I am not discussing Gul'dan spoilers.... I'm not!

But I am oh, so happy about them.

     Tuesday we went into Highmaul again with a heavily alted group.  We only managed to get three bosses down, but I am holding the save and we will keep going in until the whole raid is done, then it will be Blackrock, all raid every raid.

     Wednesday we ventured back into Blackrock Foundry.  Gruul went down quickly and we moved on to Hans and Franz, whom we finally took down this week!

    Really though, if you don't mind spoilers (and I'm wondering how long this is considered a spoiler) You should watch the cinimatic for the end of Blackforge.  It is amazing and has sprung up a lot of good questions.  And the fact that as always Khadgar is right.  That dude is always right.  Assuming it's really Khadgar. (If you have read any of Matt Rossi or Anne Stickney's Tinfoil hat Lore columns, you should.  They discuss this a little bit at blizzardwatch.com)

      The other thing that just hit me was that Blizzcon was announced and somewhere between juggling work, school activities and Girl Scout cookies I missed when they released this information.  It will be November 6th and 7th this year.  Assuming that they are going to try and stick to the timeline Blizzard is aiming for, if they announce the next expansion at Blizzcon, they would be only giving us a few months heads up before it drops.  That is unless they decide to do a third raid tier in Warlords.  That would put us at about six month notice.  Unless they go thirteen months again between expansions.   Then most of us will be crying.

     The raid team continues to evolve.  We have some new blood coming in which makes me ponder our direction.  I want to finish Highmaul and move on to Blackrock full time, but with the new folks coming in I debate that course.  I want a chance to get folks some gear, though if they are running their LFRs every week, the Gear should be coming.  Not everyone is pulling great dps yet, but I'm seeing improvement weekly on those hitting lower numbers.  I think we are on our way, but I'm not sure how quick we will get there.  I don't want to stagnate and stay in place, but I want to make sure we have every opportunity to make folks ready for Blackrock full time.

Little hair metal for you today.

Scattered in my thoughts to day I am.

See you all in raid this week.

Lag/Lazyeye

     

   

Buying Time In Highmaul

How do you feel about it?

     Tuesday night was interesting.  Several people in the raid where in on alt characters (Including yours truly who took his hunter Lazyeye.) So, it became fascinating to see how we handled so much change.  The deeps was a little lower over all, but mechanics seemed to be the demon of the night.  We still one shot Kargatch and The Butcher.  Butcher had some rough spots though.  Twin Ogron kept setting us on fire because we just weren't avoiding it very well.  We finally got them down at the end of the night, but we only got 3/7 for Highmaul this week.

     Wednesday we managed to get Gruul down on the first pull that wasn't an accident.  It felt good and we moved on to Hans and Franz again.  We managed on the final pull to get them down to 10% but we have some more work to do here.  Hopefully next week.

     Let's get to the meat shall we.

      Blizzard is going to allow people to buy game time tokens and sell them on the auctionhouse.  As of yet a price hasn't been set for this token, so we don't know how much it's going to set us back.  My honest guess is it will be $15 for 30 days, not cheaper (because then it would be cheaper to get tokens rather then a subscription) and I don't think it will be much more expensive.  Maybe a dollar or two as a "service fee."

     I am not sure where I stand on this yet.  I like the idea of being able to use gold for game time, but we don't know how much gold it's going to cost yet either.  That price will be set by the community on the AH.  My honest opinion is that anything over 10k I won't spend.   Even then I will hesitate as I haven't had the play time to earn a lot of gold lately.  I would like to say when they did the guardian cub years ago he was $10, and he stared out for about that 10K price, but eventually dropped down to 5k or so.  This only means so much because the economy has been inflated a lot since then.  But it does give us an example of what has happened in the past.

    The obvious pitfall here is that if the game time sells for too much gold only a select amount of players will be able to afford it.  At that point it will be a benifit for the elite few who make a lot of gold off the AH, and the rest of us will occasionally be able to get a month for free if we are lucky.  I am sure that this is not what Blizzard intends, but it may be what it becomes.  In that case if you want to buy gold it might be lucritive to drop an extra $15 or so here and there and  pick up some in game currency.

