find another raid team to pair with, so that people in Fear Itself have a place to go where we can still work together.  I just am not sure where to start as my in game relations have dwindled the last couple of years. I also am unsure about a raid environment that I can't control.  I am also relieved by the idea.  I am just not sure I have it in me to be a raid leader anymore.  I want to enjoy the game, but I have grown weary of pushing people and doing all the work.  This is even an option I can employ across realms since I do have a couple of characters in the Convert to raid team on Aerie Peak.  I might be able to build something there and have my guildies invited in.  Because the simple truth is, I still love my long standing guild members and don't want to let them down.

     I will keep posting stuff on Saturday and Sunday night for now.  Even if we just run LFR I want to keep people working together.  If I see an opportunity to work us in, I will do it.  If someone else wants to step up, raid lead and recruit, I will fully support them.  However, I don't think this will happen as when I have tried to step down in the past, it hasn't been possible.

     I am open to suggestions from guild members as well.  If you have a friends raid team who would love folks to step in, that is awesome.  If you want to create a PVP team to make the guild  have more to do.  Groovy.  Let's keep moving forward.

And let's do it together.

Lag.

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My Frame of Mind.

And the raiding has started!

     And I am sitting here just playing around.  Half of my normal raid team isn’t geared yet, and I have just started scheduling things as of last weekend.  Last weekend we had one team run heroics, and one do regulars.  It informed me that we have a bit of a ways to go.  If we go.

      I’m still not convinced that everyone is coming back for this raid tier.  Other people I don’t believe are going to hang around long enough once the right opportunities open up.  In my head I am debating the energy to rebuild the raid team if it is going in the direction I think, and I just don’t think I have it in me this time around.

     Between school and real life I feel stretched thin.  A couple expansion ago I had every class leveled and had a good idea of how the specs worked etc.  I just can’t do that anymore.  I have debated throwing in the towel but I have folks that have run with me since Wrath that I don’t want to abandon.  I hear that phrase that it’s my fifteen a month, but I feel obligated to those who have played with me for years.

     My question is, if I think things aren’t going to work out, do I let them know now so they can look at greener pastures? Or do I try and hold on to see what happens?  There is a chance I’m just writing this in a pessimistic mood and that this weekend I will hop on, folks will be there and we can jump in.  I still think in the best of luck, we are a couple weeks out from starting raids.  That is if folks show up.

      My beef is that the gearing isn’t hard right now.  You open up world quests, and spending a few hours a week I have been able to get to a very decent ilevel to hop into things.  Class hall quests help, so does finishing each zone including the slog of crack addicted elves in Suramar.  I finally got to revered with them and can now run dungeons that won’t reward me with anything I need because they were gated.  But that’s a gripe for another time.

       Maybe I’m old man grumpy, or maybe I am just tired.  If my situation just change the question is, does this blog become the orneryraidplayer? Runner? Who knows?

       Other than that, I did manage to do an LFR and the new raid in Emerald dream looks fantastic.  There are a lot of NSFW jokes I could make here, but that is not my mission in life.  I would rather tell them in person.

       As a guild we have swapped to Discord as a voice service.  I am enjoying that so far, but I am also in the Beta for Blizzard Voice chat and if that works it would be an even simpler solution.  I just couldn’t justify having Fantaa keep paying for Ventrillo when we don’t use it often enough lately.  Not when there are some great free options out.  I glanced at the Curse.com option as well, that one starts free but looks like it starts to charge after a while.

      Well, I think that’s about it for now.  The big news in Wow is that folks are raiding, the game is as fun as it has ever been, and there is plenty of content.  I am slowly starting to poke at a couple of alts now and will hopefully have a second or third one-ten character in a few weeks.

We will see,

Lag.

My Raiding Evolution.

Just thinking about how raiding has changed and shifted for me over the years.

      For the first time since the end of Burning Crusade, I am have not been in a raid for more than three months.  I haven't felt a loss here as I've been busy.  As a matter of fact I have to finish my A+ certification before June, or I'm going to retake, or wait to take the test.  Lot's of fun.  Big challenge.  I can do it.

     Anyway, I think about how much I used to raid and the ways I used to and I find it an interesting process.

    I first started raiding around the end of Burning Crusade. The first time I raided it was with the guild Midnight (Now defunct) on Zangarmarsh.  This is where I really started to grow relationships with other players outside of Fear Itself.  I had bounced around on a side character and ended up joining them.  A lot of the players that pop in and out of game for me still come from that guild, and I have a great bunch of memories surrounding my time there.  Lazyeye (My hunter) was the first character I had that managed to see action.  The only raid I really stepped in was Karazhan, but it was a good start.

      Wrath was where I hit my first stride.  I was pugging into raid constantly to get a good look at what was going on inside.  I was also running with Midnight for the first little bit.  Then there where some issue in the guild I won't go into... and end of story me and my wife were no longer welcome by the guild leaders.  This is something I have let go of over the years as a lot of the relationships from that guild lasted until folks stopped playing, and still last in various forms today.  I know my wife still holds a bit of a grudge, but since the guild leaders don't play on Zangarmarsh, or don't play at all anymore for all I know, it's kind of a moot point.

     This was when I started leading raids in Fear Itself.  Naxxramas fun. First raid I ever led we went into 10 man, and I had forgot that I had been running in a 25 man earlier.  Strangely, we couldn't figure out why the first couple of spider pulls was just leveling our raid.  Then someone saw we were set for 25... Oh fun memories.  The comfort of pugging and epic feel of this expansion has let this as my favorite expansion still.

    I continued to lead all through Wrath and into Catalcysm.

