And it's announced to be announced for Warlords of Draenor! (Raid update for the week of 7/27/2014)

Well, it was going to be a boring week....

      This week we started wing one again.  (I am having a love hate relationship with this wing.  I want to be done with it, at the same time some of our most fun raids as a group have happened here recently.)
We had a few new players to gear, so I stayed on Lazyeye and we blew the place up.  Well, until Sha and then we couldn't get a couple of bugs worked out and he blew us up.  But that was ok.

      Wednesday night we one shot Sha in the face and moved all the way through wing 2.  We have a very smooth run, even one shotting Shamans again.  (Me and Magilla I think have worked out a great system up top for the second boss as we use the three tank method)  Nazgrim took a couple of tries, but it was a good night for all.

       I am still stuck in the conundrum of whether or not we should just stick to the first couple of wings and get some newbies more geared, or keep pushing the last two wings every other week.  I know how it feels to run with a group that is not as organized or doing as well as your normal group is.  It can be frustrating and I know we have lost a couple of raiders over this.  I do think back to the fact that the original thought to our raiding was, that we were going to have fun.  We are accomplishing this a lot of the time when we are running the beginning content.

     This week though we have received the amazing announcement of and announcement.  That is right.  On August 14th, 9:30 am pst we get an announcement of the street date for Warlords of Draenor.  The almighty announcement of the announcement has spoken.  They could have just done an announcement of the date and released the cinematic for the new expansion, but it is so much more powerful when you announce your announcement before hand so people can gather and be announced too from your announcement.

      If you can't tell, I am rolling my eyes at this announcement of an announcement which is pretty much whipped up to give us some news.  Not just any news, but news that we are getting news in the form of and announcement of an announcement.  /eye roll.

     I love Blizzard.  They make great games and I like if not love most of them.  When I see something like this that is just an excuse to garnish some publicity it kinda rubs me the wrong way.  I think they would have gotten just as much response doing a normal release of the trailer and the date on the same day and flooding media sites with it.

    On the bright side this re-enforces my belief that the expansion is coming out in September or October.  Normally they have announced the new expansion's release date with in a couple months of the drop date.  I predict we are getting 6.0 at the end of August, and that the game itself will launch the last week of September.  Let's see how close I come.

Well, that is it for this week.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Inclusiveness in Wow and Other Video Games. (and raid update week of 7/21/2014)

I feel this topic has been beat to death.  however, I want to weigh in my two cents.  First, raid update.

      Tuesday we tried starting wing 3.  After some complications etc.. I hopped on my Pally Tank Lag and we managed to down Malkorak.  We managed a couple shots at Treasures but ended up falling short for the night.

      Wednesday we opted to start from where we finished.  Not going to lie, things just wouldn't balance out and we couldn't manage to get the boss down.  It didn't help raid stopped a bit early as the raid leader was sick.  When his sickness finally defeated him, we went home without any new bosses.

      Not going to lie, it was a sadly regressive week, but next week will be better.

      Now on to my topic, and it's considered hot button but here we go.  I am going to try and write this from a somewhat neutral position politically because if I wanted to talk politics, I would make a political blog.

      As a prospective writer I am faced with a choice every time I start a new project.  Who are going to be my characters?  What are they going to be like? How do they talk? How do they act?  How do they look? Who do they love?

      This part of character creation is important because it flavors what you write, what decisions (Good and bad) your characters make.  If you put in something that doesn't belong there with the character it feels forced, and out of place.  This leads to stereotyping and poor characters.  You want to make racist decisions for a black character into your story, work to make him black.  Same goes for LBGT characters, if you want a bad stereotyped character force one in to echo an agenda and most people will end up with a horrible character that is out of place and offensive.

      The truth is inclusiveness is very important.  But not at the price of story or character.  If it makes sense to make a character any race or lifestyle by all means do it.  If you want to add that flavor in anyway, I say write your piece then add the race/lifestyle after you have finished your work if it isn't important to the story.  If the focus of your story obviously is going to be around race/lifestyle don't write your characters to fit the "normal modes."

