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

If you would like to consider supporting Ben Marble and his clubbing of baby murlocs, consider purchasing one of his short stories at Amazon.com.
   

 
   

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.

If you want to support this blog or Ben Marble's insanity, please consider buying one of his short stories on Amazon.com

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.

Two More Months Left Until Legion.

It just dawned on my how close we are to the next expansion.

    We are less than two months away people. That's right let me say it again.

    Less than two months.

    That means within the month we will probably get to experience the launch of the pre-expansion content.  They have said this time around there will be a pre-expansion event, and I for one am looking forward to it.  I love pre-expansion events.  The Wrath one was my favorite.

    It would be yours two if you remembered all the QQing and the zombie plague, (which I loved btw.)

    What will we get this time?  Will it be a set of quests to stop an invasion like the last one?  Or will it be a set of different events that change the landscape of our home cities like the elemental invasion before cataclysm?  The other question here, I wonder ever so humbly.

    They said pre-purchased legion copies will get the Demon Hunter early... will we get it with the launch of the pre-expansion content.  I would be lying if I didn't say I was insanely excited at the moment about all this.  Bring it on baby, I am ready for Legion.  

    In two months we will see if the raid team is back.  Honestly, I would love to try to do a couple of raids before the new content drops if enough folks are around.  I could see bringing our characters with the Legion changes into Hellfire Citadel a couple times to see how they feel.  I'm not sure people will be up or around for it, but it would be nice to see how things feel.

    Like always, I will start posting raid a couple weeks to a month after the Xpack drops depending on how the guild is looking.  If people are hitting 110 quickly, I will be scheduling things quickly. If people drag their feet it might be a little longer.  If the raid team does not get back together, as it has been on hiatus for months I will address that when it happens.  If nothing else I will try and find another raid team we can work our way into.  I really have no desire to rebuild at this point, but with cross-realm invites etc... I may be able to find something we all can still do. I want to keep the team together as much as possible, and I may eat my "I don't want to rebuild words."  Emotionally though I don't think I can do another expansion of people not showing up, and fighting to get a team to raid.  I don't want to quit this game, I still enjoy it.  I love the people like Magilla, and Scorpiack who have been running with us forever.  But, I just have too much spinning on my plate right now to go back and do all that extra work.  We will figure it out though, as we always do.

Lag.

Legion Has a Date, Death of Vanilla.

First big news, Legion has it's release date.

   We will all be grabbing our swords and girding up our loins for battle on August 30th 2016.  A little over half a month before their released by date of Sept. 23rd.  This I believe is a good thing.  I'm a little surprised they are announcing it at this point, the game is still in Alpha but hey, I trust they know what they are doing.  And I'll be honest, I think a lot of the Alpha has served the purpose the Beta has in past expansions.  I think the only reason they are calling it an Alpha and not a Beta is to keep folks from making assumptions about how far along the game cycle is.

     This means folks I haven't seen in a while in game will be coming back together.  We will be gathering up our forces and hitting the raids and hopefully downing a few baddies along the way.  I really want to hop in on a Demon Hunter... The class has been fun to play around with, but Lag may still be my main just for consistency sake.

    I am hoping, as they said this would be a longer pre-patch then other expansions this means we will get our 7.0 drop in June.  That is a month and a half away for those who are counting.  While I think the overall game won't be ready by then, I could see the class specs and other such things being ready to ship at that point.  I imagine if you prebought the game, Demon Hunters might be released at that point too.

    The other news is the fact Blizzard shut down a big private Vanilla server.  Nostalrius was a server based on the original implementation of the game that was being run outside of Blizzard's purview, and Blizzard finally stepped in and shut it down.  Now fans are up in arms over this, and there is now a petition going around for Blizzard to open up a Vanilla realm of their own for players to play on.  Which is fine.  What is not fine is the uproar.

     I'm sorry, a private server using someone else's technology and code is illegal.  Yes, I'm sure it was nice to have a Vanilla server to play on, but you are playing on code that was stolen from Blizzard so if they step up and say "No!" you have no ground to stand on.

    If I befriended Brandon Sanderson, got ahold of one of his first drafts of Mistborn, and started selling it I would be stealing his intellectual property.  (Now, to be fair I'm not sure anyone was making a profit off Nostralrius) He would have the right to sue me for distributing what wasn't a finished, or optimum work even if I left his name on it.  The fact Blizzard just shut these guys down, but doesn't seem to be making a bigger smack down, which I'm sure they could, is points to them.

    That being said, if you want to petition Blizzard for a Vanilla server I'm behind that.  Go play a Vanilla server for a while.  Other than the fact you will be forced to build a stronger community to find groups etc... you will also be reminded of the grinding and pain.  But I would love for Blizzard to host a couple of servers of pre-iterations of World of Warcraft.  That would be cool.