    Now people like to talk negatively about Cata, and out of the different expansions it admittedly was not the best.  However, this is the expansion where we probably had the strongest raiding presence.  We got tripped up in Firelands a bit, very true, but otherwise we had probably the most consistent raid team that Fear Itself has ever fielded.   I have fond memories of some of the fights.  Deathwing's back.  Magilla getting life-gripped (leap of faithed) by Aeryn at the beginning of a pull.  For all the complaints, Cata has a bit of my heart in it for these reasons.

     Pandaria is probably my second favorite expansion.  The strides Blizzard his with story telling and leveling content was wonderful here.  I am surprised as a matter of fact that we didn't have any content in Warlords that echoed the story experience we saw in Krasarang wilds during the second big patch.  Or the Isle of Thunder.  However, I feel that the wonder these created has been missed this expansion which is why there is so much boredom and heartburn.

     As far as raiding in Pandaria, I enjoyed it, but by the end I was feeling some burn and fatigue.  Constant shake ups in the raid team started to wear as us.  It seemed we had several players who would disappear for a while, then re-appear months later.  The stress should have been fixed with flex raiding, but it wasn't.  We had several periods where we had to skip raid for attendance, and our headaches really began at this point.

     Now as far as Warlords go, I have a lot of irritation with this expansion.  The leveling experience was wonderful and promising... the first time.  The raiding experience was O.k., but we never really got out feet underneath us this expansion to properly experience it.   Once again we were plagued by folks stepping in and out.  I had hoped starting with flex raids would help cure this.  I love the model, but even starting with more than ten folks, it wasn't long before people just stopped showing.  As a matter of fact, this expansion is the first time we have put raiding on hold while waiting for another expansion.

     In Legion we will see how it goes.  I am hoping folks come back for the new expansion and we are able to keep enough fresh blood in to build something back up.  I'm looking forward to seeing Gul'dan go down and seeing where to story goes to next.  I am hoping for a redemption arc for Illidan.  I'm tired of seeing heroes go down and get corrupted.  I would love to see some folks get saved.

How has your raiding experience changed over the years?  How do you think Legion will affect it?

Lag.

Wow on the resume

So, I had an oral presentation to give in my current class.

   My Quick World of Warcraft update, is that I still haven't had much chance to be on lately, but I'm managing to long on a bit more.  I'm working on a new alt on Arrie Peak along with getting my other toons up to 100 in preparation for Legion in a few months.  I'm excited.  My demon Hunter calls....

    As for my presentation....   Here it is!

     I know that's a little foggy, so I'm working on getting power point that goes with it added.

     So, here it was.  At DATC (Davis Applied Technology Center) in Kaysville, Utah where in my Workplace Relations class I had to give an oral presentation.  What did I choose? Why I chose whether gaming was ever relevant on a resume.

      To be honest, I had fun with this, and I'm sad the power point didn't show up well on the video. I received full credit for the project itself, and I was happy with the result.  I won't lie that I was a little disappointed with the response I got from all the companies I emailed, but sometimes you just lose some.  There is a chance some may still email me, and if they do I will add it on here.

      This is my first time using power point as well.  So, please don't mock me if it's not a great theme, I did my best and I felt it turned out all right.  I also had my daughter to coach me and that helped out.
It's sad when in school they are teaching your kids stuff like this, that they never bothered with when we were kids.

      At this point I'm guessing mid-summer for Legion.  I think they want to beat the release date they have given by a good margin.  Hopefully we will see them step past the Alpha pretty soon, and then we can look at Beta.  Once we hit that point I am feeling it will go quicker than normal this cycle.
   
     If it doesn't Blizzard is looking at well over a year of Hellfire Citadel, and this year is going to feel even longer than the year of ICC, or Siege of Ogrimmar with how quick the content was shucked out this expansion.  But I've given my opinion on this before.  Feel free to give yours,

Lag.

It's a Brand New Day.

You may have not seen me online lately.

     Yes it's snowy and foggy here in Utah.  Wonderfully so.  Can't say much for the inversion though, that stuff sucks

     For the last couple of weeks holidays, getting my computer fixed etc... have kept me offline.  I have now been able to hop on a couple of times, in hopes of getting the holiday mount from the Winter's Veil Dailies in the garrison.  So far no dice, but I've only been able to try for a few days, and I believe I just tried for my last.

     But here we are in a new year.  The force has awakened, and most of us have set resolutions that will last for another week or two.  (Don't worry, I haven't set any to break) I am now looking forward to what this year will bring.

     School for me will probably be going until the end of this year.  Assuming I bust my butt and get all my coursework up to Network Administrator done at DATC I will probably still have some work to do at Weber College to get my Associates.  This means that I don't foresee a time this year I'm not dealing with school work.  I also have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get back to writing and editing because I would like to have my book ready to submit to different agents/publishers here in a few months.  I need to stop putting it off and put the work in.  If I get published I will be screaming it here as well.

     This means for World of Warcraft my time will continue to be a lot more limited than it has been in the past.  For now while we are in the slog between expansions that is OK.  I'm taking a little time to teach my friend who has just subscribed but otherwise haven't been on much.  I'm not going to take a 100% break from game, but for now it's definitely on the sideline.

     When Legion drops I'm not sure how this is going to effect things.  Normally at the beginning of an expansion most of our raid team comes back and we get running within a few weeks.  I am hoping this is the case again.  I have asked people if different raid days would help etc... but at this point have gotten little feedback so I plan on keeping things to weekends.  I am looking forward to introducing my friend to raiding and building up a couple of resources who have been kind of sidelined at this point.  I am playing with the idea of swapping to demon hunter, but have a hard time thinking of setting Lag aside as he has been my main for most of Wow since Wrath.

But here is the thing.

     If raiding doesn't start up with folks coming back again, I'm not sure I have it in my heart to rebuild things.  I have been working with the ups and downs for several expansions now and part of me is just tired.  I want to raid.  I want to be there for the team and I will feel some guilt if I just let go, but at the same time fighting people to show up is getting old.  This is still several months away, but it is on my mind.

