The pursuit of goals. . .

Any meaningful activity must at some point include the pursuit of goals. If progress is being met, these goals will change over time. This is true of any activity in life, but in MMO's it is quite easily to quantify.

The reason why I started this post with generalities is that everyone's goals are different. There are many who measure their success by their level, gear level, amount of purple gear they have, their completion of the endgame content or amount of achievements they've completed. Greedy Goblin, seems to measure success by his ever increasing bankroll. I don't know how I would quantify my "success" at the game, or even failure if looking at it in those terms. I do know it is not the same measures most seem to attach.

I look at my characters as a community. They provide for each other, they craft for each other, store for each other. I occasionally craft things for guildmates, run others through instances and the like, but really I do things to further my alts. I don't really have a "main". That assumes I favor one character above the others which is more a factor of my mood or needs at the time than any real major preferrence. It's an almost perfect communism, each character performing as best they can for the good of the whole. I guess my end "goal" is a community of alts that is more than the sum of it's parts, able to fill whatever role I require at the time.

My pursuit of this goal has been very different than any other I have read about or known anyone to experience. I did not blaze through content to the level cap and then use my max leveled character to fund alts. I do have a highest level character, but I hit level 71 only yesterday (although at that rate I should get to WotLK's cap a bit faster than TBC's). I want to progress my whole stable of alts almost as one so that everyone is fairly even and I can best assess everyone's strengths and weaknesses. I want to grand master every profession (except maybe engineering, I am back and forth on that, although I may level it on the warrior for the sake of completion). I only have 2 epic speed mounts (one was the free DK one) and only one flying mount, not the epic variety. I have less than 1000 gold, not because I don't make gold, but I see it more as a means to an end, so I spend it rather liberally.

I used to think I wanted to see everything. After some consideration about Kara, I found that to not be the case. Kara was all in all not really relevant to me. Although Karazhan itself has a place in the Wow mythos, it's current inhabitants don't really. So the whole run to me seemed like nothing but the pursuit of gear. My goal now is to run only those elements that are inspiring. I want to experience Mount Hyjal and kill Illidan. I want to (maybe) kill Arthas. Maybe I will still be playing when we get to fight Deathwing. (As a side note, wouldn't it be cool to do a CoT instance with a pre and post metal plating deathwing?).

So I have goals, just like everyone else. However, my goals are both easier and harder to acheive. One of these days, I will have a goal which is not possible to attain. Maybe at that point I will be done with World of Warcraft.

Bdays, vacations, and holding grudges. . .

So I had four days off from work, which means lots of relaxing/playing of Wow and no blogging. I considered a few blog topics, but its hard to pull the trigger on that when I could be actually playing the game instead. Christmas was fairly uneventful, my birthday was yesterday, that went pretty well in spite of the hour we spent waiting for a table at BW3's (I wanted to watch the UFC fight, it did not disappoint, awesome PPV). I turned 29 and yes, I definately feel almost 30. My little brother who is 18 goes to the gym for an hour and runs 4 miles on a bowl of cereal and is fine, I go to the gym for 40 mins, eat tons of protein and today I am pretty darn sore. Oh well.

Over the vacation, I got a chance to do something I had as of yet never done. I ran Karazhan with my guild. The main tank in our guild was pretty disgruntled to see just about every piece of tank gear drop. I was slightly disgruntled to see the level 69 death knight rolling on all of it. Why the hell does a death knight need gear with shield block rating? THEY CANT EVEN USE SHIELDS!! But the other part of me said it's just gear and its not like I'm hurting in that area. Also since I really have no desire to run instances in the expansion and we have multiple blacksmiths, I can get plenty of crafted gear. It was pretty fun, I used my badges to buy the tanking ring, it was a pretty nice upgrade. I will probably add the enchanter only stam buff to it and have a nice tanking ring. Well, nice for low-mid 70's.

