The Wait is a Mistake.

I know, lot's of awesomeness from Blizzcon today.

     Blizzard and Activision starting their own film and Television company.  They are starting with a Skylanders T.V. show, and mention was made of a Call of Duty treatment.  This is perfect as anyone who has seen Blizzard's cinematics has seen the awesome talent that Blizzard has hired on.  I'm excited to see where they take this.

      The Warcraft movie cinematic was released as well.  I enjoyed it and I look forward to that movie more than I do Star Wars.   I don't feel the trailer gave a ton away other than the idea of the main conflict.  The few shots of Garona made me wish she looked a little more orc like, but really I had no complaints.

      The opening Cinematic for Legion was released as well.  I felt it was VERY Alliance heavy, and that is coming from someone who mainly plays Alliance.  I thought the tone was interesting and I am wondering if they are foreshadowing Varian's doom, or if they are trying to fool us on the direction the expansion will go.  The moment between Sylvanas and Varian before the fight breaks out was something I never thought I would see in a Warcraft game... and anything else I say will be way too spoiler filled for those who haven't watched it.

      And here is where I get a little negative.  They announced, last night actually, that Legion will be released on or before September 21, 2016.

      Really Blizzard? You are focusing on getting content out quicker and it's likely to be well over a year of Hellfire Citadel?  This is going to be a mistake on their part, and I would be surprised if there aren't folks at Blizzard working to make sure they beat that September deadline by a bit.  If they wait that long, I am betting the subscribers who plan on returning will be less than if they dropped it in June, or so.

      The honest part is that the date says BY.  That means there is a chance that the expansion could drop well before September if things work out right.   But with Blizzards standards of perfection and track record, if they do get the game out before September, I wouldn't bet on it being a lot sooner.  They could prove me wrong here however.

      Once again however, this wait could have been alleviated by one or two things.

      Blizzard could have slowed down how quickly they released content by a little.  I'm not saying a lot, but if each of the major patches had been delayed by an extra month or month and a half that could have bought Blizzard 3-5 less months of waiting for the next expansion.  Yes, in reality we would have been waiting just as long, but it would feel as long since the last bit of content was much closer.

      A third raid tier.  I won't lie that I felt it was a mistake for Blizzard to up the price on expansions at the same time they released a two tier expansion.  We had taken it for granted that the previous expansions from Wrath to Pandaria all had three raid tiers.  Yes I know they were saying that the third raid tier was sacrificed for Garrisons, but had they done something, anything, to at least give us a midway raid that would have bought them more time as well.  Instead if feels like we paid more for less content.  That feeling is never good for a player.  It probably won't cost Blizzard my subscription, but I'll be severely dissapointed if Legion only had two raid tiers.  It's just not a direction I think Blizzard should go.

      I'm sure there are other things I could think of.  They could release a patch of just extended quests, make some timewalking raids available, etc... There are things they can, and may do to alleviate this time.  However, remember. Anything Blizzard does at this time is essentially development time they are taking away from Legion, so it becomes a double edged sword if they throw a lot of resources our way to help get past this down time.

    I'm honestly surprised they didn't offer another annual pass deal, because while I don't think this is by any means the death of wow, I thinks it's a major loss of revenue they could have had if things had been planned better.  I honestly hope next time around they do figure this out.  The less people playing World of Warcraft does effect the gaming experience, and I have a right to worry about the future of the game I love.  But enough about that.

What has been your favorite bit of information dropped from Blizzcon so far?

Flex them Muscles... or Raids.

It was a pretty good week for us.  We got to punch some bosses in the face, and we got some loot!

      Tuesday night, we got a flex team together and in short order we took down Immersious.  We moved on to the Protectors of the vale, and after a few attempts we managed to get them down instead.  The team took a bit of time on trash, and finally we got too Norushan, and that is where we ended the night.  We managed a pull before we were out of time, and then we called it until Wednesday.  That pull we got him down to 30% on, so it was a good pull too! 