    Of course, I could pull a 180 on this by the time Legion drops with the excitement of a new expansion and shiny new stuff, but right now this is where I am at.  It was made pretty apparent that if I step out, raiding will probably fade away from our guild and I don't want to be the cause of that.  At the same time, I'm not the only one responsible and I need to start seeing it as that.  If folks don't want to show up, or put the effort in this expansion might be the one where I give up raid leading and whatever happens happens.  I will keep on playing, and keep being involved with folks, but if this next expansion is as much of a  fight as Warlords has been I'm done.

    But, it's early yet to be negative.  Folks will come back.  Some will be looking for a guild and we have some good guild recruiters waiting to pull folks in.  We may get a shiny new/changed raid team and start blowing stuff up and laughing maniacally.  This as with every expansion has the potential to be the best expansion for our guild, Fear Itself, on Zangarmarsh.

Lag

Can You Avoid the Cookie Cutter Build?

It's always been there, in one form or another.

      There was an article released recently that was very interesting on Blizzardwatch.com. It's How cookie cutter builds discourage player customization.  It's a good read going into how player perceptions effect the choices that players overall make.  Give it a read, I'll wait.

      For those who have played World of Warcraft for a long while, you remember Talent trees.  Instead of one defined spec, you could take points in all three moving up as you leveled.  In order to take full advantage of a spec, you had to put a large amount of your talent points into it, but by picking and choosing different abilities in different trees you could make some very interesting choices.

     In theory this meant that folks could have some very customized options in their characters.  You could stick to the bottom half/third of all three specs at one point and never advance to end talents.  Or you could take your fire mage and then give him a bunch of power in frost once you topped off the fire tree.  This should have lead to a bunch of differently balanced characters doing really cool things.  Instead once some number runner figured out what talent point configuration put out the top DPS in the trees the community would all start to adopt that talent point spread.  If you wanted to be taken seriously pugging raids or finding a team you had to be running the popular choices.

     What should have been customization was in fact an illusion.

      As time went on Blizzard started putting constraints on the trees.  The first was that you had to put X amount of points into a specific spec before adding points to a different spec.  Then the trees got pruned and simplified taking out pointless choices, like add X damage to ability B.  Things that they knew everyone in the talent tree would take.  Then eventually the talent tree got the boot out the window and we were given essentially what we have now.  The talents tab.

     By simplifying the system and giving choices that where meaningful when it came to the feeling of game play Blizzard wanted to get rid of the cookie cutter build.  I would say they have been mildly successful, but overall people still depend on which choices are rated the best, or are the most popular.  There are some good options with choice, but most people stick with the popular track.

      I will admit I'm in that pack.  When I level a character I haven't picked up for a year or so, and decide to make that jump to level 100 I normally go to Icy-Veins.com and see what talent choices are rated the best, and which ones I can choose without a DPS loss etc...  I even do this for characters I know will probably not even make LFR.  While the idea of switching and testing different talent choices sounds fun,  a part of me just wants to make sure I'm doing things "right."  This is the part that often wins.

    I guess the question then becomes, is it possible to escape the cookie cutter build?  In legion we will be able to run all three specs and if I read correctly won't need to spend points to switch talents.  I think part of the goal has been for people to swap abilities for different fights, but I find myself only doing this in the rarest of circumstances.  Apparently you won't need a resource to do this swap next expansion which is probably another step in the right direction, but I still think folks are going to mostly follow the crowd.

    This makes the question what can you do to make your game play feel customized?  If talents are just another illusion of choice does it really matter if Blizzard includes this mechanic rather then just giving you the abilities to use as needed?  Is there anyway to beat this Illusion of choice and make it meaningful to game play?  Obviously if the talents had to do with things non-combat related (mount speed, character's dance etc...) then it feels like choice, but it doesn't matter in the over all scheme of things.  How do you all feel about it?

Lag.

My issues are Legion

Because you know, we are getting more information

EDIT: A Quick Clarification, It's two raid instances to start.  The information I had led me to believe otherwise.  I ran a small search and couldn't find anything definitive on how many raid tiers are planned for this next expansion.

With that in mind take my words for what they are worth.  A little misinformed at this point, however should there only be two raid tiers, they are a valid concern for me.  (I can't speak for everyone.) So I will leave them up, but wanted to make sure anyone reading knew they where misinformed at the time of writing.

    First of all, it's been a little while.  I won't lie. Without regular raiding my desire to keep writing here has been a little light.  I plan on keeping this blog going however, and will hopefully pick back up after the new expansion drops and we are back into baddies.  With that being said...

    My first issue is the announcement that there will only be two raid tiers again.  I almost missed this one until they mentioned it on "The Instance."  Really Blizz? If you want to do more content more quickly then you have to live up the that more content part.  I have mentioned it before, but it's annoying that the expansions are being shortened content-wise when the price tag went up by $10.  Now, I'm not going to opt out of wow, and I'm not hurting at shelling out ten more bucks for the next expansion.  I am worried about the precedent that expansion may be two big raid tiers long.  It feels wrong to me somehow.  I know last expansion they said that there was one less raid tier because of Garrisons, I am wondering if Class Halls are going to be the excuse this time around.  Honestly, I would take another raid over a Class Hall, but that's my preference.

     Spoilers (Not going to give them away) seem to indicate that there will be shake ups in both the Hordes and the Alliances leaderships.  While I like to see the story advance, I am wondering at this.  Yes, it's probably time to swap things up in the Alliance.  It's been stagnant there since Varian came back to his throne.  However, the Horde has had enough shake up the last couple of expansions I think they could use a rest over on that side.

     No new battlegrounds.  Now, this one doesn't really effect me as I rarely if ever do PVP.  However, this is the first expansion I can think of that isn't offering any new Battlegrounds coming to the table.  I am worried that the rush in content is going to alienate those people who actually play the game for that aspect of it.  I hear they do exist....