     The bonus is that if it works out right, then the price will drop down to a point where the everyday player can afford to drop gold on time if thats what they choose to do.  Now, to be fair, I don't think that this idea will work if everyone in game can afford to buy time off the auction house.  I think the average player should be able to afford to buy time every couple of months or so.  There will be people who never can afford this, but I am hoping those are in the minority if this is implimented correctly.  At least that is my opinion.  For all I know Blizzard is looking at this in a whole different light.

    How do you feel about buying WoW time with gold? Are you going to participate in this as a buyer or seller?  What thoughts have I missed?

Lag/Lazyeye.

To Get Respect, You Must Give Respect. Why I Disagree With This Social Convention.

What a load of Bull****

      Tuesday we managed to get to 5/7 again in Highmaul in one night.  Having started almost a half hour late because of Patch day etc.. I'm happy with that.  We were pulling in a new raider whom we need to kick some dust off of and people where making slight adjustments.  I did almost make this post... Why did every class get buffed but mine? But that would have been whining.

      Wednesday we ventured back into Blackforge.  Someone accidently put the raid on heroic so we had to run out and restart things after a couple of pulls... We eventually made our way to Gruul, and spent all of raid fighting him.  We finally managed to down him right before raid ended.

       As to the title of this post, I was in a situation the other day where someone used this phrase.  They told me that before they gave anyone respect, they expected to recieve respect.  I have been mulling this over in my mind since he said it as it bothered me.  It's not that I haven't heard the phrase before.  As a matter of fact I have heard the phrase probably countless times in my lifetime.  It's one of those things I think people say without pondering the true implication of the phrase.

     Let's examine this.  If we have two people who both live by this ideal, what happens when they have to work together.  (Say, on a raid team for instance?) If both parties walk in not giving any respect or care until they have recieved some it creates a situation where that respect may never be given.  Going through life with this attitute will put you in situations where you will come off as a complete douche.  Imagine going into the first day of a job where you are supposed to be part of a working team, and your attitude impeding things from progressing properly because you don't take the time to consider your co-workers opinions or feelings and just barge your way through the day.  That would be a wonderful way to become expendable to your employer.

      Alright, so maybe what I'm looking to deep into this and am overexhatuarating a little.  I may be looking for issues and trouble where there is none.  I still think it's a stupid attitude.

      Respect is something we should atomatically give other people for the sake of being people.  It shouldn't have to be earned initially and you sure shouldn't withhold it until some imaginary quota of good feels has been met.  If someone for some reason shows that they don't deserve your respect you should withdraw that respect begrudgingly.  It shouldn't be an ah-ha moment, but one that is sad since that person showed that they don't deserve that respect, for whatever reason.

      We are all big piles of baggage at the end of the day.  Some of us just manage it better then others.  Anyway, this is my weekly rant.  Agree, disagree let me know.

Lag/Lazyeye.

And Here Comes the 6.1

And it drops on this Tuesday...

 
     Tuesday was pretty good.  We went in and tried Kargath on Heroic and got eaten.  We managed to get his life low enough to feel good but never quite took him out.  Instead we moved on after an hour or so to down a few bosses for Loot.  We only managed three, but it was better then a wasted night.

     Wednesday we went back into Blackforge and still only got down Gruul.  We had some issues fighting him that felt like things just weren't syncing up very well. We finally got him down, but not in enough time to do much else.  That means we ended the night right there.

     But enough talk about raiding.  6.1 is dropping right quick and what do you need to know about it?  Not much.  It isn't changing the landscape much other then some nice UI updates and a few tweaks here and there, and that is fine.  Not every named patch needs to be absolutly awesome.  Sometimes we just need the little quality of life tweaks that are given.  This one will include....

     Heirloom tab.  As an altoholic I fully approve of this.  This means no more trying to remember which character has was heirloom on them or where they went.  You simply click and summon the heirloom for you nooby toon, and then delete it when you done.  If you have one level 100 warlock and want an army of 49 more warlocks on your account, no problem.  You can roll them all and then summon some heirloom threads for all.  Also, if you get enough heirlooms (I believe it's 35) you get a lowbie mount called the chauffered chopper.  You get to ride in the sidecar and let someone else drive you around.