Anyway, that is my rantings for this Week.

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.

Hail Ashbringer.

So... I did the retribution paladin's artifact quest.

     The artifact quests themselves seem fairly short and to the point.  I think I could have done both the Demon Hunters, and the Paladin's in about 15 to 20 minutes with little trouble.  My guess is the rest of the quests are going to be similar, but I look forward to doing a few more to see if I'm correct.

     It's kind of cool to be wielding Ashbringer.  This is a sword that has been in Wow since vanilla. (Might have been in the RTS games, but I only played Warcraft 3 and I don't remember it in there.)  I know there was a corrupted Ashbringer in the original Naxxaramas.  I never played, but I have heard the stories.  I believe there was a quest in the Eastern Plaguelands which was created around the idea of reclaiming and purifying the Ashbringer, but I have never had the pleasure to do it.

     Here comes my qualms.  There is an obvious price for the right to wield the Ashbringer.  I had heard the price hinted at, but seeing is believing and I am not happy with the circumstances.  It has also been said that some of the other weapons will be obtained in a similar manner.  With some of the weapons that will be wielded the overall price in potential stories down the line baffles me.

     Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague here.  While the price is easily guessed I want to avoid all out spoilers for any who want to find out for themselves when they play this content.  If you want to know what happens look it up.  Plenty of other folks have spoiled it.  It's a quick google search away.

     Needless to say, that the Azeroth we are fighting for might be a very different place if even a third of the Artifact weapons we are gaining comes with such a price.  While change brings potential, too much change at once makes me worry.  If you shake up your player base too much you risk losing a few folks.   This might shake up the face of the Horde and Alliance as much as Catalysm and Siege of Ogrimmar did.  If not more.

      My other worry, is that if these quests have as much bearing on the future of Azeroth as this one did, than I think they should be longer.  More epic in scope.  15-20 minutes is fine.  But I could see a bit longer since this is a quest you only do once for each weapon.  With the possible future repercussions I think that more time might be worth spending on each of these.  Of course, if we have to get three weapons each if we use all our specs, (four for druids) 15-20 minutes might be just right.

     So, I am looking forward to doing a few more artifact weapon quests.  But I am hesitant about where they will lead in terms of story.  I keep mentioning price.

     What will be the price of this expansion.

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.

The Last Week Before.....

Blizzcon is coming.  That means the news drought is almost over.

      Had some Firelands fun this weekend.   Nothing big, just a clear for some transmog.

      I've been slow on mentioning it, but the drought got some relief a couple of weeks ago on the PTR.

    We are getting new time walking dungeons from Cataclysm, which to be fair is probably the last expansion that I ran dungeons in after I got past the point where I didn't have to.  They are also expanding the dungeons we are running from Wrath and Burning Crusade as well.  Pretty cool stuff.

     We are getting Valor points back.  Instead of capping how many you can have, they are capping how many you can earn.  Meaning, you will run out of stuff to do to get some Valor love because you simply won't get them from EVERYTHING.  We will be able to use these valor to upgrade item levels again, and they are also making it possible for all your Tanaan Jungle gear to level up to 716 I believe it was... Anyway.  This will give folks a boost to finish the raids they are working on, and maybe even step up a level higher.

     Speaking of raiding, so much rage over a moose.  I mean, Ghost Crawler promised us a moose right?

     Well, he lied.  In order to get this moose you must finish Hellfire Citadel on Heroic or Mythic before the next expansion drops.  With it being shoved into the game at this point, without warning and later in this raid cycle this has folks blowing their tops.  Partially because a lot of people don't think they can finish Hellfire Citadel on Heroic+, but because the time is limited on this mount so you won't be able to go back and get it if you don't finish Hellfire while it's current.  People feel entitled to a chance at anything added into the game.  To be honest, everyone has that chance for this if they can put in the time and effort.  I don't expect to get it, but I'm not putting much effort myself towards this at the moment since my focus is elsewhere right now.  I won't lie, If I get a chance to make a run for it I will, but I'm not sure when I'd find that chance right now.

      But I'm not upset or bitter.  Sometimes there are cool mounts that you don't have time or focus to earn.  I don't begrudge Blizzard this new carrot on a stick.  The mount does look freaking cool though....

     If you are curious you can look up the latest PTR build.  Many things coming.

     Now I will ask, what do you think will drop at Blizzcon this year that might surprise us?

     There is the big push in eSports, but other then that we know most of what is happening.  Legion has been announced, Starcrafts new expansion is dropping already, Diablo has been a little quiet but it might be a little early for another expansion there (I could be wrong) so what do we think will be the big surprise announcement?