     On the positive side, I love the fact they are really digging into the flavors of each class spec.  Making hunters feel that survival, Marksman, and Beastmaster specs are completely different is a good thing to me.  From what I see most classes are getting more of that and as long as things are generally balance this is a good thing.  It could become a bad thing if spec X is doing way more damage the spec Y and now everyone feels required to play spec X to be competitive.  I know this already happens a bit, but if  people feel forced to play in a way they don't like it's going to push more away from the game.

     I'm still Juryied out on the Artifact weapons, I like the concept, and as long as I can Transmog over them I'm OK.  If I can't, then they may really cramp my style.

How are you guys feeling about the expansion news so far? What's exciting to you? What worries you?  Let me know.

Lag

This is My Towel. I'm Throwing it in.

So want Blizzcon to get here now.

      Alright, after last weekend and tonight I'm officially calling raiding done until Legion.  I will still put stuff up on Sunday or Saturday night.  But I'm done wasting my nights wondering if enough people will show.  We will probably be just getting together, running old content etc... from here on out.  Watch the Calendar.  But there may be weekends now where I don't plan anything.

      We will pick it up when Legion Launches again.  Before then I will be doing a poll to see best nights for folks to raid, along with times etc...  I can't claim things will change but if there is another time/times that might work better I will look at it.  I am open to suggestions etc... for raiding next Xpack.

       I plan on continuing this blog as news comes out.  I want to continue to discuss different ideas, iterations, and features coming out.  I want to make sure I am keeping my opinion out there.  Being called "the Ornery Raid Leader" may be a misnomer for a while, but for now here it will stay.  I am planning on still raiding leading next Xpack so it will eventually fit again.

     News is sparse at the moment.  Linkin' Park is playing at Blizzcon. That almost makes me consider buying the digital pass for the event.  However, I 'm sure I will get the news I want without paying for the extra content.  While I like to poke at other Blizzard games, I'm still mostly Wow so a large amount of what I pay for won't be of interest to me.

      Now Overwatch Beta is launching a couple days after Blizzcon.  I'm hoping to get in on that, it's a first person shooter that looks like it might appeal to me.  I was in the Heroes of the Storm Beta and didn't find much time to play.  That game is fun, but I haven't had time to play it in depth.
 
      I won't lie, since I now own Benmarble.com I might migrate this page over eventually into a sub domain.  I need to learn a little first.  

      As you can tell, there is not a lot to discuss this week.  Go kill the Headless Horseman.  Get a mount and a pumpkin.  Level some alts. Play Wildstar now that it's Free to play.  Have fun.

     I'm out until next week.

     Lag.

   

The Magic we Miss

Yes, it's going to be dry news until Blizzcon.

     Last weekend no raiding again.  Saturday, only 4 folks showed and we all went and did our own thing.  Sunday, we blew up Firelands for transmog.  Gratz to Scorpy by the way on his Flame Talon of Alysrazor.  So, once again, not enough peeps and we ran older content or dispersed.  I will keep trying to do things on weekends, but if we don't raid until next expansion it won't break my heart.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to get back into Hellfire Citadel and finish it.  However, if I have to find an alternative to do it, I will.

     I just hope we have a group to start raiding with in Legion at this point....

     Anyway, let's go back and discuss a topic we light to cover.  Why do people miss original, (or vanilla) wow so much? People are always talking about wanting to do forty man raids, and how epic it was back in the day.... There is a level of prestige to saying that you've played the game since vanilla (in your own head generally). Part of the reason we were so excited for Warlord of Draenor was the fact it hearkened back to good old Orcs. Vs. Humans and old Warcraft.  Which, while not being Wow itself, stirred up a lot of nostalgia and emotion.  Now we are getting the same feels for Legion.   But what exactly do we miss?

     I think it has more to do with scope and excitement.  I know the first time I rolled a character, (a Night Elf Rogue because I was excited about playing a Drizzt type character.  You R.A. Salvatore fans know what I'm talking about.) The sheer size of the game baffled me.  My brother was nice enough to port me to Stormwind so I could learn the sword skill, because once again, I wanted to wield swords no matter how impractical, and I was amazed at the difference just between Darnassass and SW.

    After that as I deleted and re-rolled characters, trying to find the perfect fit for me, I would run my rogues, hunters, warriors, etc... from Darnassas to Stormwind for that sword specialization.  This would be an hours trip give or take depending on how many time I died on the run etc....  The first couple times however, it amazed me how far I would run/ride a ship between the two areas.

    As I continued to play, it was still hard for me to image just how big the game was.  All the way to level 60 I found myself constantly being surprised at how many areas I could level in, how big the quests where, and all the different story lines.  I very quickly lost my desire to picture Night Elves in the same light as the Dark Elves they had resembled to me.  I fell in love with the lore itself.

     And I remember how cool it felt, when my first character, who was a gnome mage incidentally, hit level 60.  What a big accomplishment that seemed to be.

    That I think is what people are looking for in each expansion.  A level of scope and immersion that we probably won't see again.  We want that experience that was stepping into Azeroth for the first time, not knowing what we where doing in the slightest.  That feeling that there is no way we will touch every corner of this game because of how big it is.  The knowledge that there is something we have never seen before around every corner.

     And that will never happen.  We know this game.  We love this game and have grown with it.  Over the years, Azeroth has been explored by our characters so many times it's no longer the giant unknown.  Each expansion brings us new lands, but they are filled with as much familiar as they are new.  There is no going back, just forward.

    I personally wouldn't have it any other way.

Lag.

   

I don't want another Death Knight. (Introducing Demon Hunters)

I love the Death Knight class.  (Sorry Bel) but....

    Let's start with the raiding news.  Family stuff came up and I didn't make Saturday.  Sunday, no one showed so the couple of us who where there just ran some time walker dungeons.  Pretty much the story lately, I'm going to keep on posting, and we will do something.  This next weekend might be tight for me too... we will see.