     Male blood elves.  OK, old bad joke that is still somewhat relavent.  Seriously though, your blood elves are getting a visual work up.  I don't think it's going to be an insanely big change but it will be there.  Don't worry, your laughs and voices are staying the same...

     Selfies and Tweets.  Yes, for you superficial folks that have to show off your characters and achievements to everyone you can now take a shot and tweet from in game.  I won't lie.  I am one of the folks that think the whole idea of selfies in real life is absolutly stupid, and finding them in game doesn't excite me.  I mean, aren't you excited for your non-gamer friends to lift an eyebrow at your pixalated glory?

     Legendary follower.  Yes, we can get closer to our legendary rings and we can earn a legendary follower.  Most people know who this is by now, if you don't I won't spoil it for you.  Needless to say this one I think is a nice touch and I'm excited for.

     Daily Garrison quest.  You can run a dungeon or do a quest for a chance at 640-665 gear.  This is a cool way to gear your alt slowly, or get some more chances for loot.  It might actually get folks out of their garrison a little.

     Speaking of garrisons, they are changing the UI up a little with improvements to identify what followers fit what quest better etc...  Also, your followers will now be counted when working at your buildings only if they are present during a work order.  No more assigning them for pick up, or drop off then pulling them for quests.  On the bright side they will now get experience while doing this so they can grind their way to epic while mining your ore.

    Flying.  Ok, that was mean of me.  It doesn't look like we are getting flying yet.  I don't mind not flying per se, but I do miss it.  I look forward to getting it and further exploring Draenor.  In other words,  Num Lock, fly forward while sneaking a snack, then coming back to say wow! That is a neat cliff I'm face planted in!

    And much more.  You can look up the patch notes to see what I've missed.

So what are you excited for in 6.1?

Lag/Lazyeye.

 

This half life of mine. (Raid update week of 02/09/2015)

This week had some issues.  I was one.

     Tuesday was pretty good.  We went in and cleared 5/7 bosses in one night which is the point I wanted to get to.  There was a pretty good cohesion with everyone and it ran pretty smooth.  It was smooth enough that this week we may try a couple of bosses on heroic....

     Wednesday... well, I hear it was OK.  I had issues that kept me from joining the raid this evening, but Magilla managed to get stuff going.  Gruul went down again, and Hans and Franz reportedly got down to 3.5%.  Painful that I wasn't there to see it, but life happens like that sometimes.  Next week we should get them down.  Hopefully with my sword in Franz's head....

     I am honestly facing WoW burnout lately.  I enjoy raiding but haven't felt like logging in much.  I don't know if keeping up on my garrison has me burnt, or just that I'm kind of mentally taking a break other then what I absolutely have to do.  I know I have plenty on my list of things I need to accomplish.  I have a book that I need to finish editing.  There is some side projects for work I could get done.  I want to spend time with my family, work out more, eat better, etc... and so on.  Feeling tied to a computer makes this harder, and taking a step back has been a good choice here I believe.  I normally work on getting several characters to max level, I am seriously debating only leveling what I have to in the near future.  I just don't have it in me to get 13 max level characters again.  By the end of the expansion it might happen in a bite here, and a bite there, but not quickly as it happened in Pandaria.

     I don't feel this expansion has been very alt friendly.  The leveling experience doesn't change much at all from character to character, and even picking different forts in each area doesn't change much flavor.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed leveling the first couple of times, but now it feels like a slog to relive the story lines again so quickly.  I may go leveling dungeons soon, which is something I have historically avoided.

     Also, life just has been crazy lately.  Between Girl Scouts, church, work, kid's school concerts and projects, and other such stuff I have not had many evenings without something to do.  As Wow is just a video game it gets some back burner time as it should.  I dream of a day when it might slow down, but inside I realize that when my life hits that point I will yearn for these days.  If not, then there will probably be something very wrong with me.

     But such is life.  How do you balance things? More importantly, how has your play time and style changed over the years?

Lag/Lazyeye.

The Foundation of things

It was a decent raid week.

       Tuesday we went into Highmaul and had some fun.  We managed to get 4 bossed down, but Tectus took a few tries which ate up a bit of our time.  It felt fairly laid back and easy as we tromped in and laid some pain on baddies.  It was a fun night with some loot for peeps.