      This goes for video games as well.  I want good strong characters of different races, sexes, and lifestyles.  I don't want stereotypical lazy writing or characters that seem out of place because they don't fit.  So when it works, do it.

       My worry is that the pressure for games, books, and shows to be inclusive is going to do some damage in the short term as more and more demand for inclusiveness is pushed.  If you are crusading for this, please be careful what you wish for because bad stereotypes can push unrealistic expectations in the real world.  (Because some people do believe all they read and see is real)  I would rather there was a steady and slow approach to this than we were introduced to a bunch of bad characters that damages society's notions of any group.

      I am also going to get myself in trouble by asking this next question.  When will there be enough inclusiveness?

      Looking at the census about 14.1% of the United States is black.  Does that mean that when 14.1 percent of actors in movies and T.V. shows are black we are being representative? Or do we push the bar beyond that?  Same with other races and lifestyles, do we go for a realistic number? Or in order to support minorities do we push further until we get an unrealistic mix of characters in our media all in the name of inclusiveness?

Most of all, what do you think?  I would love to hear feedback on this topic.  If you have a well thought out answer I will listen.  If you leave an answer full of hate and vitriol towards any group, I will delete your comment.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

I'm pondering.

We are wandering through no man's land

      Tuesday we did wing one again.  Yes, again.  I hopped on my mage this time so I could try something a little different and we of course got through the whole experience roughly intact.  We only did the one wing as it was a late start to say the least.  It was a pleasant experience though, the mood was high and we still are pushing to get some gear for some lower geared folks.

      Wednesday we went straight to wing 2, and cleared the wing by the end of the night.  This time I took my hunter to help push through the higher life pulls and the raid went rough at first, then got moving well.  I was very frustrated when Galakras took us 3 or 4 pulls to down as we died to simple mistakes more then once.  We then one shot Iron Juggs, had our best pull and one shot ever on Dark Shaman, and got Nazgrim down at the end of the night on our second pull.

      Next week we are starting on wing 3 again.  If we down it in one night we will smack Blackfuse around again.

     I am really fighting the feeling of being stagnant right now.  I feel we have been stuck in the same place for months now, and looking back at posts, I'm not wrong.  There is that saying that something has got to give, well for me I am feeling it more and more.  I try to be positive but this is one of those moments where I debate if I'm holding the raid team together for Warlords, or if I actually think we are going to progress further.

      The people we are gearing are giving me some hope, but I can only hope we can push further soon.  We are running out of time before WOD launches, and soon it will be upon us.  At that point we will take a break from raiding while we all level to 100, then will start all over again.  I won't lie, I look forward to this small break as the beginning of the expansions is normally the only break I take from raiding.  We could continue to push stuff at that time, but it seems silly to work on raid content when we could be leveling and gearing at a relevant level.

      I am excited more and more about the upcoming expansion.  From what I've played of the starting zones it's not Orc heavy.  It's Orc and Draenei heavy.  The alliance starting zone is fantastic and shiny new.  Garrison's feel good.  They are interactive, but so far don't seem to be a bogged down quest hub like it was feared they might be.  (Golden Lotus 2.0, no thank you)

      The NPCs are good so far.  Lots of familiar faces, and a lot of new ones are everywhere.  I wanted to write a blog about the inclusiveness of the game, but I feel this is getting over hashed right now and I don't have a lot to add to that argument other then to stir up some dirt pointlessly.  (I have opinions on this, but I would need a lot of space from a long rant.  I have that here, but I'm not ready to let it out.)

     Next week will be a new week. I'm hoping to see some progress that lightens my heart.  Either way, I will be diving headfirst into the fray.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Endings to Beginnings

This week was a short raid week.

      Tuesday we didn't raid because I was celebrating 14 wonderful years with my wife.

       Wednesday was pretty good.  We had some new blood so we went back and just nuked stuff from wing 1 to half way through wing 2.  We downed Iron Juggs and called it a night.  While we didn't really push any boundaries or progression,  we did have fun and it was a good feeling raid.  We also pulled in two new toons to start gearing and working towards crazy DPS status.