      The next night (Wednesday) we started on the third boss, and after the first pull, we brought in one of our wayward sons (Khallon) and he brought 3 or 4 of his friends from Exile over.  It was nice to have them with us.  We managed to down Norushan and then the Sha of Pride before 10:30.

      We then queued up for the second flex raid section.  By the time we downed the trash, we only managed two pulls on the first fight, but on the second pull we got to the point of clearing the second tower.  Meaning, we made decent progress for the night, and did well for a fight that we walked into without any other prior information other then what we have seen in Raid Finder for a few of us.

      I am enjoying the flex raid system.  The downside I am seeing to it is that by the time I get a group together, it can be fifteen minutes plus into raid before we get moving.  Wednesday night we only had two pulls into Norushan before 10 before getting people pulled into the raid etc...  If we had started right on time, there is a chance, I think, we may have even downed the first fight (Galakras) in the next section of Flex raid.

      Good job to the raiders who came this week and lit things up.  I know that this is easier then ten man, but right now with part of the raid team in flux this has been perfect for us.  I enjoy the fact we can bring more then 10 people.  I enjoy the face I can bring people without worrying that it will be a wipefest for the night.  I look forward to getting to a point, where we can focus on regular ten man again, and I think Flex will help us build to that point.

      I would also like to give a shout out to Kedec who has recently joined the guild, and volunteered to run some raids into ToT so we can focus completely on SoO.  This will be a great boon to raiding in this guild, and I hope people give him the support he needs to get things running.

Anyway it was a good week, and I will see you all in game.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Keep yer heads up!!!

     I have to get this off my chest, or at least put some advice out there.

     As you may have heard, Bridgeburners has gone through a transition that meant a bunch of their raiders are now in the guild Exile, and the fate of the guild itself could be guessed as unknown at this point.

     This is all I can say, for this is all that I know.  I only mention this because we have characters in our guild who are tied in different ways to Bridgeburners, through both family and friendship and anytime that a guild that has lasted as long as they have goes through troubles it can be tough on anyone involved.  That being said, it's all I will really say directly about them etc.

      I more want to advice people against gossiping or making any time of supposition about what happened in their guild.  I am sure that if there is a schism here, that I friends I hold in high regard on both sides.  I don't want anyone in our guild to be the cause of hurt feelings because they are sharing opinions or their version of what happened.  I don't want to alienate anyone in or out of that guild right now because any transition is tough.  If that is leaving your guild for another, or finding that the guild you have worked so hard to maintain is suddenly empty, it's tough.

      I am Switzerland on this.  I am not taking sides if there are sides to be taken because, A. I am not involved.  B. I am not involved.  C.  It's not worth my time to dig through other people's crap.  I am hoping that everyone else takes a similar stance.  As much as this disruption saddens me, it would sadden me more if someone in the guild where to exacerbate the problem.

      So, if you HAVE (I advise against poking your nose into other people's business once again)  to find out what happened there is only one person you should talk to.  His name is Cotilion, or Barolt.  He is the guild leader, and this is his baby.  He has the ownership of the guild Bridgeburners so he would be the one person to talk to.  If you want to ask about a ship, you should always talk to the captain.  Now, since I am sure he is going through a tough time with all the upset, I would advise against bothering him too much, we owe him that respect since he has successfully run and managed that guild for a long while.

       And yes, I realize it's semi-hypocritical of my to keep rambling on when i'm advising people not to talk, gossip, or mention this subject in an uninformed or negative manner, but it's me, I ramble a lot.  I also worry about the friendships I've made in and out of guild in the 7 years I've played  this game.  I worry about the people stuff like this effects.  Most of all, I want our guild to be respectful and to be above reproach in any one else's eyes, and we can't do that if we cut other people down intentionally, or unintentionally.

        So, I will close by saying, good luck to the Bridgeburners.  I hope wherever the dice land, it ends up with everyone better off in the long run.