I did make a decision though based on how Kara went. Paladins are great as main tanks, UTTERLY WORTHLESS as off-tanks. As most of my abilities are mana driven and my mana regeneration is driven by being attacked, if I'm not being attacked, I can't do anything. I'm not going to drop my paladin, but I doubt he will be my first character to 80. That distinction will probably go to my death knight. Speaking of death knights, I am thinking of re-speccing at 70 as a hybrid blood/unholy. Just enough blood to get rune tap (an ability I currently lean on heavily when soloing. Vampiric blood then rune tap is a pretty powerful instant heal), then down the unholy tree to get a little bit better AOE damage and the zombie pet full time. Yes, it loses out on some of the better unholy abilities, but I find the health regen from blood to of more use to me. I think the best thing for me if I were to ever raid would be a caster with AOE, either a warlock (which I have now at 58 just doing tailoring, soon to add alchemy), or a Mage, or maybe my baby shadow priest. I'm still debating between priest and druid for my designated healer character.

The last major thing that came up this weekend: I saw someone walking around in the Robes of Arugal and it brought up some old memories. A LOOOONG time ago, I was on a Shadowfang Keep run with some guildies. This was on my warlock who was the 2nd character I ever made. We got through it and the robes dropped, I was ecstatic! I was the only cloth wearer in the group and for their level, they are the best robes in the game. Then the warrior in our group rolls need on them. A FUCKING WARRIOR NEEDED ON THE ROBES OF ARUGAL!!!!! Ever since then, my opinion of this player has been somewhere between hatred and severe distaste. He is in our guild, I believe he has raided, but he is on a three hour time difference from me and most of us in the guild so I rarely see him on. To him it may have been a minor thing, but to me it was a major slight that he never apologized for. It was a selfish, douchebag move, if it was merely a mistake, he would have said something when it happened. I admit, I have held a grudge and probably will continue to even if he apologizes. Anybody else have a long standing grudge over something like this?

We'll call this "miscellaneous". . .

A few things that bug me about Wow, but first a shout out. . .

Notice it for the name, read it for the content, WTFSpaghetti is a great blog, lots of content, not all of it is for everyone, but its a great read, check them out!

A couple things that have been bugging me recently:

Druid travel form - I have rolled 4 druids, all feral. With other characters having access to mounts at 30, I had assumed blizz would give it some kind of buff. I assumed wrong. The most reasonable would be to apply the +20% move from feral swiftness to travel form as well. 40% base, +20% = 60%, wouldn't you know it, thats the same speed as the basic mount. These calculations are tricky, arent they? Now why didnt blizz think of this.

Rin'ji - not quite sure on the spelling and I can't check any sites at work to provide specifics but does it bother anyone else that rinji is level X and the Axe of Rin'ji requires level X+1 to use? While that does make sense why he got captured by the alliance ("AHHH I have a superior quality weapon, if only I could use it to defend myself!!") This is a surprising lack of continuity for a company known for it.

Horde on Horde violence - Maybe its the quests I select, maybe it's the zones I am questing in. Other than Hillsbrad, I find myself primarily killing Hordies. I rarely if ever find myself killing Alliance. That I can recall, I have killed tons of trolls, and quite a few orcs (mostly in outlands). The only Humans I can recall killing in any number are Defias. I know by playing Horde, I am essentially playing the "bad guy" but come on!

Those are just a few of my little warcraft pet peeves. . .

no incentive for tanking less than 10 mans?

I tanked my first instance in the expansion over the weekend. This happened for a multitude of reasons, mostly I just havent had the desire to play my paladin. I like him just fine, I've just been more concerned with other things, and its pretty difficult to level 2 crafting skills without accompanying gathering (my miners are still in outlands). I've also taken a shine to my death knight who is incredibly fun to play and visually appealing. Anyways, I got about 3/4 of the way to 71, strapped on my defense gear and ran utgarde keep.

I definately have thoughts on that, among them the 3 second cast spell I'm supposed to avoid which either I was too tired to see coming or have no idea what to look for, I kept getting hammered, dying and the group wiping shortly thereafter. Up till that point, I thought the instance was almost too easy.

