Hopes for How Draenor Ends

I have been pondering this lately.

      So, I was listening to the Blizzard watch podcast and they hit several nails on the head with this expansion that has been a problem.  The two most relevant where that out characters felt like side characters this time around watching events unfold, and that when we where done here in "the alternate Draenor," Nothing we do will have any relevance to Azeroth afterwards, other then stopping the invasion.

      I'm not sure how to fix the first one.  Being the side character is not a good feeling.  In the past expansions we have felt that we were the ones driving the story forward.  Feeling we are more witness or bystanders isn't fixed by everyone in your garrison calling you general or captain.  This may actually be part of the problem.  It is great to have characters recognize you after all you have accomplished, but a general is normally someone who sits back planning the war, not fighting it.

      The other problem is that things don't feel like they will effect the long picture of the game.  All the people we are meeting here, will never step foot in our world.  Everything we do just changes a different universe that we have no long term investment in at all.  For those who love Wow' lore and stories this is also a negative feeling.  Woot! We saved Yrel and watched her grow into a mighty hero.  So what? What is the relevance in another expansion.   This one I have two suggestions Blizzard could (or might) go with on this one.

      My first suggestion is the least likely.  What if, once we finished our mission we went back and found that our actions had changed Azeroth.  What if by changing this alternate timeline it caused a ripple effect that changed our past.  Or what if we found out that it wasn't an alternate timeline at all, but that we had changed the very history of our world, and now we have to figure out what that means for each race going forward.  

      That first suggestion I find very unlikely.  It would take a lot of extra work to explain why things had changed, what that meant for each race, and to essentially re-create a bit of the world to reflect this.  With how many people where confused by traipsing off to an alternate Draenor in the past, this would not work well, but it would give us something that felt like it would last going forward.

       The second suggestion or hope I have is that we see a reflection of what happened in past Draenor happen again.  What if after the last raid Gul'dan, mad with power simply ripped the world apart.  What if in the chaos we were forced to evacuate the Draenei and Orcs and whoever else we could to our Azeroth to save them from destruction.  If that were to happen then we would suddenly have all these new faces and characters in our world and the ripple from these events would be felt for expansions to come.

        Imagine a suddenly full Exodar, that now hosts massive numbers of Draenei instead of a few scattered remnants with Yrel joining Velen to rule.  An Ogrimmar suddenly bolstered by a bunch of new Orcs and Ogres and no watched over by Durotan.  We also could have a group of Arrokoa trying to carve their way out into our world, Oggron suddenly sharing the land.  This would bring about many new story lines and the growth of the world could be immense.  I love this idea so much I hope Blizzard considers it, or is planning something like it.

       So what would be your idea to make the events we are witnessing and the stories now matter in an expansion or two.  I really don't want to walk away from this one with no lasting changes to our own world of Azeroth.

Lag/Lazyeye.

Kids and Flying Banned in Draenor.

This last week had no raids.  I had stuff going on both nights so..... let's get to it.

      First of all in the news of new experiences I have let my two daughters start playing Wow a bit.  This should be interesting to see how they learn to play and whether or not they enjoy this virtual world.  At 12, and 13 they are old enough to experience a game like this and I'm looking forward to watching and teaching them.  Don't expect them to be online a lot, but here and there.  When asked when they get their own account? I answered when they can pay for it.  So, They won't be at raid anytime soon.  I'm just mean like that.

      When your kids are old enough I recommend trying this.  It's fun to see what your kids choose.  Right now we have a Human Mage and a Draenei Hunter.  (I forced them to start Alliance because I'm more familiar with the leveling and story lines should they need help.)