    Like I said, I love the Death Knight class.  The starting zone, the feel of the play, the animation I think is all well done.  Some of the Lore choices that Blizzard has made with them (I must make things suffer or go insane being one of them) are not my favorite, but that is something that doesn't effect me in game.

    Let's remember when the DK's where first introduced however.  Blizzard was smart to cap the class at that time to one per realm because everyone had a DK to play.  The class itself was introduced as a hero class and was overpowered in a lot of instances.  Sometimes to the point where someone could just mash buttons and put up great DPS.  The class, despite a lot of criticism has come a long way from that point with all the changes over the last few expansions, but most don't forget the herd of facerolling DK's that haunted our Wrath Nightmares.

    And let's be honest, they still have some features that are arguably overpowered.  You don't see many other classes with the livability and self healing the blood spec has.  There are famous DK's that make a point out of soloing what is considered current or close to current content because they can.  While Blizzard may change that eventually, it's so ingrained into the DK at the moment that the screams would be loud and crazy where they to nerf it away.  So I don't think we will see a big change on this front anytime soon.

    I do however, have to mention, I mention duel-wield tanking on my DK.  It just felt and looked awesome.

    Why am I discussing DK's like this? Well, because with Demon Hunter's being introduced as a hero class I'm hoping Blizzard takes a strong look back and sees what did and didn't work with the DK initially.

    I want Demon Hunters to be fun, I don't want them to be overpowered.  I want them to pull about the same DPS as everyone else when a skilled hand is applied. That's not to say I won't complain if they aren't exactly at the middle of the DPS charts, I just don't want them to breeze into any dungeon and raid and immediately take the top DPS spot on account of the class, not the player.

    I would love to see the one Demon Hunter per realm limit.  I know I might get flack for this, but I know tons of people want to roll them.  I don't want to make it worse by having players roll five Demon Hunters to swap around depending on looks.  Make it simple, and then take the limit off in an expansion or two.  We don't need to be overwhelmed.

    Please let them feel unique.  At this point with Duel Wielding we have Fury Warriors, Rogues, Monks, and Frost DK's.  I am praying that the demon hunter doesn't feel borrowed or mashed from these other classes.  I am a fan of duel wielding in my reading fantasy, and my game fantasy, but I want it to feel like it's own thing.

     Brief but interesting starting area.  I love the DK starting area.  It has great story, feels imporant, and I can play through it in a couple hours easily.  I have a hard time with the Worgen, Goblin, and Pandarin starting areas because I feel trapped and stuck in them forever.  I know they probably aren't much longer then the DK area, but they feel like they take forever.  I would love an option to opt out and just start at level in the Orc, or Human zone.  Please make the Demon Hunter starting zone brief, but interesting.

    Let's make sure that with the introduction of the class I have been begging for since freaking Wrath or earlier is introduced in such a way that they are fun and iconic, but don't create multi-expansion grudges.  I plan on playing this class, and if they live up to their promise there is a good chance I will replace Lag as my main for the first time since wrath.  He has taken a back seat a couple of times, but he has always come back.  The Demon Hunter may be the death of him.  Or at least cause his retirement.

How do you hope the demon hunter is introduced? What did I miss here?

Lag.  

Little Broken Worlds

Last couple of weeks weren't so hot.

     Attendance one again down, through Saturday, and a little into Sunday we just went through and nuked Siege of Ogrimmar.  I think at this point when we don't have the attendance we will start working old raids for mount achievements etc....   At this point there is no reason not to.

     Then the next week, (yes I missed a week here) I forgot to post the raids, and attendance was low, probably because of that.  We worked on ICC 25 (I got my achievement mount) and the next day we did heroic BOT and BRD.  Some achievements where had, a couple missed.  Next time will be better.

     Now is the hard time.  People are playing less and less, some because of real life obligations, others because it's hard to get the will to work on things in an expansion that is for all intents and purposes coming to a close.  Attendance is going to be harder to gain, and so on.

     So now is the time to level the alts if you have something different in mind for next expansion.  It's time to play other games, be they Wildstar now that it's Free to Play, heroes of the Storm or whatnot.  Now is the time to take a breath and not live in Azeroth full time.

    But I would love you all to still show up for raid... hee hee.

    To be honest, I will keep posting raid times whether or not people show.  We can go work on old content mounts like I mentioned in the moments when not enough folks show.  I do still want to work through Hellfire Citadel, and I think we can if we can get the attendance, but If people don't want to show I'll make other plans.

    Let's be honest, we still probably have at least four to six months before the next expansion, we have time.  But that only works if we use that time.

     As for me, I plan on keeping my account active and dropping in when I have time.  School has had a major effect on my play time and that's a good thing.   I am doing well in school and I can't complain about the experience.  I think it had been good for me, and in the long run it will provide some good opportunities.  Not just for me, but for my family.

     So, let's try to get this raid done.  The little nerfs are coming through which will make things even easier.  And if folks decide to keep not showing up, there is always next expansion.

Lag.

   
   

   
   

We Have Time on our sides.

So here we are, It feels to me like everyone is over Warlords, and pining for Legion already...

     This week was fairly O.K.  On Saturday we went in and downed the first three bosses in Hellfire Citadel again.  I am still back and forth on saving progress here, because I know there is a couple pieces of gear folks could get from the first few bosses... but I want to move forward more quickly.

     Sunday we picked up on Council, and even with odds against us we started working on the Council fight again.  We only had 3-4 pulls when the tank we pulled from the nether dropped and left us stranded with 45 minutes left to go.  Rather than pull someone in for half an hour by the time we found them, we called it there.  Of course... we made some nice progress on council!  We might have downed them too if we hadn't lost the guest tank.  He dropped without a word.  Next week I'm pretty sure we will have that fight down.