Another issue I had with the instance was with loot drops. Although I did manage to pick up a set of BOE blue cloth shoulders and a leather "of the bandit" helm, none of the boss drops were usable. I went to thottbot to check and see what kind of tanking equipment we can expect to get from instancing to find something peculiar. There is almost none. Most of the plate seems to be for DPS, there isnt even much with spellpower. Now, as a prot pally I generally prefer AOE grinding to instancing, better XP and the ONLY benefit from instances used to be improved loot. Take that away and why would I instance? Another wrinkle in the equation is the fact that the "best" pre-raid tank gear in the game is crafted - the tempered saronite set. This is not really giving me the desire to run out, grab pugs and instance.

As far as tanking skill goes, I have a touch over 10k HP, my def is about 501. Up until the final boss, I had no problems holding aggro, we had no wipes (we did lose a lot of the group on the 2 bosses in the middle but I doubt that was aggro related). I definately CAN tank, the skills are virtually identical to how I AOE grind and I'm pretty good at that. Any decent pally with a concept of a tank rotation should be able to hold aggro (holy shield, consecrate, hammer, repeat). What I'm really wondering is why I should bother. I could very easily go back and see the content with my guild once I've hit 80. So I am going to AOE till 80, quest, grind on mobs, enjoy the new tabard goodies and leave the tanking to DK's who can get a gear upgrade out of it.

Balance isnt just a druid spec. . .

I've been thinking about balance a lot lately. Not in the sense of being able to stay on my feet in less than ideal condition, and not even in the druid spec sense. The balance I'm talking about is balancing leisure time activities.

I am fairly blessed in that my job consumes a pretty set amount of time, allows me to pay my bills and have a fair amount of disposable income (I hate that term, sounds like I'm just throwing it away, which I guess I am, but still) for hobbies and such. However, the one thing I have a very finite amount of (like everyone else), is time.

I love Wow, if you're reading this blog, chances are you love Wow too. However, Wow is not the only thing in life I like to do, how do I balance my Wow time with my other activities. Well, scheduling is the first thing. I don't sit down to play Wow unless I have nothing else to do. I'm a realist, I can't restrict myself to just a half hour, the game doesn't work that way, I don't stick to it. My scheduled activities come first: if I have a hockey game at 9pm, I have to get to the rink by 8:30, I have to leave the house by 8, no ifs ands or buts. I can be replaced in an instance run, my team can't play without a goalie. And for those of you that follow hockey, teams like PuG goalies even less than groups like PuG tanks.

What it really comes down to is priorities. As I said before, I love Wow, you love Wow. The thing is each person has to decide what place Wow occupies in your life. I have very little desire to raid, I would NEVER characterize myself as a "hardcore" player, even though I play 20+ hours a week (I thought about that the other day, I do spend a lot of time playing). The difference, to me, for a "casual" player, Wow is fun, you enjoy it, but other things take preferrence. If I have to choose between Wow and hockey, I usually play hockey. I take time to practice guitar. I go to the gym. I occasionally spend time with my soon to be wife (she usually watches reality TV while I'm playing Wow).

For me, Wow is a hobby, one of many. Yes I spend plenty of time thinking about it, writing about it, and playing it, but I have other interests as well. My point to all this is that balance is good. Remember, even blizzard says: "Bring your friends to Azeroth, but remember to spend time with them outside it as well".

We're wearing the same tabard, who are you again?

I had intended to post a little more about death knight tanking, but something else came up. Our guild has been growing, and I find the changes interesting.

When we first formed the guild (ok, our GM did most of the work, but my name was on the charter), it was entirely people from work. Thats the mass affluent in Mass Affluent Slayers (we all worked in the mass affluent services dept of a major US financial institution). We all knew each other and it was like hanging out after work. I can't quite place exactly when it happened, but earlier this year, we expanded to include a group of players from Mississippi. Like any group that includes new members, it took a while to get used to everyone, but they fit in really well with our "core" group of players. They're all smart, knowledgable, helpful people.