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty.

It's The (Somewhat) Final Countdown!!!

     Alright, we have one week and a couple days to go until 5.4 drops.  This means, time for a quick review of what is coming up and what to expect.  Most of what I cover I will have mentioned before, so if you feel like popping off that's fine.  If not let's look at some, not all, of the things coming up.

     The most obvious thing is the new raid.  This means we get to watch as the best teams in the work work on their world firsts, new content and bosses for us to fight, and a lot of changed game content around this new raid.  I won't say more because if you haven't watched the patch notes, the trailer for 5.4, or anything else, it's not worth spoiling for you.  I am in the camp that hopes that Garrosh is defeated but not dead.  I think it would be interesting to see what a summarily defeated and deposed Garrosh would do.

     New class changes coming.  Fortunately in Mists we haven't had complete class overhauls every single patch like some past expansions (looking at you Wrath) So in most cases you class isn't going to have any significant changes.  Unless your me, all three class/specs I play are getting nerfed.  Disc Priest=nerfed, Prot Pally=nerfed, and as Solarflair of Convert to raid announced, hunters may have a new mount for patch 5.4... it's called the bench.  (Keep in mind that we still are in beta testing so stuff could still change.  It could, really /crosses fingers)

       Cross realms/virtual realms/whatever they are calling them this week are coming as well.  This means that in 5.4 you might find you realm combined with other realm to fix lower population realms etc...  I have gone through this at length already.  Be aware these are not happening the day of 5.4 but they plan on rolling out the realm combinations in the weeks following.  If you don't see it on the first day, that doesn't mean your realm won't be effected.  I am looking forward to being able to break that 11 toon limit to build up my horde side a little more using this personally.

     Timeless Isle.  Listen up people who still need to be geared.  You can take your lowbies here and start grinding out i496 gear.  While this isn't quiet as good as ToT raid finder, it can build you up to the new LFR that last I heard had a 495 ilevel to enter.  I might be wrong on that, but not by much.  There will also be new battle pets, mounts, etc.. on this island so explore away!!!

     Legendaries, if you have been keeping up on your legendary quests then blizzard has said it will be possible to get your legendary cloak on your first day.  It will be some grinding, but they seem to want you to be able to have your cloak from the get go here.  The new world boss, you won't be able to fight until you have one.

     Flex raids... I am tempted to start this tier doing ToT one day, and Flex raids the other.  We have enough interest in raiding I would love to be able to include more people.  I really can't say yet, the raid team is still in flux, and until I know what is happening I don't know where we will land.  Oh, and lets not forget to mention here whilst talking raids, Throne of Thunder will be nerfed by 20% all around.

      And more!!!  I know I am missing stuff here, and feel free to leave you opinion on any of these things, or anything I have missed.  What are you looking forward to in 5.4?  You have 9 days to think about it!

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Your allowed to Rant. Yes you are. (Raid Update 08/22/2013)

      I was debating sugar coating this post, going through, talking about how everything is all right and being the calm in the midst of the storm.  F*** that.

      We went from a point where we one shot every boss up to Tortos last week, to this week where events made it so we didn't even get past Horridon.  If you are on the raid team you are allowed to be rant, be frustrated and be grumpy as I am this morning.  What happened you may ask?

      We had too much damn change in the last week.

      First of all, we lost Ithuriol to Bridgeburners.  We wish him well over there and hope he enjoys his time.  We may see him in guest starring roles occasionally as he has some characters still in the guild, but that leaves a hole in our raiding roster that needs to be filled.  Preferably by a healer as I don't want to swap who I am gearing again, but I probably will. /sigh.

       Secondly one of our tanks had real life commitments this week, and those always trump Wow.  So the first night I was tanking on Lag again, in a raid I had previously not really tanked in.  The second night I was on my hunter, then my priest when we tried to swap things up a little.