      In other news there will not likely be any Flying added to Draenor.  Here is a link to one o Blizzards forums talking about it Forums/Flying.  Obviously this is a hot button topic and I recommend giving some thought to this before going crazy.  This choice could still get reversed if Blizzard gets enough constructive (notice I didn't say negative) feedback as they have with other choices in the past.  Remember when to post on forums you were going to have to show your real name? I do.  Here is a link to the actual interview where Hazzikostas gave the now flying news. Introducing Tanaan Jungle: six things to know about World of Warcraft's newest zone

       I really want to push the constructive feedback aspect of talking to Blizzard if you want to post or comment about this or anything else.  If you go in screaming and saying things suck, your just going to get lost in the forest of idiots who have nothing to base their opinion off of other then emotion.  If you go in and give facts and act like a decent human being, you are more likely to be heard.  Every time.

      This does mean that my opinion on the Runesaber from last post is strengthened by this choice.  I think it was a bad move to release it with flying and now with this interview it's just going to feed the people angry about no flying.  I just see this as a bigger and bigger mess that people will still be arguing about several expansions from now.  Because you know, most people who are pissed won't unsubscribe and we will have to listen to them go on and on about the mistake removing flying was.  Rather they will stick around and complain.

     For the records, I think they should return flying (and I've said as much) but not at the time of release.  I think it should be introduced after the expansion(s) have been thoroughly explored by people leveling.  However, I'm not going to rant, rave or talk about unsubscribing.  I understand and respect the choice even if I don't agree with it.

       Other new I am still doing raids on Tuesday and Wednesday for the next couple of weeks, but everyone who voted on the website voted for them to shift to Saturday/Sunday night.  I will give warning in raid before they shift, and will still watch for feedback but that decision seems done.

Have a great week
Lag/Lazyeye

Check out the Runesaber mount.

I've been very bad about posting this last month.  I have gone every other week for two weeks and I'm not sure I might keep up weekly... more on that in a moment.

      Last couple weeks of raiding has been interesting.  We have managed to get into Blackrock Depths and keep hitting along.  We are still only two bosses down though.  Our focus right now is Beastmaster Dumluck (Yes, I know that's not his real name) and we are getting close.  I'm hoping we will be building some momentum soon.. But we will see what happens.

      First, let's discuss Blizzards new mount shall we.  Twenty five dollars will net you this brand new shiny tiger.  I'm cool with that.  I think it's a spiffy looking mount.  I can see my Night Elves salavating at the idea of riding the purple beauty into battle.  I do have one issue with this.

       The mount had an emphasis on the fact it can fly.  Now, thats not a bad thing per se in a normal expansion situation, but since in Draenor we can't fly yet this seems something that wasn't thought through very well.  As a matter of fact to those who have been fighting for flying it's almost like  a middle finger up in the air.  I don't count myself amongst those individuals as I think it's time to flying, but I'm not going to cry or freak out if it doesn't happen.  I understand Blizzard's reasons for the no flying, and I respect it.

     I think this was just a case of people designing something, thinking it was really cool and not realizing the implications of releasing it right now.  No body is perfect and Blizzard has shown that while they come close at times, they aren't either.  Like I said, I love the look of this mount.  I'm not likely to plunk down twenty five bucks on it just because I normally don't buy mounts or pets, but it does appeal to me.  I think the only thing wrong here is the timing.

     Now if Blizzard has been smart they would have held onto this mount until they announced the release of flying in Draenor.  Whether that is in 6.2, 6.3, or 7.0 it would have been cool if they had done a campaign around the idea of, "Now that you can search Draenor's skies, do it on this shiny new mount!"  I think in that case it's a lost opportunity on their part.

     I really don't want to beat this into the ground though,  Five minutes on twitter and you can hear the screams of people critizing the introduction of this mount on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever social media site you like to use.

     The other point of news this week is we are discussing moving our raid times to Saturday/Sunday instead of running Tuesday/Wednesday.  The reason behind this is that this raid leader will be going back to school soon.  Yes, he will be hauling his old butt back into a learning enviroment pretty much killing his free time during the week.  Guild members can go to our site at Fear Itself and opine or vote on the raid night.  There has also been a point of discussion brought up here that is worth mentioning.

