Resetting My Fury Warrior.

I spoke with a guildie yesterday about how to improve my Warrior's DPS so I don't get laughed at quite so much, and maybe not get kicked from so many groups.

I used to pay attention to stats, but with the frequency that Blizzard changes them I gave up.

But I guess I'm ready to start taking the numbers more seriously. It doesn't hurt to improve a character and mine could stand to see lots of improvement.

Of course, the numbers are changing again with the Firelands Patch, but I could get a start on some things this weekend before it releases on Tuesday. I might have some more downtime from work after this coming week so I'll have time to work on the stats some more then.

Hit and Expertise seem pretty important. I don't understand the new stats yet, Expertise, Haste, Mastery...but I guess it's just time to crunch some numbers again. Then at least maybe my group pugs won't be so awful.

Soloing Old Instances in Cataclysm.

This is actually a fun venture. I wish the payoff was a little better, but I'm sure the developers would argue that they actually want you to work for your rewards, thus they nerfed the Magtheridon rewards when people found out that he was a great way to make oodles of gold.

Anyway, I have a gripe. Yes, I do.

I shouldn't have to be in a raid to solo an old raid instance.

I don't care about what the intent is, or anything that raiders or fanbois think is logical. If I'm the only one on in my guild at 3am and I want to solo an old, obsolete raid instance, I shouldn't have to wait until 6-8am for more guildies to come online just so I can ask them to make a raid with me just long enough for me to enter the instance.

THAT is what doesn't make sense.

The alternative, of course, is to either make sure no one solos old raids altogether, or to unlock them from solo play.

If the problem is that crafty players might find a way to take advantage of a current level dungeon and profit from it, then fix THAT. If all they have to do is get someone to make a fake raid with them, then why have the lock in place at all?

And I'm going to be honest. Sure I would like to finally experience some of those old stories, but I also want to farm some of these places as an alternative to grinding elementals or playing the auction house.

But I had fun doing the ones that I did. Found out I'm not ready for level 80 dungeons yet, but I can wait.

Still Griping About Crafting in Cataclysm.

When I began playing World of Warcraft, one of the draws for me was the concept of crafting weapons and armor. What I didn't understand for a long time though, was that in World of Warcraft, crafting gear is sort of awful. But I didn't know that for a long time. While leveling in Vanilla WoW I realized that there was just no way to keep up mining and blacksmithing at the same time. So I stopped gathering ore, which meant that I couldn't craft.

The Burning Crusade expansion was released while I was still leveling so I had an unbroken chain of quests from 1-70. Then I had to get keyed for Karazhan. Then, finally, I had to think about crafting and mining again.

Welcome to End Game!

I was kind of shocked, to say the least, when I realized how long it was going to take me to farm all those Primals. I could buy them, but then I needed to farm the gold somehow. At end game the only thing really worth money is raid buffs and crafting materials. So I needed to farm Primals so I could sell them and make gold for...Primals. Anyway, I also needed Nethers, and some enchanted item that cost a fortune.

I did not like this at all. But I did it because I wanted swords for raiding. The crafted swords were the best items you could get until you finished 10-man raids and went on to 25-man raids. It forever and I was mostly geared in Karazhan gear when I finally got my crafted tanking sword. I loved it.

Then my guild fell apart. And so did the next one. And the next.

What was the point? I had spent so much time to get these items only to find myself locked out of raiding. Guilds that had progressed further than mine didn't need another tank.

I didn't craft in Lich King.

Well, I maxed my Blacksmithing, but not for anything useful. I sold all my ore after that and made some nice gold...sort of.

But here I am in Cataclysm, actually trying to do some crafting and I'm just getting frustrated. I made a shield but I'm not using it. I made a set of bloodied gear, but it's designed for PvP and so I'm getting laughed at for wearing it in dungeons. I would like to make some Deathplate, but I need Chaos Orbs...which I have to suffer through groups for. Belt Buckle buffs are nice thought, but most raiding guilds have guildies making them for the guild already and don't need to buy them off the auction house.

I could buy the Deathplate form the auction house myself...but then why do I bother holding on to Blacksmithing if I'm just going to buy the gear?

Sometimes, it's just hard to like the game.

A Cataclysmic Update.