       We also had to pull in a couple people to fill holes, (1 the first night (I still count moldie as a standby for the raid team)) and 3 the next night.  (Two being Ithuriol and Khallon's alts respectively, and we thank them for helping.)  

      I want to point out that the issues we are having are nobodies fault.  There should be no pointing finger's or irritation.  Sometimes you lose people from a raid team, that happens.  Sometimes you have a few extra spots for a night or two, that happens as well.  This week they all just happened to hit us at once, and hopefully next week will be better.  Or I will have a stroke.  I am voting for better.

      I do appreciate everyone working hard in a bad situation, but the situation as it stands may kill any chance of great progress in Throne of Thunder at this point.  Patch 5.4 drops in a few weeks on Sept. 10th, and I am not sure we can get our crap together before then.  Of course I could also be over blowing the situation and I may swap back to Dizzty and find out the raid is fine.  Right now though, I am just so frustrated, and not just for myself, for everyone else on this damn raid team that have worked so hard to get to the point of progressing again.  I owe you guys a better experience then this.

     So, this weekend, I will find a fill in.  I will look mainly at Pally or Priest heals, but will also look at DPSers.  Agility leather, Agility Mail, Strength Plate are all areas that don't have a lot of MAIN spec distribution right now, depending on how things shake up.  At this point, I will push whatever toon I am working on through the legendary quest to get them caught up, and once they are legendary, I plan on getting my other two pushed to that point.

    That's right, I plan on doing the damn legendary quest three times.  Though to be fair both Lazyeye, and Lag are well along it.

     As far as inspirational happy thoughts go, on Sept 10, we get siege of Ogrimmar.  That is a new raid.  New content, and a fresh start for us to start progressing again.  At that point, we will go one night ToT, one night Ogrimmar until ToT is done, and I plan on saving the progression since the new raid finder gear will have a higher gear score then the content we are working on.  We will push forth, and prevail.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

I need an Heir(loom)

     So, i'm pondering the newest idea that blizzard is instituting.  Heirloom weapons on good old Garrosh Hellscream.  Well, regular Garrosh Hellscream.  Alright, filthy evil Garrosh Hellscream.

     The loot table on Garrosh Hellscream, for the 5 people who haven't heard, drops heirloom weapons that level with you up to level 100.  So that means (A) We are getting 10 levels next expansion, and (B) this means you won't have to toss your weapon from the last boss of the expansion for a green that drops in the first area you explore next expansion.

     Now, 10 new levels is going to be a switch from the last two.  I am not sure if that means we are going to have more content to level through, or if they intend on the levels to go quicker so you get to receive more dings before you gain the level cap.  I hope the second one, as I am a confirmed alcoholic and don't want to have to work my way up through 10 long levels with all the characters I like to have at my disposal for raiding.

     It is worth mentioning that these weapons don't have an XP gain or anything that might give you an advantage on leveling other then the fact you won't have to swap out your weapon until you hit that 100 cap.  There will be little or no reason for people to rage on the forums about these... but we all know they will regardless.

      In order to get one of these weapons, you have to beat Garrosh on a level that is not LFR.  This means he has to go down on flex, normal, or heroic mode to reward you with you own heirloom weapon to wield.  So, that means your LFR only character doesn't get his toy, he has to actually go in with a planned raid, whether it be a flex-raid pug, or a 10 man normal.

      This does make me wonder what other ways could Blizzard give us for heirlooms like this?  Could instead of burning Justice Points, or gold on your next Heirloom can they make it a quest or achievement?  Maybe open up some heirlooms if you beat the first raid Tier of an expansion?  If you complete a complex series of quests?  Maybe for hitting a certain level of Achievement points?  What other ways could Blizzard give us for these things that are more engaging?

     What do you think?

Lazyeye

The Turtle Soup Edition!!! (8/15/2013)

    Before raid yesterday, someone posted as the daily guild message that we would "Dine on turtle soup tonight!" (I suspect Ithuriol) How right they were, but I digress.