       Wednesday we trekked into the new Blackrock forge to see what we could see.  We managed to take down Gruul, which made me happy.  We then spent some time on the Hans and Franz fight which was fantastic.  It may be my favorite themed fight in a long while.  That being said, they squished us like the little pansy man we are!

       Forgive me if I ramble or say something strange here, I am a bit sick.  I want to make sure I get this out this week though so I'm trying to tough on through.  I should be able to do it since I remember raiding ICC that one time when I had a fever and it looked like my screen was wiggling back and forth....

      Why did I go to a raid that sick?  Well for one on a computer I'm not likely to get anyone sick.  Second of all, I feel a commitment to the teams I'm on.  I want to make sure I'm there when I can be to run the raid, or help with the raid.  I want to make sure I'm constantly working on improving gear score etc... so that I can be a competitive member.  There are times I swap classes I'm playing etc... because I feel it's a better fit for the team or that I would be more valuable.  Normally I like to have a viable healer, tank and DPS available if needed, however I have been a lot more DPS focused recently.  I am working Shimmer up still and I am hoping to have her healworthy here soon enough.

      The reason is that I have a commitment to the team I'm working with.  I don't take raiding as seriously as work or family, but I do take it as important since there are 10+ people depending on me to have my act together and be there.  If I don't show up, that means I have stood those folks up who have taken time out of their own schedule to show up.  To me that is unacceptable.  Yes it's just a video game, but when you are burning other peoples time away then it's simply just damn rude.

     This is my foundation, that I have this commitment and respect for those that raid with us.  (Yes even Orheim.) I try to listen to everyone's opinion.  I try and take all situations into account from all sides.  I know I fail at this from time to time, but overall I think I do an OK job.  I will never be that raid leader who just sits and yells.  That isn't me.

     What is your foundation for raiding, or working with people on WoW?  What are you doing to strengthen it?

Lag/Lazyeye.

Fading away. (Raid update week of 01/25/2015)

It's been a long week.

       Tuesday was rough.  We had one healer out because they were sick, and a couple of our regulars out as well.  We still one shot Kargath, but couldn't manage to two-heal though Butcher.  I finally gave up and invited someone from the group finder in, and we managed to down Butcher and Twin Ogron, but that is where we stopped.  A bit short from what we have been doing.

        Wednesday on the other hand, I ended up healer heavy and we managed to down Brackenspore quickly enough.  Tectus just wrecked us.  (See what I did there.)  We just couldn't find a good groove to take him down, and we kept having dps and healer deaths early on in the fight causing us issues we couldn't overcome.  Finally, after swapping a heals to deeps we managed to kill him dead.  But not before burning off what time we had left to raid.

         Now, arguably we didn't lose any progress in the big picture of this week, we didn't make any either.  As a raiding week we got some gear drops keeping it from being a complete wash, but I'm looking forward to finishing out this tier.  After this week we will be doing Highmaul on Tuesday and Blackrock Foundry on Wednesday.  I will stick to this until we stop getting drops from Highmaul that are upgrades.  At that point I will save our progress on Highmaul until we finish it off.  Once that is done it will be Blackrock Foundry until next raid tier.

          The big news for me this week is that Wowinsider.com is shutting down.  This makes me sad as it is one of my internet stops for WoW news, maybe my main one.  I find it strange that they would close their doors at a time when World of Warcraft is hitting a resurgence but it sounds like a decision beyond their control.  I am now following Matt Rossi, Anne Stickney, and Alex Ziebart among others to see where they go next.  They have dropped hints that they have something in the works, but my guess is we won't find out what until the site officially shuts on February 3rd.

          This makes me wonder about the longevity of things.  I am on the 120's as far as blogs go into this subject of World of Warcraft.  The instance is well over 300 episodes, and there are various other examples of media that we follow.   All things will come to an end eventually.  Someday I will type out the final blog here.  The Instance will go off the air, and someday the last WoW server will power down.

         We are staring down a ten year old game.  It is showing no signs of stopping at this point, but eventually it will do so.  Even if it keeps going on that long I know I will log out someday for the final time, probably before the game is done.  I love raiding, I love playing, but there are so many more important things in life that sometime it will get left behind.  Some times that day seems closer then others, though I have no intention of quitting anytime soon.

Lag/Lazyeye