Had some time off from work and started playing pretty hardcore this past week. Soaked up my guild rep within 3 1/2 days. Cleared the Mt. Hyjal quests in preparation for the Firelands daily stuff. Started doing some more tournament dailies to see if I can still get that Argent gryphon mount...or maybe get the alliance pets. I want the upcoming Celestial Dragon achievement reward, so i've got a ways to go to get 150 pets...at 78 so far. Been knocking out some old dungeons for achievements. Even did a few Cataclysm heroics; got booted from three runs but one run was finished and I got two new pcs of heroic gear and a Chaos Orb.

Going back to work in a couple of days though so my game time will disappear again. Gonna make a couple more posts on my thoughts while playing this past week.

Stuff to Find

On occasion I gripe here about some of the issues I have with World of Warcraft. One of those issues is the lack of stuff to do outside of questing and raiding. But I've had a lot of difficulty actually pinning down what I am missing in the game, so I've sort of been all over the map with my complaints.

I think I've got it now though. Maybe.

There's nothing to find in the game.

This isn't an exploration issue, although it can easily tie into that.

It's more about rewards, and how they are given out.

All the gear in the game is treated like a reward. But the way it is handed out is rather uneventful. I've been doing some Tol Barad daily quests. I'm not sure what I want first. I thought I might want the two-handed sword, but I think the Firelands dailies will have a better one. So I might just go with a mount instead. I still need about 48 tokens, so I've got some time left to grind. I also wanted a mount from the tournament in Northrend, but I fell short after using my tokens for swords just before Cataclysm came out. I might go back some day, but there are new mounts to grind for if that's what I want.

Almost every nice sword (weapons in general, but I'm a sword guy) can only be obtained by earning tokens in battlegrounds, arenas, or raids.

I'm currently leveling up a mage. Just dinged 49 last night. She been using the same gear for about ten levels. Just dumps the other stuff at the vendors. Even gear that might be a slight upgrade because I would have to trade crit bonuses for other stats.

And that's all she will do for the most part of her existence. Quest and sell or upgrade from rewards.

There is nothing for her to go out and find. No quest chain for her to cross the world and actually find something at the end. Every quest in the game requires you to visit someone and pick an item to sell or use.

Quests in World of Warcraft have changed a lot over the years. There are a lot of fun and dynamic quests that are anything but boring. But the way to get items has not changed, with the exception of more non-tradeable currency that makes players work harder for their rewards.

But, for me, it doesn't matter how fun a quest is. I want more variety in how I receive my gear. There are a lot of ways to purchase gear, lots of currencies. But there is so little to find outside of vendors.

If Blizzard wanted to add a few lines of collectibles in the game, and make them interesting to find, I would do that. Pets and mounts are raining from the sky though, so it would have to be something else. There's a rocky spider pet in Deepholm that is interesting to get. It relies on a lot of chance though. You have to get the right quest, you have to find the "mother" at the right time...I don't know if the pet is a chance drop or guaranteed.

But with that reward, you don't actually know the pet is available, or that the big spider even spawns there, unless you peek around for secrets online. And sure, any treasure will have it's online sources, but I would still like to be able and go find more stuff in the game.

That's why I think a Farmville-esque experience in the game would open up all sorts of new opportunities in the game. We could go out searching for rare seeds and tools. Not just earn currency for them somewhere, but actually go out and find them.

You know, stuff to do to find stuff to get.

Vanilla Memories

I stumbled across a discussion over at Wowhead about proving you played in Vanilla WoW rather than making up some false facts to pretend that you did. I didn't realize it mattered so much. But the topic is around 4-5 pages so far. I read through the first two and decided to have my own hike down memory lane.

There really isn't much to it though.

Sure, I played in vanilla. I was still leveling when original Naxxramas was released. I was also still leveling when Burning Crusade came out. So while a lot of people might have been grinding away at odds and ends at level sixty, I had an unbroken leveling path to 70. Picked up a Sergent title along the way, but I really didn't earn it. PvP in Southshore was already an old widow's tale when I started playing, so it must not have lasted very long...maybe 6-9 months.

Funny enough, even back then, whenever someone pulled out a hard-to-come-by whelp to show off their dedication and hard work (I spent the best part of twenty levels farming the crimson whelp) someone else would pull out a collector's pet from the core game's collector's edition. I always felt like my whelps were a little less stunning when that happened.