    First of all Tuesday's raid was fantastic.  We one shot the first three bosses.  Jin'rokh, Horridon, and The Council of Elder's all went down in less then an hour.  This is important to me, because in order to kill off Throne of Thunder at this point, we need to be killing an average of 6 bosses a night, so this means we are in the time frame we would need to be looking at.

     Anyway, we had a little over an hour to work on Tortos by the time we got to him, and not only did we prove we hadn't regressed on progression, we steadily worked things closer to killing him.  It was apparent by the end of raid, he didn't have long to live.

     Wednesday we went in again.  While we did not one shot Tortos, we did have him dead in under an hour!  Hazzah! Another boss down.  That means we are officially 4/12. We then booked it through the small amount of trash between Tortos and Meagara (Yes, as a matter of fact Blizzard I am being sarcastic here) and got to work on the next boss for about an hour as well.  Once again, we made good progress and I could see next week moving us up to 5 or 6 out of 12.  Not kidding.   I think we really could do it.

     Gratz as always goes to the raid team, Magilla, Creap, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Ithuriol, Lotauna, Easybake, Scorpiak, Guiness, and little old me, Lazyeye.  If we had managed this kind of attendance over the last few months, as we have seen in the last few weeks, I have no doubt that we would have finished Throne of Thunder already.  This does kinda segway into my next point.

     5.4 is imminent.  They released the trailer today, (man I am excited to kick some Garrosh Hellscream in the face) and it is awesome.  I am not a fan of the thought of someone in that trailer not being around for the raid. (Spoilers, if you want to know, watch the trailer)  That is the brakes though.

     When 5.4 drops, I plan on pulling us into Siege of Ogrimmar.  We may do one night siege, one night saved progression on Throne of Thunder, I'm not sure yet.  (Throne will be getting a 20% nerf at this time)  But I want to meet the new content head on, and I plan on keeping hitting it, until it starts to break.  I want to cook me some orc!

     This is the plan.  Me, and my shiny new bow (did I mention I got a bow last night?) will lead the way into Ogrimmar, and leave dead members of "the new horde" behind.  Sadly, this means the alliance is going to be wussy, step out of Ogrimmar and leave it to the rest of the Horde after Garrosh is gone, but I digress.  It will be glorious while it lasts.  (So if we just wall Garrosh up, don't kill him, can we stay in Ogrimmar killing Hordies? Just curious)

This weekend, I will give an opinion update.  If you guys want me to discuss anything in particular, let me know.

Lazyeye

Why you should be a Huntering

     I was probably twelve or thirteen when I was excited because my older sister has some friends over and they were going to play Dungeons and Dragons.  I had never had the opportunity to play before and I wasn't even sure what the game was completely.  They gave me a quick run down of the different classes, and races to choose from, and of course, once I found out that the ranger not only fought from a distance but could train and have an animal fight alongside him, I had found my calling.

       Soon I found myself fighting alongside my new found companions and  I grew very excited as we came upon a group of flying creatures called stirges.  I of course tamed one since they where the first animals we had come across and I wanted a pet dang it!  Finally, I had my own animal companion.  For those who haven't played Dungeons and Dragons, let me point out a stirge is a giant mosquito.  That's right, my ranger had a pet mosquito.  I was mocked, laughed at, and had eyes rolled at me, but I loved my blood sucking buddy.  I think when I tell this story, my present Hunter's pet firefly Serenity laughs at me.  A lot.

     I tell this story, because the hunters we play in World of Warcraft are very much evolved from the ranger class in Dungeons and Dragons.  Of course that is not the only place you find your hunters.  If you look through different stories you have Robin Hood, Aragorn/Strider, and Davey Crockett whom could all be considered different versions of Hunters.  Your classic Hunter would have been one of the folks who were more comfortable outside the cities and villages, communing with the animals and avoiding most society.  They were your trackers, your guides.  They could at times provide food for the community or furs to make clothing and keep folks warm.  Most are not obsessed with worldly riches wanting nothing more then to challenge the wild world around them.  These are the Hunters that have always been my obsession.