      Now, with Legion on the way, and despite my tone here it is on the way, we still have some time to wait.  Beta hadn't dropped yet, and with Blizzard the betas for World of Warcraft tend to last a long while.  Several months in most cases.  So, supposing that the Beta for Legion starts right after Blizzcon, in November, we are still probably looking at a March release if they move quickly.  That is guessing at a 3 month long beta and that Blizzard might be very far along in their process.  Most likely the Beta will be longer and we will be looking at June for the time the next expansion drops.  I could be wrong, feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but I feel it's unlikely if we don't see the Beta by Blizzcon that we won't see the next expansion sooner.

     So what to do in the mean time?  I know I plan on sticking to raiding schedule.  Other then that Denarin and Scorpiack are working on openly recruiting to our guild "Fear Itself" on Zangarmarsh.  My hope is to get some of these folks that get abandoned as guilds start to go elsewhere and unsubscribe.  I'm looking at this time of "dulldrums" to do some building.  I haven't had a lot of time myself lately, but I'm managing to log in for an hour here and there.

     Other things that you can do right now? Level your characters.  Build up the character you want to play next expansion.  If  that's your main, you can always get an alt ready.  If you want to try something new, now is the time to get working on it.  Unless it's a demon hunter, demon hunters will have to wait.

     You can work on old achievement and content.   I know on my pally I can solo anything form original wow to dragon soul fairly easily and quickly.  If you ever wanted a rare mount drop off one of those raids, go start farming it.  There are several sweet mounts that are hard to find.  Go get 'em.

     Level something new from scratch.  1-100 still takes a little while.  Go experience the story from the beginning again.  Or start a character on the opposite factions side.  If you haven't played all the starting areas since Cataclysm you are missing out on some great stories.  I recommend the Forsaken starting zone.  It's the reason I have some a desire to see Blizzard do something big with Lillian Voss....

     If you can't find anything to keep you interested, then unsubscribe and wait.  The game will be here when you get back.  I'm a die hard and probably won't unsubscribe unless I literally have no more time to play.  As long as I can at least do raids I'm here for the duration.  My honest guess is that with Wow down to 5+million subscriptions right now, that before Legion drops we will be down to 3.5-4 million.  Once again I don't think this is a death knell in any way for Wow, because when Legion comes back the players will too.  And I think we will have a resurgence that quiets the naysayers until the next subscription drop.  But that is my guess as well.  Since this is all speculation and opinion, I could very well be wrong.

Lag.

Things I'd like to see in Legion.

So, I was at a wedding in Vegas last weekend, so I didn't raid.

      Now here is one of those things that bear asking before the launch of a new expansion.  What have they promised, and what do you want to see that hasn't been mentioned.  And I'll admit it is kind of a hard question for me this time, because it feels like everything has been thrown into this expansion that we have asked for.  It has been called the fanservice expansion in a few descriptions I've read, and I'm not sure how far from the truth that is.  But here are some things anyway....

      I want to see more dynamic professions.  Warlords gave us a neutered down, generic path for our character's professions.  It largely felt like it didn't matter what profession your character had, because you could just get a vendor in your garrison to make whatever you needed for the most part.  The only exceptions seemed to be the items used to level up the ilevel on gear.  Gathering professions where just laughable.  Your garrison pretty much gave you everything you needed on this front.

    Class specific quests.  It feels like we may be getting some of these with the class halls, but I'm not holding my breath.  I have walked in to to many things only to find that we have been supplied with the same quests as everyone else, just with a different starting point, or different faction.  I am hoping that each class with have a series of quests unique to each.  So my Paladin and Death knight can have very different experiences.

     More involved story lines.  A lot of Warlords felt like we were watching events unfold, but not necessary to the story.  This was a departure from the feeling of places like, say Jade Forest where we did something, and felt like we were personally responsible for the consequences at the end.  In warlords despite being called general etc... it felt like we were watching others achieve thing for us, and we just happened to be helping a little.  In order to feel involved our characters need to feel like the driving force in the game.

     Involvement from characters in Warlords  or Mists, or.... Rather then having great character like Yrell disappear from this point on, I would love to see them pop in here and there as we move forward.  Even if it's just running into her while visiting the king on a quest that takes me back to Stormwind. I hate that we get invested in characters and storylines just to see them abandoned for the next big flavor.

     That is the list on my mind, what would you like to see in Legion when it drops?

Lag

Speed Versus Quality.

I have a ponderance about this....

     Saturday night and Sunday both went well.  (Yes, I'm combining this blurb this week)  Both nights we raided.  I had saved from the previous week so  it was all council fight both nights.  We still haven't downed the fight, but we are on the way there.  Now if everyone would watch the strategy for this upcoming week to help out.....

     This week I want to discuss one thing that occurred to me the other day.  Do you think that Blizzard's more quickly released content had effected the quality of the game?  Hear me out here.  I know I have often said that I think the more quickly released content has had a negative effect on the game itself.  It ramps up expectations and now content that would have been fine for a six month span until the next big patch is being hailed as old with in two months.  That is not what I'm discussing here though.  I want to look at quality.

    First of all, let's go to the first expansion to accomplish this.  Mists of Pandaria was fantastic all the way through.  We had scenerios, lot's of endgame content, and the story felt like it had a direction that our characters mattered in.  The big patches were release, Landfall, Throne of Thunder, Escalation, and Siege of Ogrimmar. That is four big patches in what was a great expansion.  However, let's be honest here.  Before Pandaria launched we had a year of Dragon Soul in which Blizzard had time to work on this content.  I honestly don't know how much was done before hand, but I feel a lot more prep time was given for everything we experienced.  That being said, look at the last couple of patches.  Escalation had a couple of scenarios. Siege had a raid and the Timeless Isle.  While siege was big, Timeless Isle I would argue is just reskinned content with a theme that could be explored and experienced within a couple of hours.  Yes there are rewards for sticking in and working there longer, but overall, there was no reason to hang out there unless you needed some gear or had time to kill.