I remember thinking that the paladin quest mount was only second to the warlock summoning mount. Why didn't my warrior get a cool mount like those?

At the risk of making this post a comparison of old vs. new, I think this is as good a place as any to stop. It was a long time ago. I'm not really any better a player now than I was back then. In fact, I think I knew more about dungeons and raids back then (I wasn't a raider) than I do now.

It was just different.

It was a first love. You never forget about your first love, no matter how much better your later loves might be.

A Wall of Text for Larisa

This is a story to Larisa of The Pink Pigtail Inn blog. She writes a lot of personal stuff about her adventures (drama?) in The World of Warcraft and recently she posted about some guild issues that seriously affected her pleasure in the game. Chances are that I don't have many readers (if any) and the few I might have probably read her blog already. But, I felt the need to write this for her. I think she would appreciate it.

Dear Larisa,

Living in an online world has proven...interesting for me. I kept a safe distance from online games for a long time, mostly because I grew up with pen and paper games and then solo box games. Mostly, I couldn't fathom paying a subscription every month of a single game when I was buying several a year for upwards of fifty bucks each. And not only paying every month, but also for the online connections? I thought these people were insane.

One day I began working with someone who was playing World of Warcraft and it was all he could talk about. We had computer access at work and every chance he had he was showing me the wiki pages for the lore in the game and screenshots. After a few months I finally broke down and accepted a guest pass from him and bought the game.

It changed my life.

All of my other hobbies were forgotten. I stopped buying other games. Soon enough I had deleted all of my current games from my computer. I even built a computer from scratch (with little knowledge of what I was doing) so that I could play the game on max settings.

I began playing a few weeks or so before Naxxramas first appeared in the game and shortly after The Burning Crusade was released I was raiding. It was small guild that was built from veteran players who were trying to go from Karazhan to 25-mans so they made two groups of ten, hoping to merge them and pug the rest if they needed to. The guild broke within weeks of me joining but my group (Group Two) formed a new guild. We rarely did a 25-man run, but we learned to really love Karazhan. We had a lot of fun in the Gnome Pawn Cartel. Got to know each other really well.

But we had some issues. We wanted to do those 25-mans regularly. I wasn't confident of my abilities as the off-tank but rarely had the opportunity to really challenge myself as a main tank. My lack of confidence was noticed and other people were brought in when our maintank wanted to do dps instead. I did well enough, but I never felt I was as good as I could be.

Eventually this guild also disbanded. Many of the members either quit the game or changed servers.

I had raided with them for over a year and suddenly felt like something had been wrenched from inside of me. They were faceless friends but they were the only friends I had besides my own family.

And now I was alone. Guildless and friendless.

I soloed for a few weeks then joined another guild. This one actually put me through a test of sorts and I passed. Suddenly I felt good about my skills. I was upping my game because I was trying to impress strangers who had something I wanted, not just playing with friends. I was still off-tanking, but more than once I saved the raid from a wipe and it felt great.

Then they merged with another guild and no longer needed me.

Alone again.

I soloed Wrath of the Lich King.

I was lonely and took a lot of long breaks. Facerolled a few heorics towards the end of the expansion.

I finally joined another guild a few months before Cataclysm was released but I didn't raid with them. I just wanted to see some friendly chatter in my chat box.

I'm still playing a solo game, but I'm slowly getting to know some people in the guild...sort of. I've done some heroics but my confidence in group settings is low. I'm taking another break now.

See, that first raiding guild was special. We connected with each other. It felt like a second family. It may be my fault that I haven't invested emotionally in this new guild in all this time, but it takes a lot of energy. They have a core raid group and their own little group clicks and I don't want to force my way into those little circles. I especially don't want to hear anyone tell me I'm not good. I'm not ready to invest enough energy into the game to be good again, to get to know my character intimately again (Dear, Blizzard, stop making my toon a stranger to me, please).

The point of this wall of text?

To say that I am really greatful that you were able stay with your guild. You seem to be a sensitive and emotional person, like myself, and it hurts to have to start over. WoW may be fore friendly to solo players these days, but it still has a long way to go if it really wants to go in that direction. If you don't have friends to group with on a regular basis, it is a lonely game.

Good for you.

Thanks for sharing.