     Now, I will admit my first main character in World of Warcraft was not a Hunter, I originally played a mage named Pyreknight until the end of Vanilla Wow, and my hunter Lazyeye was born about half way through the Burning Crusade.  It was at the end of the Burning Crusade, when I first started raiding, I took my hunter into Karazhan and never looked back.  From that moment on, I was interested in raiding and moving through end game content and would work on making that one of my biggest in game focuses.

     My hunter took a hit half way through Wrath of the Lich King however.  We ended up needing a tank after our main tank on the raid team called it quits.  I quickly power leveled a Death Knight, and started tanking to take up the slack.  Then I power leveled a Paladin (Lag) who would be my main character from the end of Wrath up until recently in Pandaria.  Recent events however have made me pick my neglected hunter back up.  I only call him neglected because he wasn't my main raider.  Lazyeye still managed to see raids all the way through Wrath until now, he just wasn't the character I was spending most of my time on.  I am now excited to have him re-introduced as my main as far as raiding goes.  I feel I have taken too much time off of DPS (Damage per second) classes and it is nice to get reacquainted. 

      I love the feeling of playing a character who has ties with beasts who obey him.  I love sitting back and watching battles from a ranged perspective, being able to increase my field of vision and call out fights better then I could while tanking in a bosses crotch.  I love shooting bosses in the face, putting up competitive DPS numbers and contributing in a new way to my raid team.  So here is my list of things you should look at if you are thinking of rolling a hunter.

     Do you want to contribute to your raid? Hunters have it all.  If we select the right pets we can fill in for any buffs our raid might be missing.  No attack speed boost? No problem, magic serpent here we come.  No battle rezzer? Get a Quillen pet.  No Blood lust/Heroism?  That's cool, bring a Core Hound to raid.  While some of these are Spec specific, you can fill in for whatever your raid is missing if you plan ahead.

     Do you like soloing content? With a hunter/pet duo you will find that you can fight your way through some fights that other classes may have a hard time with.  When it comes to leveling you have great survival skills and you are less likely to find yourself getting killed or over run by mobs.

     Do you like challenges and switching things up?  There is always another pet to find, or new pets being introduced into game.  Some of these pets have unique challenges that make them not only rare, but hard to tame.  Plus, you can switch out your pet to whichever one you would like to run with you at the moment.  You can keep five pets on you, and up to fifty pets in your bank.  That is a lot of options to switch through if you want to take the time 

     Do you like being competitive DPS?  While hunters are not always the top class for blowing up charts in raids and other game play, they are very rarely near the bottom. We have enjoyed at the worst being steady, consistent DPS,  and at best dominating charts while other classes fight to keep up with us.  Oh, and lets not forget that unlike yonder days of mana bars, we can now DPS on the run as most of our shots can be fired while moving.

     Now, there are reasons you might not want to roll a hunter.

     Hunters are not tanks.  We have mad kiting skills.  We have pets that can take a pounding and hold aggro for a bit.  We do not have the skill set to mitigate damage for an insanely long amount of time and keep the raid alive through a boss fight.  While there are a couple people who may be able to pull something like this off on a hunter, most of us will just get our raids killed if we try.

     Hunters are not healers.  We have bandages, we can mend our pets, and sometimes our Spirit Beasts can cast a heal that helps out our raid.  We can not keep you alive, we would much rather be shooting something big and ugly in the face.

     Hunters are not Melee.  O.k., we no longer have a minimum range and can fight up in a bosses crotch without much penalty.  Trust me on this, you are much happier fighting further away from the boss where you can see what is going on and can feign death and watch your raid die stay far enough away from bosses to avoid some damage or avoid repair bills during a wipe.  