     I personally would love to see another annual pass.  My suspicion is that we won't however.  I wonder if they found that the folks who signed up for that where those who would have just played Wow without cancelling subscription anyway.  Or if there was enough negative press that it made Blizzard decide it wasn't work trying again.  Either way that seems like a one time deal at this point.

     But man, if they announced that those who signed up for one would get Overwatch for free and a themed in game mount... I would be on that train.  But I of course probably won't unsubscribe during this time either.

Anyway, that's my rambling for this week.
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.

   

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.  

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

Is Harder Better?

Such a weird question... here we go.

      Saturday we mounted up and headed into Hellfire Citadel. It was a good night, very few issues and we downed Kormoc for the first time.  A good raid night all around, I was very happy and my tanking didn't kill us all.  We had a new raider and a person we pulled from the nether with us as well.  It was nice.

     Sunday didn't happen as a raid night.  Not enough showed so we split up and rand timewalking dungeons.  I pulled my DK Illyrea out for a tank test (I haven't DK tanked since Wrath, when I could duel wield tank.  Thank you Blizz) and only wipe us a couple of times.  To me the tanking feels a little clunky on the DK at the moment, but I haven't developed the timing and muscle memory for the class.  Had fun anyway.

      So this week Topic is one that has been on my mind.  With Illidan and a lot of old stuff being brought back again, there seems to be a lot of people wishing for the old days of World of Warcraft.  You know, where there were 40 man raids and everything was mind numbingly hard, because only the elite raided, and they stood apart for it.  And the grinding man, if you didn't spend hours getting herbs and ore making your eyes bleed with all the pixels they were taking in just so your character could be their best.... Well, I think you can already tell where my opinion is on this.

     I think there should be some challenges in game.  And I think we have them, there is Mythic raiding, PVP, and some bigger achievements.  Do I think we should go back to the days of having to CC every pull, spending a couple hours in a dungeon, and wandering around Dallaran yelling in trade for a group? No.  Not at all.

     This game, like all successful things has evolved with the player base.  I would imagine for every person who yells about how easy this game is now, there are a could hundred who roll their eyes and close their ears as soon as the song of the glory days of vanilla comes on.  While I started playing at the end of Vanilla, or original Wow, I sure don't miss the days of grinding and praying I could get one character to level 60.  To me, getting one, being able to get a couple things done, and getting off in an hour or two is perfect.  Heaven knows I can't spend hours upon hours on the game anymore.  Call me a casual.  I'm cool with that.  I hardly believe though the people calling for things to be like the old days are the majority.  I think it's more a vocal minority with a lot of folks who just as soon don't want to engage in a long pointless debate.

    But I could be wrong.  I admit it.  I mean, I know raiding wise as a leader I'm not lighting any fireworks.  We have fun, which I thought was the point of this game, but compared to a lot of the "big raiders" we are mediocre.  I will take mediocre and fun any day over stress, yelling, and treating this game like a job.  Obviously if you want something harder there are other options out there.  Wildstar is going free to play in a couple of months, and it is supposed to be very punishing and hard on the raid content.  Of course, like I said, it's going free to play so there might be a reason for that.

     Alright, my rant is over.  I meant it to be an argument and it's all one sided.  Sue me.  I just can't justify a discussion on making the game harder and more grindy for a few special snow flakes.  In other news....

     Get your pathfinder done.  6.2.2 drops on Sept 1st.  That means we are getting close to flying in Draenor.  If you haven't gotten your achievement, now is the time to get 'em done.  If you don't care, it doesn't matter what I say anyway.

See you in game.
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

One Shot Ahead.

This weekend was interesting.

      We were short folks on Saturday so we pulled in a few from the nether.  We managed, with this help, to down the first two bosses in the Hellfire raid first time fighting them.  It was exciting and exhilarating and we got pumped up.  Then we hit Kromroc.  OR more specifically he hit us.  We stopped on him for the night and resolved to come back tomorrow.

     Then tomorrow happened and a big thing was apparent.  We are undergeared/under dpsed on several characters.  This leads the question of what to do about it.  I know we have switched nights and a few things are  going to be out of whack for a little bit, but there is no reason anyone can't keep up.  At the end we didn't down any additional bosses.

     So here we are in Tanaan Jungle.  There are a ton of ways to get some gear now.  Every 20k Apexis crystals you can upgrade one of the armor/item drops from the area to 695.  Of course when they drop they are at 650 not upgraded so that works too.  If you can't get a drop (i.e. a weapon) you can buy the token to create it as well for about 10k apexis.  This means you can get a decent upgrade every 20-30k apexis that drop.  That seems like a lot, but doing your dailies and a little grinding and you gain apexis fast.  Also keep an eye out for the apexis weekends when drops are increased...