       I really think we are getting closer to the point where WoD drops.  If it is a September/October drop like I have predicted, that means 6.0 will be in all likelyhood dropping in August/September.  That means, we could be a little over a month away from having the first major patch walking into the expansion.

      The beta itself feels pretty good.  Yes, there are still plenty of bugs and glitches that are happening, but for the most part it has looked good.  There are things they have added that I enjoy, like the outline of whatever you are targeted on glowing to all the cameos from people we knew in BC.  (Seeing Akama as a proper Draenei is weird)

      The class changes are taking some getting used to as well.  Playing a hunter without leading with serpent sting, or having to keep Slice and Dice up on a rogue is strange.  I understand why they took these buttons out, but it feels like something is missing in my rotations.  We will have to see how it all turns out.

       It's been a long week with work etc.. this week.  So I am keeping it short.  Oh, one of my favorite things about the Beta thought, is captions like, Amazing in game event here....

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty.

Shaky ground.

Sometimes, things go well and I still worry.

     Tuesday night this week we started on Wing 3.  Though we wiped on Spoils once, and Thok a couple of times we got all the way through and to finish the wing.  What this doesn't say in that sentence is we felt like a cohesive group and things felt smooth as we worked through the wing.  Spirits were good and Everyone seemed to be doing their job just fine.  (My favorite part was the second pull on Spoils where Shaqia and Scorpiack both accidentally dropped on the wrong sides and it balanced things perfectly to get the boss down.)

     Wednesday was not a great night.  Blackfuse is still killing us and it's still from stupid little mistakes.  I had the opportunity to tank this fight for the first time on Lag and it was interesting to me to see how it worked from that perspective.  Believe it or not, this is the first time I've actually wanted Blizzard to leave fire on the floor.  I had a couple of moments where I was tanking the add in fire, then the fire would fade, then the next line of fire would fade as I pulled the add over as well.   We didn't get the boss down.  But I feel once again we are closer.  Shojji now had the conveyor belts down, and when Scorpy got there the belts went smooth.  We just need to work on staying alive down below long enough to punch through.

       Despite this, I feel the group is smoothing out again.  We are getting to another point where we are going to start making progression soon as things are smoothing out.  My worry is that this means we are going to lose a person or two soon as this seems to be the pattern we have been fighting.  Group gets going smooth and starts moving forward, someone leaves to go to another team or leave wow until the next expansion.  My pure hope is that next Xpack we manage to get a team of 15 people or so and maintain it so if someone leaves we don't have to worry about it when a person or two leaves.

       I am looking forward to previewing the raids a little in the beta as well if I get to that point.  As I play mainly alliance, I am mainly working horde on the Beta so as not to ruin my experience on leveling later.  I have not had a lot of time to work there this week, but am hoping to get back in this next week.  I know beta is a lot different from what gets dropped later, but this may help I hope.

      There are things I want to discuss about the Beta at length, but right now seems a bit premature.  It's strange playing a Rogue who doesn't have to keep up slice and dice.  Hunters feel weird not opening with serpent sting.  There are other things like that that seem just different.  The content itself so far is pretty good.  The best part, wait for it,

     We are actually getting some Draenei lore.  Yes, it's coming.. holy crap we are getting some.

Lazyeye.

     

You beta believe it!

So, I'm feeling pretty lucky right now.

      Lets review the raiding for the week first shall we? On Tuesday we started Flex wing 1 and managed the first three bosses.   I hadn't tanked this content for a good while and it showed.  When we fought Sha of Pride I know I made several mistakes, and between that and some other unlucky issues like people DCing etc... we didn't get the last boss of the wing down.

      Wednesday I went ahead and lead us into wing 4 again.  We did better then last week but still there are too many issues there.  I think this next week I may start wing 1 the first night and move to wing 3 the second as I know we can down malkorak and treasures of Pandaria continues to elude us.