      So, if being a hunter appeals to you, go roll a character and see how you like it.  Others of the hunter class will welcome you with open arms.  If not, that's alright too.

     Someone needs to play the inferior classes.

Lazyeye.

Perspectively Motional (Raid update week 8/8/2013)

Yeah, I have no clue what that means as well, but it sounded good.

From my time as a prospector.... on a movie set.

      This week saw some limited progression.  We one shot both Jin'rokh and Horridon, which one shotting Horridon the week after we started on him is a big deal to me.  That means we have the fight figured out for the moment.  Council of Elders on the other hand, gave us more then a little trouble and we spent most of our evening there, until we re-strategized and took them down with most of the night gone.  It was comforting after that to see we hadn't lost all our pow on Tortos, while we didn't get him down in the two pulls we had, we hadn't lost all the progress we had made on him last week.

       

     Sadly this week Khallon bid out raid team goodbye and has moved over to Bridgeburners.  When they aren't running we will have access to his DK Carder if we need him, but for now he has moved on.  We wish him the best over there, and the door is always open should he choose to come back.

      Moldievenom also had a good return this week after a few weeks of no Wow.  This is limited as he starts school in a few weeks and will be gone after that.  Which means, my raid team is as follows.

Me, (Right now Lazyeye the Hunter)

Magilla, (Solid rock and Tank extraordinaire)

Creap, (Tank whom sometimes cross dresses as a 'lock)

Gwyndolynn (Guild leader and doo-dad heals)

Ithuriol, (Never knows if he's heals or deeps, but puts up with us anyway)

Scorpiack, (Now with 100% pure lightening)

Shaqia, (He only heals dwarves, or sometime Tauren)

Lotauna, (The requisite gnome for an alliance raid team)

Easybake, (Yeah, she tops dps charts while sleeping)

Unknown, (This spot is where Moldie or someone stepping in is/has been taking up.)

      I may start looking to fill that last position with someone who can stick with us a little more permanent.  We are starting to make good progression, and with a solid team I think we will start to fly forward.  This last position I would love to be a Agility Leather wearer for loot distribution purposes. (Druid/Monk/Rogue) I will probably start poking in guild first for this person, and then if we don't get it filled, I will start looking elsewhere.  Obviously if we end up with someone who isn't a Agility leather wearer, I'm good with that too.

Yes, he did a new version of this song.

      That is our status for this week.  We march on and forth to victory, and will triumph.  Despite a little bit of a lack of new boss kills this week, I feel we are moving forward,

Lag.

.A Quick Addition in a halfshell

     Raid did happen Thursday  night.

     By the way, if your reading this, you may be number 1,000 to view my blog!!!  This makes me strangely excited.

     We managed to start at about 9:30 with our raid team ready to go and kick some turtle shell.  Well, something got kicked (rubs his posterior)

      We sallied forth and took down the trash fairly quickly and without too many deaths.  (My hunter is actually using Misdirect for those jerks)  The last healer arrived and we went to work.

      At first every attempt was daunting.  We kept getting destroyed by spinning turtle shells and falling rocks. It was apparent very soon on this fight that survival>dps is one of the keys to success here.  So we started to learn to dodge and anticipate.  I know my biggest lesson was that I did better dodging rocks/turtles/fate by running forward rather then backing off.  I know this seem simple logic, but when you see two turtle shells barreling down towards you, your first instinct is to back away and give them more room.  Running forward or strafing though gives you more speed, so you have more ability to outrun/dodge things.  I started surviving better once I figured this out.

     As the night went on we slowly saw more progression.  People were surviving longer, we figured out the best place and way to hold bats to help kill them down.  With every attempt that life bar on Tortos started to get lower.

     On our last attempt of the night that Health bar was at 20%.