     When running current content people should be playing on their best geared/performing toon.  I agree with this, but have been lenient on it at times.  I will start enforcing this with a couple of exceptions.  You can bring a different toon based on these two standards.

1. Your toon does comparable dps/heals as the one your swapping with.  I have no issue with folks swapping to a different class, but do your work to get to the point where they can come in.  The reason I haven't been running on Lazyeye this expansion is that he just hasn't got the deeps Lag does right now.  Otherwise I would be swapping to ranged right now as we have had times where we are too melee heavy.

2.  You are assuming a new role.  If we need a healer and you swap, this is an obvious exception to me.  Same goes for tanking.  If we need a tank and you have one ready to go, as long as it's geared enough for the content I would rather have you swap than not have us run at all.

    These are the only two reasons one should swap.  If you do not meet either of these plan on being on your strongest toon.  Once we have things on farm we can then discuss switching and running alts.  This is something that like I said, I have been lax on, but not anymore.

    As a matter of fact I'm starting to build my shaman up so we have another healing option. However, I guarantee you won't see her in raid until she is ready to kick as much butt as Lag does.

Lag/Lazyeye.

6.2 is coming

Normally I would do a lot of what we did here, not this time.

      Because last week we didn't really raid.  Not enough peeps showed the first night, and we LFR'd the second night.

      This week was a little better.  We were a person short Tuesday night and managed to pull someone from the nether to come heal for us.  Because it was a mixed team of newness etc.. we just did Highmaul.  We didn't get started until late, and because of it, we only downed Khargath and The Butcher.  Better then nothing.

      Wednesday we managed to get into blackrock a little, but just managed to down Gruul.  We brought in the healer, this time on a hunter, again and had a relaxing fun night.  Yes, things can be fun and relaxing when not downing bosses.

      Right now honestly, I just want to build the team back up.  I think we may lose another toon or two before things are through but I'm hoping that with one person who came back from the nether, and this healer if he wants to keep putting up with us might give us the flexability we need to start working on progressing again.  I would love to feel the team was whole by the time Hellfire Citadel opens.

     Now, time to look at what's coming up in a month or two.

     First up is the end of the Legendary Ring quest.  We are supposed to get a proc that we can blow every X amount of minutes for added damage.  Here is the catch, if you blow it everyone else in the raid with a ring blows their proc at the same time.  I will be honest, I don't like this.  I see nothing but chances for abuse on this if your pugging or running LFR.  I would much rather just have another cool down that all players could use at their own discretion.  Either way, it's a thing and it will be interesting to see the end of the Gul'dan/Legendary story line.

      We are getting a naval yard in our garrison.  You will need about 6k resourced to build your ship yard up.  Your garrison will need to be level three as well.  The quests here will be used to open up Tanaan Jungle to you as you quest in to fight the new Fel Iron Horde?  Really not sure what we are calling them now.  But this will essentially be what you have to do to progress in the story of the expansion.  Once again I'm not fond of a gate that involves a lot of resources that may keep my alts from venturing into this.  Obviously, as stated before Tanaan Jungle will be open to players.

     Felblood will be replacing Savage blood as a building mat for professions.  So, don't sit on your Savage blood at this point.  Sell it or use it before the patch drops, because after that it may start being fairly useless.  My understanding is that the item upgrades from the Felblood skip the savage blood upgrades completely.  If that's the case Savage Blood will just be a bag space holder.

     We will be getting Mythic level dungeons.  Because nothing makes you hate the dungeons you were so glad to be done running (and for some reason they have been painful for me this Xpack) like having to run them again.  Only with them being harder.  Oh, and epic gear, epic level gear drops so you may have to run them if you want to gear up quickly.

     I am excited about Timewalking dungeons in retrospect.  We will be able to run select dungeons on level with current content, and the drops will be ilevel equivalent.    This means older gear with current stats.  Kind of pointless with transmog, but it will be fun to run some older content and have it feel like something other then a cakewalk.