      Now we are in Draenor, and I think it has been less successful.  The leveling game was fantastic, but after that there is little compelling reason to leave the garrison.  Yes there was in game content, with dungeons, weekly garrison quests, etc... but to me it never felt necessary.  I had out geared heroic dungeons in two or three weeks and never looked back.  Garrison quests took a couple hours a week, and then done.  There was no reason to go out and farm since my garrison gave me adequate amounts of ore and herbs.  I've never been a part of PVP so I haven't experienced the Ashran mess.  But by all accounts I've heard it's a mess.  The raiding has been good, but that is a small part of anyone's week for the most part.  Tanaan Jungle has been fun, but once again it was basically in game at launch, and they have just had to populate it with npcs.  We walked through a large part of it in the opening cinematic, so we know at least a large part of it was finished.

     So what happened?  I suspect that without as much time to develop content that we are getting the abridged version of things.  The story lines are there, but they aren't the great bits of unfolding we saw in Landfall, or Throne of Thunder.  Instead we get little bits that last about an hour a week if we are lucky.  To me it just feels like not as much time as been spent on keeping people engrossed.  And yes before you say it, I know they have added Mythic dungeons.  Which, once again I have no reason to run because in a week of grinding in Tanaan they had no gear for me.  I do like the timewalker dungeons, but those are once every three weeks for a weekend?  On top of that, both those and Mythic can all be chalked up to re-skinned content.

    So my question is, will this be what we are looking forward to in Legion? Is everything going to be short, condensed and abrupt?  Is the content feeling like this because of the speed of releasing content, or is there something else behind it.  I have to believe the speed is part of it.  I have no evidence other then my suspicions, but if there is another reason I'm not seeing it.  Blizzard has stated they have the largest group of people working on World of Warcraft then they ever have, so it can't be manpower.

     The other problem is that if speed of release is the issue here, there is no good cure.  I've often been told that you can't do something for a customer, unless you expect to be able to do it every time.  Because once you've done something once, it becomes that customer's expectation they will get it again.  You think flyinggate was bad, see what happens if Blizzard goes back and says they are spending more time on content, rather then releasing it quickly.

But that's my opinion, what's yours?

Lag

You Can't Save Me.

So, this week happened.

     Saturday we went back into Hellfire Citadel and once again downed the first three bosses.  I was very happy to do so, but we didn't get any further in.  So, on a high note we ended the night.

    And ended up not raiding again Sunday because we were short once again.  I know we won't progress well on a one night a week schedule, so I saved the raid.  This week we will be starting on the Council fight.  Should be fun.  Have I mentioned my extreme "love" of council fights.  Yeah, not a fan.

     So, getting down to business.  I am at that point where I'm completely frustrated with this.  I am hoping with school getting back in we might get a slightly bigger pool for raiding, but I'm not a hundred percent hopeful at this point.  It does come down to this though, in order to save our guild's raiding, we need some fresh blood.  So, we have a plan.  (Well, a slight one.)
   
    Denarin in our guild has been given the task of guild recruitment.  With my schedule and other's lately I haven't been on to do much recruiting.  I'm hoping to get one more person in the guild attached to this as well.  It's time to grow things back up and to prepare for Legion when it drops.  I'm betting right now on a March/April release at this point.  They are trying to fast track it, but I don't see the expansion dropping for a while yet.  I'm guessing they are going to have to fast track the Beta this time around, and I would be surprised if they waited until after Blizzcon in a couple months to launch it.  Most of the time the Beta's have lasted several month, so if we get a Beta drop after Blizzcon, that will mean June or later for the expansion by my guess.

    That would mean almost a year of Hellfire Citadel.  Exactly what Blizzard has said they want to avoid.  That would be very bad for an eroding player base that has now dropped to less then half of the record subscription numbers.  Not that I think we are looking at the end of Wow by any means, I think however that Blizzard isn't planning on another 10k subscriptions again.  I think they are now focusing on several games instead of one big cash cow.

     I do think when Legion drops we will see another subscriber gain.  I don't think it will be as high as Warlords, but I don't think 7-8K subscribers would be out of the question.  I don't think Blizzard needs saving.

     Our raid team though, we are getting to that edge where I start going crazy over  the fact we aren't running like we should.  In that case no one will be able to save me. So save yourself.

Lag

Regaining The Fire

So, raiding happened.  I'm very happy that raiding happened.

     The first night we ventured in may have had a couple of issues.  I brought in a new raider who was geared but inexperienced, and it showed a little.  Also, the first boss just kept outright destroying us and we couldn't figure out why.  The healers couldn't keep the tanks up through the first few mobs, and I think we only got to the second siege weapon once.  finally called it.

     The second night our mystery was solved.  On the way in my wife noted that there was a skull in front of the portal.  Somehow I had my raids turned to heroic, and we were all expecting normal. To put it lightly, I screwed up.  But that second night we downed the first two bosses and had our best attempt on the third we have seen so far.  More importantly, we managed to raid two days in a row.  I am hoping this means more happy things to come.

     Now, I've been thinking of the next expansion in reference to the subscription drop.  For those living in a cave Wow is now down to just over 5 million subscribers.  Now, I do not think this is unexpected.  The game is ten years old and we see a lot of drop off as expansions go on.  Warlords itself feels like an expansion that just has aged prematurely to me too.  While it's been out for less then a year, for some reason the content just hasn't felt lasting.  Normally we get some excitement, you feel content to log in every day and do stuff, but this time it feels like it's all been done pretty quick.