Recently, our guild has expanded again. I have mixed feelings about this. It has nothing to do with newer people we gained. The ones I have talked to/run with are great. There are just a couple things seeming to happen that I have reservations about. Our guild has always been about the players because we pretty much all have multiple alts (I'm going to be running 5-6, thats cutting back for me). However, I feel like I just don't know a lot of the newer players. I don't know anything about them, I've never really talked to them. I'm sure they're nice people, they're still in the guild, but I like our guild to be like a neighborhood bar, everyone knows everyone. Another thing that is starting to happen is that the people with higher level characters are starting to be like a seperate group from those that don't. I wasnt around pre-expansion, so I don't know how things were with people powerleveling to 70 (I just had to deal with the bored ones ganking me while I tried to level). Hopefully, once people catch up, it will clear itself up and we will be back to "normal".

My other "issue" with the guild expansion is that I don't really know where we're headed. I know our GM wants to raid. I know we have a number of members who have raided in the past and probably will in the future with us or someone else. A lot of our "core" members ran Kara repeatedly. I looked at our registration and we have well over 25 players. We have enough tanks and heals that at 80, we could conceivably run 25 man content. I don't know how many people feel like me, I never intended to participate in 25 man raids. I was really happy when blizz said they were releasing 10 man versions of all the 25 man raids. I saw this as an opportunity to see all the content without the hassle of a 25 man raid. I had a ton of fun when we 6 manned Onyxia. There are players who want to be challenged, I am not one of those people. I pretty much just want to make alts, see everything and have the game on "easy mode". For me, it is supposed to be relaxing. In all honesty, I wouldn't even be playing horde OR PvP but thats where my friends are.

So to summarize, I don't really know where our guild is going. 25 mans? 10 mans? I guess we'll see. Part of my rationalization for having 5-6 alts: no matter what we do, I want to be able to contribute in some way. I have ZERO desire to tank or heal a big raid, too much chaos. But I can throw down with some caster or melee DPS. So I'll have Pally for tanking, Priest for healing, Warlock for caster DPS, Death knight for melee DPS, and a Warrior and maybe Druid because I rolled them and can't figure out what to do with them (I have always been feral as a druid, all 4 I've rolled, I accept that boomkin and tree are highly effective, but I have always been about style over substance, maybe I'll change my mind at some point).

This is me admitting I'm wrong. . .

So, I have been doing some deep thinking of late. I kind of feel like a hypocrite. On one hand, I talk/think about player skill and enjoyment of the game and doing what you want. On the other hand I pretty blatantly hand out judgement on various classes, specs and play styles. I think I owe the collected Wow blogsphere an apology.

In thinking about things, I missed the single most important attribute of Wow, the reason why it has 27 bajillion players and why it appeals to so many. There are multiple ways to do anything. I feel extra bad having missed this, me who experimented with almost every class and spec there is.

I would like to thank "anonymous" for the DK tanking comment that really sort of started this train of thought in motion. I still believe prot Paladins make the best tanks (I have to represent!), but I think what blizz has done recently is level the playing field a lot more. You don't have to min/max to have fun at the game. Hell, you don't have to do ANYTHING that isn't fun in the game.

I think one thing that is really easy to lose sight of is that all players' goals are not the same. I have no desire to progress past 10 man raids. They're the same content as the 25 mans, they're just easier and require less people. I just want to see everything. Blizz almost blatantly catered to me with this new expansion. I hate PvP but I tolerate it to play on a server with my friends. For some people, open world PvP, arena and BG's are why they play. Some people want to be really challenged with REALLY hard 25 man raid content.

To those of you who play hunters and enjoy it, have at it, enjoy your class, I will try to keep the "Huntard" comments to a minimum

I will try to stick to complaints about behavior and not generalize about classes.

I should know better than a lot of people, tanking is about organization and ability (ok, and a large part gear), and its results that matter, not the path.