    And of course there will be some minor class changes etc.. that I'm not going to list here.  If you want to know what is happening with your class just go hunt down the patchnotes on blizzard forums.  Or Blizzardwatch.com normally lists them in articles as they are updated every few days.

See you next week.

Lag/Lazyeye.

   

   

   

Hope and Hand Grenades.

I'm tired.

     Tuesday we went into Blackrock to kick some things around.  Once again due to situations I was tanking on Lag.  We managed to pull a person from the raid finder and downed Gruul.  Then we went and got destroyed by Hans and Franz.  Partially because of the Noobish tank.

     Wednesday didn't happen.  We were two folks short including a healer and I didn't have the heart to pull people in again.  So after a bit of just chatting and not finding anyone in our known associates we called it.

      I don't know what I really want to say here this week.  I'm feeling discouraged, but working on getting the guild built back to a point where we aren't short people for raiding.  When we started raiding this expansion we had about fifteen people.  Now we are lucky to field ten.  Frustrating but what do you do.

     Well, partially you recruit. I've been workng recruiting for Fear Itself on Zangarmarsh to help build ourselves up.  Did I mention Fear Itself on Zangarmarsh Alliance side is recruiting? The Raid leader is kind of a jerk, but otherwise I think you should all give that a chance.

     The simple truth is, we have been through this before and will go through it again.  Every time I question myself and whether I want to rebuild, or if it's time to let go.  I don't think it's time to let go yet.  Not this time.  I'm going to keep working to make this work.

     On the bright side we are starting to get a lot of information on Patch 6.2 which is now on Test Realms.  I haven't looked through it extensively but so far what little I've seen looks good.  Can you say shipyard for your Garrison?  I honestly hope this isn't the patch that brings the expansion to a close.  If it is then this whole thing might have flown by way too fast.  At the same time, what would you expect to see?

    I'm keeping it short and sweet this week.  Next week I'm give some opinions on 6.2 and what stuff looks good.  What doesn't.

Lag/Lazyeye.

I'm Trying Not To Be Angry.

But, really inside right now I kind of am.

       Tuesday we didn't raid.  Simply just didn't happen.  Only five folks showed up including me and we opted to just chat in vent and do our own thing.  I was not happy.

        Wednesday we went into Blackrock Foundry.  We were still short three folks, and two of them we found from friends on another realm.  One we used the raid finder tool to fill.  With the changes etc... and a new tank we didn't even down Gruul.  Raid was called short because one of the people had to log.  Once again, frustrating.

        When we started this expansion, we had about fifteen folks raiding with us.  Over the last three months that number has dwindled.  Now I'm looking at a drought for the first time since the beginning of Siege and I'm finding it maddening.  We are back to the people getting frustrated because we aren't progressing quickly, so they jump instead of working on getting one team to great.  Some of them leaving without even saying a word which is double maddening.  I can take it if someone wants to leave.  If they don't even have the courtesy to say goodbye?  It makes me a little mad.

       So, I have started working on recruiting again.  I have found myself despite me hate of the spamming add ons, using one since cross realm zones has pretty much defeated my normal method of flying through the world and messaging chat.  Hopefully I can bring in some new blood, and get some more bodies into the guild to liven things up a bit more.  I'll be honest though, we may be struggling for a while.  I know personally I am.

       This raid tier has put a big focus on personal responsibility.  That means one person standing in the fire can doom us all now.  This means the dynamic I have fought of half the raid doing their homework, and the other half just showing up and hoping the explanations are enough may not cut it anymore.  Folks may actually have to put some effort into preparation. 

       But this is all stuff I've said and that we've been through before.  As painful as it is if I continue to raid lead it's stuff we will go through again in the future.  Life and the grass is greener complex will always take folks from us, and we just need to learn to adapt.  The downside

       I was prepared to just keep working Blackrock at this point.  Now we may have to go back and do some Highmaul to gear folks as we bring new raiders in and up to speed.  So, we may be taking a step backwards in progression.