     Part of it is the shock of how the end game feels after the great leveling experience.  You hit level 100, and half the stuff you want to do is tied into your garrison.  There are rep grinds, but you really don't need them.  There are daily apexis, but while they are fun the first couple of times they just don't feel great after a while.  The dungeons felt ok, but I wasn't enthralled.  And raiding, as always is fun, but that is only a couple nights a week.  Overall the experience people got after a while was, log in, check garrison, log out.  There was no benefit to hanging around in game for the most part, other then visiting with you guild mates.

     I also think this is where the faster content expectation they built hurt them.  When it feels like very little is coming, and it's coming quickly it just isn't a wonderful experience.  In Pandaria it worked because we had things like the Isle of Thunder, or the invasion of Krasarang Wild as our factions showed up.  All that had direction and felt like it had purpose behind it.  Then we got the wild treasure hunt that was Timeless Isle.  

     Now the best we have is Tanaan Jungle, which is fun, but feels as directionless as the rest of the expansion.

     Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed Warlords, but I wanted to take a look before I went forward at the issues I have had, and that I have heard discussed before I moved forward.  Because there are a lot of things that Legion is going to have to be in order to keep the current subscriptions they have.  Let's be honest too, we know when the expansion drops those subscriptions are going to go up again.  I don't know if they will go all the way to ten million, but no one expected to see that with Warlords and it happened.

     Legion is going to have to have direction and purpose.  We need to feel like we are interacting and controlling the story, not just witnessing it.  Being called general, master, etc... doesn't make up for the fact you don't feel like your character is important to the story.  I want to feel like the driving force behind taking down the baddies, not like I'm holed up in my castle giving orders and surfing chat.

     It is going to have to play on our nostalgia, and keep a hold of it.  The themes we are seeing so far are familiar and exciting.  Demon hunters, Illidan, Tomb of Sargaras, are all fan favorites and great memories from Warcraft III and early World of Warcraft.   Blizzard needs to make sure that these places and people feel enough like the original that we don't feel cheated.  It also has to feel shiny and new enough that we don't get the, "It's all been done" feelings.  Right now the excitement is high, and i'm hyped up, but I need a good pay off for that excitement.  If I hop on my new demon hunter and I feel like, "Well, I've played this class before" it's not going to be so great.  If I go into the Tomb of Sargaras and say, "Oh, I seen this cave skin since vanilla." It will be disappointing.

    The last thing Legion needs to do is find a way to find new players.  Most of us who have been playing for years don't have the time we did long ago.  I know I can't spend hours upon hours questing like I used too.  I have also debated lately dropping my subscription for a while with work and school just so I don't have one more thing pulling at me.  (I'm not dropping, don't panic raid team)  We need to find a way to get new blood into Wow.  I don't know if it's possible but getting those late teen and early twenties crowd to hop in would build a player base with more time, and durability then those of us die hards who have been logging in for years.  At some point we generally move on to other things, there needs to be players coming in, to slow the number drop of those going out.

     Not that Wow is dead or dying.  They still have more subscribers by far then any other MMO out there.  That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be looking to the future a bit more.  I imagine this game will still be going on in some form ten years from now.  I also think with the MMO market what it is, we will never see another MMO with 12 million subscribers that dominates the market like Blizzard has in days past.  I would love for them to prove me wrong.

    That is my thoughts on it anyway, what are you all thinking at this point?

Lag

My Open Letter To Deathknight Joe

Here we go again.

     I won't lie, Saturday we had a rough go at it.  Ended up pulling in a few folks to get running, and it turned into an uncomfortable mess.  Yes we got the first two bosses down.  It was rough but we did it.  However, the folks we pulled in criticized our DPS and brought a negative vibe to the raid.  Nto fun but we eeked through.
 
     Sunday didn't happen, not enough folks and I didn't have the heart to pull folks in again after the previous night.  So a couple folks hung out on ventrillo and we did some dailies and chatted.  Not a bad way to spend an evening, but it wasn't raiding.

     No, I'm going to address the Deathknight Joes out there.  Not there is nothing wrong with Deathknights... I enjoy playing mine.  But this is my imaginary douchebag character.  Deathknight Joe...

    So Joe, if I may call you that.  There is something called common courtesy.  If you are queued up in the looking for raid tool I know that there is no promise that any group you land in is going to be great, or good.  I know that you sit there at your keyboard hoping that when you get an invite it's not going to be to a bunch of hosers that  call you names and treat you like crap.  Or maybe you are a masochist and you do want that, but I digress....

    Being nice people, if we extend that invite to you DK Joe, we are then you hosts.  By the laws of hospitality you are our guests.  It puts in place a mutual respect that means, if there is something you don't like about us, rather then be an asshat, just politely bow out.  Tell us your cat is on fire, or there is a nail polish sale at your local Walgreens.  I won't be offended.

     Don't sit there and crap on our DPS because some of them are low.  I am aware of the situation and we are working to fix it.  I can vouch for one in particular who has been working on rotation, looking stuff up on Icy-veins, and pushing for gear in Tanaan.  She has also tapped a couple of folks to work with her on her class.  I guarantee you next time her dps will be higher.  Do I think it's going to break the charts? Not without practice and some more work.  But she's getting there.

    The thing is Joe, you don't know our situation.  You don't know we just changed to weekends and that means we are building a couple of folks up.  If it's a situation that you don't like, I understand that.  I am fine with you leaving.  I am not fine with you building your ego by criticizing my raid team.  Because I guarantee you Joe, that when you started raiding and playing, you where not better.  Hell, with that ego you where probably worse.

      Here we are though.  We will be working on building our raid team back to proper.  With a little work maybe it can be stronger then it's been in the past.  We don't know yet, but we are working on it.

     So do me a favor Joe, give the next group your in a bit of consideration.  As for me, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing and being polite and happy to everyone I raid with.  I don't care if they show up in level one grays.  I will politely ask them to get their real gear if I notice, but hey, I will be polite about it.

Lag, Lazyeye