     I believe next week when we get to good old Tortos, he is going down.  We have our system about figured out, and there is no reason to think we won't be killing him soon enough.  Even though we had an extra raid night, and a lot of frustration and repairs, we did what we should do.  We came and fought a giant turtle, much like in real life... ok. Maybe not so much.

     The extra raid night, I feel was successful.  I don't think we will be having extra raid nights every week, but here and there it might not be a bad idea to shoe horn one in.  I don't think I have it in me to do three raid nights every week at this point.  But if we were to do every other week, or even once a month, it might not be a bad idea to get some extra work in.

All in all, still a very good raid week.  2 new bosses down, and a turtle on its way.

Lazyeye

Absent in reality, but not heart (Raid update 7/30/2013)

     I am starting this early, as I will not be in raid tonight.  I am hoping it kicks off well, and I have full confidence in Gwyndolynn and Magilla to keep the ball running.  It may happen next week too as I have a niece coming in from out of town, and will be doing a family dinner that night with the in-laws, and will probably stay and visit afterwards.   Real life > Wow, and we don't get to see this niece all that often.

     Part of the reason is the fact I want to show off my new hunter helm.  Bridgeburners let me run with them last night, and I scored my tier helm off of Twin Consorts.  More importantly I got to see the fights on 10 man from Durumu to Lei Shen.  There were only two fights that I spent the last half floor tanking as well, which made me happy.  (Those fights being Durumu and Lei Shen) I didn't quite crack the DPS that everyone else was pulling, but I don't feel I was too much of a strain on their raid team as well.  Big ups to them though for being gracious enough to invite me along.  I even cleared my transmog so I could look all lizardy and stuff.  Yes, I am arguing for lizardy being an actual word.

      I will be back for Wednesday's raid though, and depending on how things go tonight, I put up a tentative raid for Thursday night, so if things do not happen Tuesday we will still have a chance to get two nights in.  If we do well enough, I may see if people want to raid all three, but that depends on interest.  A lot of us due to jobs/kids/etc... get overwhelmed if we do extra raid nights.  That's not to say it will never happen.

      Alright, Tuesday night rocked without me.  Due to a couple of absences the team pulled in someone from trade chat, and big ups to Izaziss from Crimson Shadows for coming in and helping out.  With his help the raid team downed Horridon so that makes a big win.  I managed to sneak into vent after I got off work and listed to the last bit of raid.

        Then came Thursday night... coming off a fresh win I rejoined the team to go fight the Council of Elders.  At first, this fight summarily destroyed us quickly.  We walked in and died very quickly.  Then our raid team did what they did best.  We paid attention.  Each pull we would take note, people would give suggestions, and we would adjust our strategy to these observations.  We worked hard and worked together, and end of story,

Council of Elders Down!

         So big cheers for Creap, Magilla, Gwyndolynn, Ithuriol, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Easybake, Lotauna, Carder (Wednesday's raid), Scorpiack, Armmond (Tuesday's raid) and Lazyeye. (Me)  Yes, I'm egotistical enough to give myself props, I admit it.

        That is three of twelve in Throne of Thunder now.   I did keep the extra raid open for tonight, and if enough people show we will fight Tortos a few times as well.  I would love to take down that villain in a half shell... ok, he's freaking all shell and the few pulls we got in last night took us down quickly.  However since that is how council started I'm looking forward to us taking him down.  We are moving forward, and will be doing some happy damage from here on out.

         I do want to give a shout out to Amelmi for switching to his DK Creap for now.  As one of our tanks is quitting the game soon for Final Fantasy when it re-releases, he is swapping to the second tanking position for now, and doing a darn fine job of working with Magilla.  Also a shout out to Ithuriol who is back as an officer, and hopefully as soon as things settle, I can convince to start working on that second raid team again.  Maybe... I want the first raid team secure first.  Mwha ha ha.

         If we raid tonight, I will do another post to address it.  I just wanted to make sure I shot this out with the same frequency of my other posts.

Lazyeye (I'm going back to one sig for now)

   

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.