      So, If you are on Zangarmarsh or Hellscream and want a new home to try out, let Fear Itself Alliance side know.  Come in and be part of rebuilding a raid team.  If you do so, please be committed to being in raid weekly, ready to go.  If  you can't make raid on a weekly basis, don't plan on healing or tanking.  DPS spots I can fill.  The more critical spots I need to have folks there, because every time a tank doesn't show it effects everyone a lot more critically.

Lag/Lazyeye.

Support Classes Wouldn't Work in World of Warcraft.

But we will get into that in a moment.

      Tuesday was a little rough.  One of our regular tanks couldn't make it so Lag, myself ended up hanging up his two handed axe for the good old sword and board.  Of course I was a little rusty and it took us all night to kill Gruul, but kill him we did.  And much happiness followed.

      Wednesday we ended up being a little short and I ended up hitting the raid finder feature to get our last person.  We managed to snag a hunter and hopped in starting about half an hour late.  We went to work on Hanz and Franz and got them down after a couple of attempts.  (Partially because I wasn't tanking.  If I was it might have taken a bit longer...)  We then went on to Oregorger and promptly got destroyed a bit.  By the end of the night we were making progress, but he has a bit of work to go yet.

      Now, Blizzards April fools jokes actually got me a little this year.  In particular the T.I.N.D.R. add. I had forgotten what day it was, and after adding the selfie to the game, I didn't find this to be much of a stretch as an area for Blizzard to Foray into.  The thought of playing a love match game with your followers seemed like what one might have for a legitimate idea to get one more attached to those characters.

      But it got me to thinking about their past April fools jokes.  My favorite to this day was the addition of the Bard class.  They had taken some screenshots and married them with the interface from guitar hero to make it look like an interactive music type of class.  It was well done and since bard was a fun class to play elsewhere, as well as a common fantasy archetype.  It was obviously fake but a fun idea.  Since then I will not lie, I've kind of wanted to see a bard class in Wow.  However, I don't believe it will ever happen.

      Traditionally bards are support classes.  This means that they enhance the abilities of those around them, rather than dealing damage or healing themselves.  That isn't to say they can't fight, or couldn't heal if Blizzard had the notion but their strength is in helping the group over themselves.

       This does appeal to me.  I see a class that has three sets of spells to move to through the fight.  One set that makes the group deal more damage during light healing phases, one set to enhance healing when needed, and one to diminish the damage coming in from the enemies.  It could be fun to figure out when the best time to balance during a fight when the bard should focus on which of these three areas to focus.  Think of it this way, you're the bard and the tank pulls.  For the first few moments of the fight you enhance the damage going out.  Then, the boss does an ability that puts out a lot of damage so you swap to damage reduction rotation.  Then after the boss deals that damage you swap again to help the healers top of the life bars and then back and forth as needed during the encounter. 

       Alas, this will never happen because of one thing.  The trinity of Tank, Heals, and DPS is completely ingrained in the player base.

      If a Bard where part of a group where he increased the damage going out by 100k overall, there would still be someone who called him out for not topping DPS in his personal numbers.  Same with heals.  People would not understand that this character could help everyone else at the expense of personal statistics.  To many people would turn into rage machines that would ruin the experience for all.  Even if this was a minority of people it would poison the pool of those who wanted to play such a class.  Let's be honest too, as Monks have shown us, being introduced this late in the game doesn't bode well for player numbers.  Because while Monks are versatile and fun to play, they still are one of the lowest played classes in the game, if not the lowest.

     But how do you feel? Would you play a Bard? Or a similar class?  Is this a complete pipe dream or do you think Blizzard would consider something like this?  Or do the classes buff and support each other enough to make this a moot point?  If they were to do this what class would you like to play?

Lag/Lazyeye