     Doomlord Kazzak is the new world boss and taking him down once a week is worth a chance at a 705 ilevel item.  This is also the best place to farm Felblight if you are saving up for some to make upgrades for your crafted items.  Which hey, another thing you can do in this area.

      As of this week LFR opens for the first wing as well.  This is your weekly run of hopefully upgraded items in whatever doomed group you end up in.  I only mean doomed by normal bunch of LFR folks refusing to talk or do anything beyond getting in, getting loot, and getting out.  I am hoping to run this sometime in the next couple of nights to see how it is.

      This week will be a short Weekend as well.  With the 4th of July we will only be raiding Sunday.  So take time to get some gear, get worked up, and let's hit the raid hard Sunday.  I would love to at least get the first two bosses down again.  Also look up the first few raid fights.  Fat boss is preferred but LOS gaming is fine for quick tips if you don't have a lot of time.

See you all this weekend,

Lag/Lazyeye

Patch 6.2 My Precious

And it is here.  Today.
 

      Saturday was a LFR running day.  I wasn't available as I had to work, and not enough folks showed so we ended up running LFR together.  Wasn't there, but I assume Magilla was stoic, people shot and stabbed things, and fun was had.  If fun wasn't had, then I blame Gul'dan.  Dude ruins everything.

     Sunday was O.k.  We went in and one shot Hanz and Franz, (we decided to skip Gruul) and then went and took some swings at Beastlord no one remembers my other name.  Last week we one shot him.  This week we had some trouble, and weren't able to down him.  Part of it is still getting a consistent group.  I'm hoping Hellfire's excitement will help with that.

     Today 6.2 drops and all of Warcraft quivers in excitement.  New content is always ready to be devoured after a lull, and this lull has felt long despite the fact that it probably was a lot shorter then we used to wait between raids and content.  Mists however has built us up for quicker content and now I don't think Blizzard has the option of easing up on the gas.  I still think at times that the content is too fast, but in this case it's time.

      First of all you can start making sure you are getting ready for the return of flying.  Getting the Draenor Pathfinder achievement will earn you wings for your main character, and any other character you have in Draenor over level 90.  This may actually get me to start leveling characters against.  Be aware there is a bit to getting the Pathfinder achievement.  However, Wowhead.com has a great feature where you plug in your character and it will tell you what you have left to do to earn flying.  You can find it at http://www.wowhead.com/flying.  Be aware that the last 100 treasures achievement is a little misleading here.  It tells me incomplete because Lag hasn't gotten 200 treasures, but he does have over the required 100.  Otherwise plug yourself in and see what you have left.  Securing Draenor achievement quests can be bought in your Garrison if you haven't done them.  You can buy maps of the different treasure locations in Ashran.  Loremaster you will have as long as you finished the main questlines, and exploring is just riding around and seeing stuff.  If you start now when flying drops you will have it available to you soon.  Be sure to work up your three Tanaan Jungle reps because you will need those at revered as well.

      Timewalking is coming.  During the weekends here and there you can hop into special events where you can run past dungeons with your characters being nerfed down so the content will be at level for Heroic.  The gear dropping here will be dropping to an ilevel rewarding to your character.  The reason you can only run these on weekends is so you might want to run some Mythic dungeons....

      And yes Dungeons are getting a Mythic level.  It is recommended you have at least some Highmaul/Blackrock gear before attempting these.  ilevel 680 gear will be dropping here with the chance at a ilevel 700 piece from the last boss.  These Mythic dungeons will be on a weekly lockout like LFR so don't expect to run them non-stop to get geared.

     Naval missions are coming as well.  I hope you have around 6,000 garrison resources saved up because that's what it is going to cost you to get your naval yard built and rocking.  Blizzard has said unlike garrison missions these won't be so time consuming and the rewards will be good.  So, plan on setting your missions every couple of days or every week.  This will also be how you create an inroads into Tanaan Jungle.

     Yes we now go back to the area where this all started.  Back to Tanaan to explore and fight the Fel Iron Horde?  Anyway.  New quests, new factions, new goodies.  Oh, and new mats for Professions so you will have to leave your garrison.  MWha ha ha

     Other features include a new Quest journal that gives suggestions on how to best develop your character.  And several folks having to relearn their classes.  Oh, and did I mention Hellfire Citadel.  Yeah, new big green fiery raid.  Bring it baby!  I am hoping this isn't the last big content patch for the expansion and that Blizzard has something else up their sleeves.  I mean, Gul'dan is not even a boss in the Hellfire Citadel....

Anyway, what is everyone looking forward to the most when the servers come up and they can log in today?

Lag