       I think we have had more content resets with the raid team this expansion then we ever have.  I hope leading out of this one we will get time to down Garrosh before 6.0.  I know people are still predicting the next expansion to be out November/December.  I am more optimistic then that.  I am sticking to my guess of the expansion in September.  I think we can bet on 6.0 in mid to late August and to have the game out before Blizzcon.

      I know this isn't the popular guess.  I am still thinking that the Beta is going to be surprisingly short this time around.  We don't have to have access for over a million free passers this time, and if Pandaria has had one major success it is to show that Blizzard can put out content quickly, I even have said and still think too quickly at points.   As they continue to refine the process I think we may be pleasantly surprised this time around.  If I am wrong, I will accept it but I have high hopes that Blizzard will surprise us all.

       I went into the Mysts Beta a couple times when I had it.  This time I plan on delving a little deeper.  I am hoping to get my live stream going so I can comment and give my opinion on the things I am seeing.  As soon as everything is live I plan on going through the Alliance side on Lazyeye my hunter, and Rhapsidy my Rogue will sneak around some of the Horde content.  I am not sure how deeply I want to delve as I've always hated having to redo content or spoil myself too badly.  At  the same time I want to embrace this Beta as a new opportunity to play with some other stuff I've wanted to do.

    If I can I will even let people know when I'm streaming beta so they can hop in and watch if they like.

     We are one step closer, and before you know it, Warlords will be upon us.

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty

Carry on, carry on!

A lot of things are coming up again.

     Tuesday we had a Flex wing 3 run.  We managed to down Malkorak but didn't get any further.  We kept getting shredded by treasures of Pandaria.  We have lost a couple more players so balancing the group was a bit trickier, and by the end it proved to be just to hard for us to push through.

     Wednesday we went ahead and took a couple whacks at Blackfuse.  The trash almost did us in and he walked all over us.  After a few tries we decided to hop back to wing 2 and took down Galakras just so a few people could have a chance at loot.  Galakras himself was a bigger challenge then normal, because once again we are feeling the absence of those who left us, that used to do a couple jobs like the towers that had to be covered by new folks.

      The problems we are facing right now are the result of 2 things.

      1.  We are playing with several individuals.  Schedules change, needs change, the way we play the game changes.  This leads to people leaving or going elsewhere or looking elsewhere for new challenges.  We have lost more then a few people because we are a laid back group who takes their time to work through content instead of yelling/pushing/being extreme.

      2.  We are in the end of expansion slump.  If your like me this is the time it's hardest to log in and play sometimes.  We have been playing the same content since December, and it feels there is nothing new to see.  This is the period I spend more time on other realms and leveling alts.  It feels extremely harsh this time because Blizzard managed to push out content so quickly in Mists of Pandaria.  In truth we are looking at about the same about of time between final patch and the the new expansion as we always have.  It's just falling because that new content every 3-4 month push they managed that is making it so painful.

      Part of raiding is rebuilding and relearning.  It wouldn't  hit us as bad if we were one of the teams who goes hardcore and has the content chewed up in a month or two, but with the way we raid it means we spend a lot longer on the content, so we have a lot longer to lose and have change happen on the team.  This has hit us particularly hard this time around and it feels like every time we have gained traction the dynamic has been shaken up and we are relearning how to balance with each other.

     I will tell you the one thing that drives crazy is when we get on a run, are downing new bosses every other week and people leave so they can see the content quicker.  I have never understood the desire to jump in with a new group when you are already making progress.  I will admit I have a dark chuckle with myself when these people leave and a two months later the new guild/raid team implode and those folks who are left in the dust are once again looking for a new home.  Some of them come back to us... most keep wandering and I hope they all eventually find a new home that suits them.  When someone leaves I do sincerely with them good luck, I just am not surprised when they don't find it.

    So we trudge on... This next week we will be starting Wing 1 again to once again build and help bring more people into a working position on the team.  I am tired of re-hashing this, but I will keep going on until the new expansion hits.  Then I will get the same break as everyone else as I level my characters, and will be looking forward to the new content with everyone else.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye