Musings on those who will start playing after Cataclysm

A while ago, I watched a video about the changes made to the starting zones in Cataclysm, and I was pretty blown away by what I saw, even though the changes made to the zone I cared about (Dun Morogh) weren't that extensive. Now, I only watched the changes to Dun Morogh and the troll starting experience, because just watching Dun Morogh made me feel like I was spoiling the new content for myself, and that's something I don't want to do. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that Dun Morogh has changed in some noticeable ways.

But that got me thinking: I could appreciate these changes because I am intimately familiar with Dun Morogh (I have rolled an irresponsibly large number of alts), and those players who play through Dun Morogh after it has been affected by the Cataclysm will be able to appreciate the changes because they'll remember the old Dun Morogh. But what about the players who start playing after Cataclysm comes out? They'll come into this world and only know it by what they see, and what they see will be a different world from what we think of as "The Azeroth". They'll know nothing of the old world other than what they may hear from us older players. While they probably won't appreciate what we had to go through before the old world became as good as it will be when Catclysm comes out (any older person will tell you that the younger generation never fully appreciates all that the older generation had to go through and how easy the younger generation has it), a more pressing question comes to mind when I consider this next batch of players.

What if they don't understand what is going on? After all, we know why the world is going to look the way it does (massive dragon resurfacing) because we have been keeping track of news about the expansion pack, but what about these players? They will come into a world in chaos, a world that has literally been torn apart. Will they understand what they see, or will it just be too confusing for them?

I don't worry about this, though, because, though the world these players come into will be a world in turmoil, that's no reason to think they won't understand what is going on. It's not like we came into a perfect world, either. When I rolled my first human alt, the nearby forest was overrun with wolves, as well as rat-like creatures that seemed unnaturally fixated on candles. There were also other humans in the nearby grape fields who were antagonistic towards the humans who had given me my orders and attacked me on sight (remember way back when?). These situations could have raised all sorts of questions in my mind, but I figured there was a good reason for them and forged on anyways. Sometimes the quests I went on provided me with my reason for killing the enemies I was killing, and through those quests, I pieced together the expansive story of the world around me.

Now, granted, the troubles that plague Northshire pale in comparison to the troubles that will plague Azeroth when Deathwing resurfaces, which could mean that my analogy doesn't mean much. However, the troubles that plague Northshire now pale in comparison to the troubles the face Azeroth now, what with the Lich King ready to destroy us all. Yet we aren't introduced to the Lich King in the beginning. We first see his scourge, then when we get to Northrend, we can slowly paint a picture of who he is through the quests we do and the aftermath we see him leave, until we meet him during various quests and instances, and some of us eventually go into Icecrown Citadel and take him down. I imagine Deathwing and the cataclysm will be built up in the minds of newer players in a similar way. Quest givers will simply mention his existence and the Cataclysm as if the new players already know about it, and they'll be able to piece together everything that happened as they play, just as we did.

The "naked" button; more useful than you think

I dun goofed up.

What you see above is a recreation of what happened to me when I logged in on December 8th, 2009, the day patch 3.3 was released. Because so many people had logged in, eager to try out the new dungeon finder, my high-population realm was lagging like I had never seen it lag before. I, too, wanted to try the new dungeon finder, but I had the misfortune of leaving my character in Dalaran before the downtime for the patch. The lag was so slow that I decided to fly down to Crystalsong Forest, where there are never any other players, hoping the lag there would not be so bad. I made the ill-advised decision to dismiss Swift Flight Form, hoping to cast it again once I was closer to the ground, as I had done so many times before without incident.

This time, however, things were different. I suspected that the lag would make my recast take a while, but when I started to hit that button to recast Swift Flight Form, my druid kept falling. And falling. And falling. I knew, at that point, that he was going to die, so I started spamming my "naked" button, which removes all of my druid's armor. What happened next was quite tense. My druid kept falling and landed on the ground in Crystalsong Forest, where he stood for about fifteen seconds (did I mention that the lag was really bad?). He couldn't move or do anything; he just stood there... with all of his armor still on. However, much to my relief, after those fifteen seconds were up, a naked Night Elf crumpled to the ground in front of me. I did have to run back to his corpse, but I had saved myself a few gold on the repair bills.

I have had quite a few incidents like this where stripping my character saved me money on my repair bills after dying from a fall I thought I could make, then realized mid-descent that I wouldn't. I know it seems like something that wouldn't be all that useful, but you don't realize its utility until you need it. I may have only used it three or four times to save myself repair bills since I made it, but that's because I can cast Swift Flight Form while falling in most places; a class that can't re-mount mid fall would probably get much more use out of a "naked" button than I do. And let's be honest, that isn't the only use for a button that strips your character of all his/her armor. ;-)

In all seriousness, if this idea appeals to you, then let me tell you how to make such a button for your character. There are certainly addons that will allow you strip your character at a moment's notice, but this method doesn't need to be updated after every patch.

1. If you haven't activated the Equipment Manager yet, do so.
Go to the game menu (escape key), then interface, features, and make sure Use Equipment Manager is checked.

2. Remove all of your armor.
There's no easy or fast way to do this (that is, until you finish this process). Just open the character screen and manually move all of your armor from your avatar to your bags. If you are a bit prudent and don't want to totally strip your character when you use this button, then just remove the armor pieces which have durability, while leaving your tabard, cloak, shirt, and jewelry (you will need a tabard if you don't want your character to be functionally naked when you use this button). This has the added benefit of leaving you with more health when you return to your corpse, since the stamina on your gear will increase your maximum health pool and the amount of health you have when you return to your corpse is a percentage of your health pool, so you won't need to heal yourself as much when you come back to life. Note that if you choose to go this route, you will need to update your button every time your tabard, shirt, clock, or jewelry changes, whereas a purely "naked" button never needs to be updated.

3. Save this "set".
Go to the equipment manager (it's the little button in the top left of the character screen) and click "Save". Give your nakedness a title (I went with the very creative name, "naked". You can use a name like "Panic Button" if you don't want such an obscene title.) and an icon (I went with the icon of the hunter's pet ability Dust Cloud, since it's just a bare face, which I felt captured the way my druid would look after I used this button.). Then click "Okay".

4. Drag your new "naked" button to your action bar.
Place it somewhere where you can click it easily, but you aren't likely to click it by accident. I keep an empty space between my "naked" button and any other buttons on my bars, on both sides, to avoid clicking it accidentally while trying to click something else.

And you're done! Now you too can save five gold when you least expect it. Yes, you will need to do this for each of your characters that you make, so I recommend you do it early on (as in levels 1-10), while you have less armor to remove. Just remember, though you do need to set it up each time you re-roll a character, it's more reliable than an addon since it's an official feature of the game.

When patience pays off

A while ago, I wrote a post about how to using waiting around in Dalaran as a way to earn the achievement Higher Learning. Well, after putting my own strategy into effect, I have done it, and I am now the proud owner of a Kirin Tor Familiar.

Me and my familiar in front of the Dalaran bank.

Me and my familiar in Archmage Vargoth's quarters.

Yes, I'm looking at you.

A closer look at the familiar.

The familiar showing off. I guess I'm supposed to be intimidated...

Guild perks and the death of the independent player

I wasn't against the idea of guild perks when they were first announced. Back then, I was under the impression that they would only improve content that was actually done in a guild, like raids and rated battlegrounds, and only have effects that solo players wouldn't feel the lack of. Once the guild perks were announced, some of them did fit this mold, including Cash Flow, which deposits money equal to 10% of money you loot from enemy corpses into your guild bank, and Guild Mail, which makes in-game mail sent between guild members arrive instantly. However, the potency and scope of some of these bonuses blew me away. A few highlights:

-Reinforce (Rank 2): Items take 10% less durability loss when you die.
-Hasty Hearth: Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes.
-Working Overtime: Increases the chance to gain a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%.
-Everyone's A Hero (Rank 2): Increases Heroism points gained by 10%.
-Honorable Mention (Rank 2): Increases Honor points gained by 10%.
-Bartering (Rank 2): Reduces the price of items from all vendors by 10%.
-Bountiful Bags: Increases the quantity of materials gained from Mining, Skinning, Herbalism, and Disenchanting by 15%.

My initial idea of guild perks as something that would only benefit group content done with a guild was blown out of the water. These bonuses are not only applicable to content done outside of a guild (solo-ing and PUG'ing), but they are greatly helpful in that content as well. Which is why I am now wary of them.

You see, I am a guild-less player. All of my characters are guildless, main and alts, and before these perks were announced, I saw no reason to change that. For one thing, my playing is quite inconsistent. I've been known to not play at all for a week or two, then jump back in to WoW as if I had never stopped. The fact that I also don't enjoy raiding gives me little reason to want to join a guild, and guilds little reason to want me to join. All of the content that encompasses the majority of my playtime (solo-ing and heroics) can either be done alone or PUG'ed, so when my last guild kicked me for inactivity (another one of my breaks combined with me not signing up for the raids anymore), I let it go and didn't bother to look for a new one. Of course, now I'll have to look for a guild. I'd have to be mad to be willing to pass up on those bonuses up there. 15% more herbs and enchanting mats? 10% more heroism points? 50% reduction on the cooldown of my hearthstone? How could I pass those up?

Now, I could go on about how this change is another way WoW is shafting solo players, but solo-ers likely don't have any inherent hesitation about joining a guild for these bonuses. No, the inclusion of these guild perks instead targets another group of players, and makes that group into second-class citizens: the lone wolves, the independent players, the players whose alliances last only as long as the dungeon or quest they are PUG'ing (as well as those who roleplay as that type). We may be rare, but we exist, for all of the reasons I mentioned above: some of us don't play consistently enough to be worthy of membership in a guild, and some of us just don't run content that requires or is improved by membership in a guild.

Now, don't get me wrong. I know exactly why Blizzard is implementing these bonuses, and its a goal that I support. They want membership in a guild to be more meaningful, to prevent people from guild-hopping when they don't like a guild for petty reasons, and also, I suppose, as a way of rewarding guild longevity. Now, if these bonuses were limited to bonuses that would be helpful during group content, I would support them whole-heartedly, and they would still accomplish the above-stated goal. However, with the bonuses coming out as stated above, I have to wonder: does Blizzard want all players to be a guild, regardless of personal reasons for not joining one? It seems an unlikely possibility, but the direction some of these bonuses have taken leads me to no other conclusion.

My best guess is that Blizzard wants players in guilds because a guilded player is less likely to stop playing. After all, what's to stop a guildless player, like me, from canceling his/her account when he/she (alright, from now on, male pronouns will be used to refer to both genders collectively) gets bored or frustrated with the current content, then starting it again when Cataclysm or the next patch comes out? Nothing. However, if that player is in a guild, that provides many compelling reasons for him to keep playing. If that guild is a raiding guild, he risks losing his spot, or just letting his guild down, if he stops playing. If that guild is just a social guild, that socializing could be what keeps him playing, and thus paying. As I said in my post on WoW's addictive elements, Blizzard has a vested interest in keeping us playing as they develop new content, which is part of the reason they make the game so addictive in the first place. Perhaps keeping players in guilds is part of that goal as well; to keep up playing, even when the game is boring.

I know, I know, another one of my conspiracy theories. To placate those who will inevitably call it such, I'll admit that they might just be implementing these because they want players to experience the joys of being in a guild, and some might need a little encouragement to do so, but if the joys of being in a guild aren't enough motivation for players to join and stay in one, then players shouldn't be coerced into being a part of something that isn't rewarding for them.

On the denial that mana will matter

From when Blizzard first announced that their intention for the Cataclysm healing design was to make mana management matter again and make using the right heal at the right time more important than keeping raid members topped of, I knew the playerbase would resist it. I had a feeling that players would be hesitant to give up their limitless mana pool, in spite of the downsides that healing design has brought on the community. There's something about human nature that just isn't willing to give up the luxuries one has already obtained, even if the cost of those luxuries makes them not worth having. That's why so many lawyers and other professionals stay in jobs they hate when those jobs pay well (I'm only targeting lawyers here because I know many who say they hate their job); they have adjusted to a certain lifestyle that those jobs make possible, and thus they stay in them, even though they dread going to work each day. I'm sure there are marriages that continue to exist for the same reason.

Well, we players have a similar relationship with mana and healing. The luxury, in our case, is mana pools that never seem to run out, no matter how much overhealing we do. The downside, then, is boss attacks that do ridiculously large amounts of damage and require split-second timing of heals, for without those elements to add challenge, healing would be a brainless activity, a boring one that wouldn't actually require anything of the player. Now, I'm sure people have differing opinions on whether huge damage spikes are a fair price to pay for practically limitless mana, but it seems that Blizzard believes it is not a fair price to pay, which brings us to this quote from Ghostcrawler on the official forums.

Q u o t e:
If you have to use your inefficient heal too much, you will go OOM.
If you take too much damage, you force your healers to use their inefficient heals more.

Avoidance reduces damage. Stamina does not.

"I think the issue is that some players are rejecting the notion that mana will ever matter, in which case there is no reason to approach surviving as a tank any different than you do today. There's not much we can do to disabuse anyone of that notion until they see the content." -Ghostcrawler (source)

It's easy to follow Ghostcrawler's logic here: The reason stamina is so emphasized by tanks is because a larger health pool gives healers more time to react, and healers need that time to react because boss attacks do so much damage, and boss attacks do so much damage so the boss fights can actually be challenging for healers, and the boss fights wouldn't be challenging for healers without those large attacks because healers have a largely limitless supply of mana. Because Blizzard wants to change the third link in that chain, they have to change the fourth, and by doing that, they will change the second link, and thus the first. All that is a long way of saying that avoidance will be more important in Cataclysm than it is now because of the new healing design.

So, why the hesitation to accept this design change? Perhaps players see their effectively limitless mana pools as a necessity when they consider the fact that Wrath of the Lich King bosses have high spike damage. It's hard to worry about using the most mana-efficient spells when taking the time to consider which spell is right for the job could result in the tank dying, after all. As such, rather than recognizing the spike damage as a result of the large mana pools, they see it as the other way around, that they focused on having high mana and regeneration so they could use their inefficient but powerful spells to heal through the spike damage. This is all conjecture, mind you; I could be completely wrong about this, and would appreciate some affirmation or denial from those who do raid.

However, what I do know for a fact is that the players that are still holding on to the ideas of high health pools and limitless mana for healing are holding on to crutches used to overcome challenges that won't exist once Cataclysm hits. Perhaps this is out of habit, or perhaps it's due to comfort with the familiar, or perhaps these players are afraid to give up the tools they need now. Whatever the reason, I have a feeling this trend will continue into Cataclysm. Tanks will gem and enchant for stamina, healers will gem and enchant for spirit, and who knows? Maybe it will work. Maybe what the tanks lose in avoidance, and thus gain in damage taken, the healers will gain in gross healing output as their super high regeneration allows them to heal more without running out of mana. Then again, by focusing on regeneration, healers will be losing out on having higher healing-per-mana, so that added regeneration may not be enough to make up for the extra damage taken by tanks, especially considering that healers will be healing everyone else, as well. We'll just have to wait and see.

Suggestions for Cataclysm's Druid talents

A while ago, Blizzard announced their intentions to trim down the talent trees for Cataclysm, making them smaller, while also making each talent choice more fun and meaningful. I can't find the exact quote, but the announcement, or one of the same topic, mentioned that, these days, we have to take quite a few boring talents just to open up the more interesting talents, the ones that will actually change the feel of our class, and Blizzard wants to change that. This is a design philosophy that, assuming they can pull it off, I am totally in support of; I'm willing to trade off the excitement of getting a talent point each level for making each talent itself more exciting, and after looking at the new trees themselves, the current trees seem bloated and cumbersome by comparison.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the first drafts of the new talent trees have come out, and thus we can finally give our thoughts on them, and I intend to do so right now. Specifically, I'll be giving my thoughts on the Druid talents, since that's the class I play. I'll be skipping over issues discussed in the latest developer chat, like the fact that the first tier of the feral tree only has two talents, the fact that some talents had their maximum number of points one could spend in them reduced without the effects of their ranks being increased, the loss of the shapeshifting cost reduction from King of the Jungle, the the fact that Primal Fury no longer causes critical strikes of combo-point generating abilities to give and combo point, or the fact that Swiftmend is gained from taking Restoration as our main spec and still present as a talent within the tree (no pun intended) itself. All of these issues were acknowledged during the developer chat and are scheduled to be fixed. So let's focus on the things they didn't mention. Also, because I dual-spec and feral/resto, I won't be giving my thoughts on Balance, since I have no useful thoughts on Balance to contribute. Sorry, boomkins.

-Move Furor into the Feral tree.
This long-suffering Restoration talent needs to be put out of its misery and resurrected as a Feral talent. As it stands, this talent is one of three in the first tier of Restoration, yet serves no purpose for healers. There aren't any other talents any deeper in the Resto tree that Balance or Feral Druids would want (except maybe Perseverance, which could be moved up a tier), so why have this here? It forces Resto druids to take Blessing of the Grove and Natural Shapeshifter, the former of which is pretty underwhelming as a healing talent, the latter of which is greatly underwhelming. It would be far better to put a talent that all Restoration druids would find useful in Furor's place (Genesis, perhaps?)

-Blessing of the Grove should include Mangle (Cat)
As it stands now, Blessing of the Grove increases the damage of Claw and Shred, yet does not increase the damage of Mangle (Cat). However, Mangle (Cat) is designed to flat-out replace Claw. It costs the same amount of energy, adds a combo point like Claw does, and causes much more damage, in addition to making bleeds cause more damage on the target. There is, quite simply, no reason for a Feral Druid to use Claw, so if this talent is going to increase the damage of Claw, it should also increase the damage of Mangle (Cat), or else Claw's inclusion will be completely meaningless.

Now, some might argue that, because one needs to be spec'ed as Feral Combat to acquire Mangle, and thus not all druids have it, the inclusion of Claw isn't completely meaningless. But here's the thing: Balance and Restoration Druids have no reason to ever enter Cat Form and fight their enemies with melee attacks. Balance has all of its offensive spells to help it fight, and if a Restoration Druid needs to cause some damage, it's going to do so with Balance spells, as well. After all, any Restoration Druid will have gear with intellect, and thus spellpower, rather than gear with agility, and thus attack power, so the damage of their Balance spells will gain a bonus from their gear, while the damage of their Cat Form attacks will not. The only Druids that would conceivably use Claw are Druids with agility on their gear, i.e. Feral Druids, and they get Mangle right off the bat. In fact, Claw is looking to be pretty useless in general now...

-Fury of Stormrage should be retooled to be more useful.
One of the things the developer chat revealed was that Blizzard wants to give healers a way to cause damage when they don't have to do any healing, as a way of getting some mana back. That's why Restoration Shamans have the spell Telluric Currents. If that's the way that they want offensive abilities to work in the hands of healers, then Fury of Stormrage can't remain in its current form. As it stands, Fury of Stormrage gives Druids the occasional opportunity to use an offensive spell (Wrath, specifically) without using mana to do so. However, there are no benefits to the Druid himself for using Wrath under these circumstances, and the Druid needs to work the casting of Wrath around his healing, or else he risks wasting the proc. While homogenization isn't necessarily a good thing, I'd much prefer a talent that resembles Telluric Currents to the current incarnation of Fury of Stormrage.

-Rend and Tear should increase the damage of Mangle on bleeding targets.
I've never been a fan of Rend and Tear, and have always viewed it as a talent that is only useful to Cats doing raid DPS. Maul doesn't account for nearly enough of my threat to justify taking it as a Bear tank--and it won't account for much more when Cataclysm comes--and the only time a Cat uses Shred a lot is while DPS'ing a raid boss. While solo-ing, Mangle is used much more, and on trash, Swipe is used much more, though that will probably be changing come Cataclysm. Regardless, R&T is only useful to Cats during raiding, but in Cataclysm, it will be a prerequisite for the Bear ability Pulverize. Since talent points are going to be even more scarce in Cataclysm than they are now, I'm really not comfortable with needing to spend so many talent points on a talent that is only useful to Cats in order to get a Bear Form ability. However, there is a simple way to remedy this situation: make R&T increase Mangle's damage as well. Not only will this make it a useful talent for Bears (for whom Mangle accounts for a good portion of their threat), but it will also make it useful for Cats outside of raids.

-The second tier of Restoration needs another talent.
As it stands now, not only does the top tier of Restoration only offer two marginally useful talents for trees, the second tier doesn't even offer five points for those spec'ing purely for higher healing. As it stands, Restoration Druids can put three points in Perseverance and three in Improved Rejuvenation. While some Restoration Druids probably appreciate the opportunity to take some defensive talents, unless wide-spread magic damage is going to be a huge part of the Cataclysm raiding scene, there just isn't enough choice in the second tier of Restoration.

-Nom Nom Nom [name not final, unfortunately] is too specialized to be worth two points.
Currently, Noms has the benefit of allowing Cats to keep one of their longer lasting bleed effects active on their target as it nears death, which is beneficial, considering that as a raid boss gets closer to dying, most Cats likely start using Ferocious Bite instead of Rip, hoping to avoid the lost damage that would result from Rip not lasting its full duration. However, this talent will only provide its bonus during the last minute or two of a boss battle. After all, Cats don't use Rip on trash, and even if we get long-living trash in Cataclysm, the limited health range of this talent means Ferocious Bite may only benefit from it once per a fight, twice, at most. And yet, we are forced to spend two points to get that limited effect, and with points much scarcer in Cataclysm, that's not something I'm comfortable with Now, if they made it so that this talent applied at all health levels, then I could see it being worth taking.

-Bring back Omen of Clarity
Seriously, where did it go? It was here one expansion, and gone the next. That free ability every so often is an important part of the Druid's identity. I suppose they may have gotten rid of it because it was pretty much a mandatory talent for every druid, yet was also in the third tier of restoration, which is now inaccessible to all non-Restoration Druids. Say... perhaps Omen of Clarity could be the replacement for Furor. Just turn it into a multi-point talent, add the phrase "(higher than rank 1/2)" after the word "chance" in ranks two and three, et voilà!

Real ID and the future of WoW

Thinking, always thinking... and thinking alone, mind you.

It has now been a week since the most worrisome saga in WoW's history ended, and I will now discuss what I intended to discuss when I first began writing my last post, Disabling Real ID for great justice. If you are sick of hearing about Real ID, then you'll be happy to know that after this post, I won't touch the topic again unless some new development makes it worth writing about; I promise. Also, in this post, rather than talking about Blizzard's plans when I talk about the development of Real ID, I'll be talking about Activision-Blizzard's plans, because the direction that Real ID is taking may not be in Blizzard's hands.

Allow me to start with a confession: in case you couldn't tell from my repeated championing of the soloist cause, I'm an introvert. For those who don't know, and for those who need a reminder (as non-introverts often do), introverts are people who find time spent with other people tiring, and the more people they spend time with, the more tiring it is. Introverts need alone-time after spending time around other people because quiet contemplation and self-meditation is how we re-energize. Conversely, extroverts, the opposite of introverts, get their energy out of social interaction and find time alone tiring. Leave an extrovert alone for a hour or two and he'll reach for his cell phone; put an introvert in a crowd for an hour or two and he'll be looking for a spot where he can spend some time to himself to recuperate. (If you want to know more about introversion, Jonathan Rauch's "Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group" is an excellent write-up on the subject.)

Why do I bring my introversion up? Because, after reading Psychochild's post on the Real ID issue (which I found on Larisa's blog), I realized that a good deal of the angst we had over the Real ID fiasco could have come from our introverted tendencies. As Psychochild puts it, the internet has traditionally been the realm of the introverts. Because introverts find focused, genuine discussion in small groups much more bearable than more superficial discussion in large groups, we flock to the internet and the focused communities it can create. Digital activities in general are more likely to draw in introverts because time spent at a computer is usually time spent alone, even though, when we are on forums and the like, we are communicating with other people.

However, as Psychochild wrote, "a funny thing" happened to the internet; it became social. Social networking arose out of the extroverts' desires to use the internet to keep track of their ever increasing social interactions, for example, and online communities became larger, because the formerly small communities that the introverts flocked to simply wouldn't do for the extroverts. WoW, it seems, has also become a victim of this phenomenon. Thanks to its increased appeal to the casual player (because they prefer alone time, introverts are more likely to be dedicated players than extroverts are) and its growing popularity, which has the effect of causing more extroverts to bring their friends into the game, WoW is following the general trend of the internet in that it is becoming more of an extrovert's stomping ground than an introvert's stomping ground.

Because more extroverts are flocking to WoW, it doesn't surprise me that Activision-Blizzard would think that making the game more social in nature would be a good move, and the Real ID change was likely a first step towards making that happen. Real ID itself is a lot like social networking in its nature, and Activision-Blizzard was probably hoping to jump on that bandwagon to increase the appeal of WoW. This is where they crossed the line in the eyes of their introverted customers. As Psychochild says, "The problem is that introverts really don’t like being forced out into the open. Choosing to put information out is one thing, but when told that this is the only option, we’ll get fighting mad. Especially if sharing information is the gateway to a text-based communication medium like the forums, which is one of the old-school forms of communication that introverted geeky types enjoyed. In essence, Blizzard told introverts, “Expose yourselves to others or we won’t let you participate in something you probably enjoy.” When it’s put in that context, it makes sense that people would raise a fuss. But, I suspect that Blizzard hadn’t considered this, and figured that everyone has already joined a social network and wouldn’t mind."

Indeed, many people have already joined a social network, and that isn't surprising. After all, only 25% of the population (approximately) is introverted, while 75% is extroverted, and extroverts are the type to gravitate towards a social networking platform. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense that Activision-Blizzard would jump at the opportunity to cater their game to extroverts. After all, it's probably more profitable to market a product towards extroverts than introverts, especially since extroverts, because of their social nature, are more likely to spread word-of-mouth advertising about the product in question. Between those facts and the rise of social media, is it any wonder that Activision-Blizzard and Facebook have been discussing ways to cooperate and integrate their respective technologies? It's a logical result of the extroverts' desires to bring more of their social tendencies into what has traditionally been the introverts' realm.

And sadly (sadly for me, at least), I see that trend continuing into the future. As the WoW gets more popular, with more people opening up to the possibility of casual gaming and with Blizzard developing their game to cater to the casual gamers, more people are going to play. Now, what do extroverts love? Large groups of people to interact with. And what do introverts shy away from? Large groups of people to interact with. These facts sustain a vicious cycle that causes anything that becomes popular to attract extroverts and drive away introverts. Quite simply, WoW is a victim of its popularity; as WoW becomes more popular, more of the WoW-playing population will become extroverted, as the size of the community drives away the introverts that got this game off the ground. And with a more extroverted player base, you can bet that changes like the Real ID change will be pushed harder by Activision-Blizzard, and will probably be more well received. If they've learned their lesson from this attempt, their going to make this happen slowly, until Real ID reaches a point of integration where the use of real names on the forums isn't that big of a stretch.

Now, for you extroverts (if any of you reading this are extroverts; as Psychochild says, those who are serious enough about WoW to read/write blogs about it likely at least have introverted tendencies), this may be a good thing. It will mean that a genre that was typically not designed with you in mind (MMOs) will finally be open to you. However, it also means that we introverts will need to either adapt to this changing game and try to find ways to limit our social interaction within what will likely be an increasingly social game, or just move on to other, less popular and more introvert-oriented games. I can imagine a future for WoW where telling your guildmates that you don't use Real ID will be equivalent to telling your real-life friends you don't use Facebook, and this will likely be in a world where Real ID is not dissimilar from Facebook.

So, to those of you who look at a future like this with disdain and loathing, hoping it will not come to be, I say, enjoy this while it lasts. Enjoy Cataclysm, read up on all the news you want, concern yourself with the seeming inferiority of one particular element, be it a class's talents or a profession's new patterns. Revel in these relatively minor concerns for as long as you can, for we have been given a glimpse of a dismal future where, for us introverts, game balance will be the least of our concerns. And for you extroverts, well, your time will come. It may be at our expense, but it will come...

Now please excuse me; the druid needs some time to mull over all this. Don't worry, Monday's post will be more cheerful than this one; I promise.

Disabling Real ID for great justice

While this post started as a philosophy post, the direction it took as I was writing it resulted in it being more of an advice post. Considering it is scheduled for Wednesday, I am quite content to leave it in that form and ruminate on the subject more on Friday. Also, because All Your Base Are Belong To Us is apparently an endangered meme, I would just like to add that the title of this post was indeed a reference to All Your Base.

I know I have discussed the Real ID issue already, and the entire blogosphere has discussed it ad nauseam, but with the dust finally starting to settle from this frenzy over the announcement that Real ID would be integrated with the forums, it's time we finally reach a middleground in our reaction. The past week has seen us, the WoW community, go from frenetic opposition and rage to jubilant elation and relief in the span of a few days. With those two extremes out of the way, it's time we look at this event critically and consider what it means for us and the future of WoW.

I was planning on writing this post by examining the various possibilities of whether Blizzard actually thought this through and really doesn't care about our privacy or whether this was just a one-time big mistake on their part. However, rumination may not be necessary, as a post on the official forums that was since deleted but reposted on Team Liquid may give us the answer to that question. Now, this is hardly direct information. This is a page on a community site linking to a supposedly since-deleted post on the official forums written by someone retelling something he supposedly heard from an ex-roommate who's sister supposedly works as a GM at Blizzard. That makes this fourth-hand information, so take it for what you will. Here's the post in question, in case you haven't read it yet:

Nachtjäger, Suramar, 59 Night Elf Death Knight (post 35821 in epic thread) wrote

Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard, to see what the internal buzz on this was. Apparently, at the moment the employees are largely as pissed as the players, and she stated that despite attempts to keep it hushed, it has become known that the big creative players within Blizzard are pretty much as unhappy about this as we are. Everybody has been told they are not free to comment on this situation outside of specially prepared statements.

It's still going ahead, however (and here's where in-house rumours and hearsay really start coming into play): from what they've picked up, the Blizzard leads have been told in no uncertain terms that the non-gameplay-related direction of the game is working to a different blueprint now. GC and company are free to play with shiny new talent trees all they like, for example, but for the first time the decisions regarding Battle.net implementation, Real ID, and plans for the general acquisition of new players for the business are no longer in Blizzard's own hands, and that's not going down too well.

If this is true, then to all those who cried foul when Blizzard and Activision merged (assuming that, if the direction that Real ID is taking is out of Blizzard's hands, it must be in Activision's) who were subsequently dismissed by the larger community, we owe you a massive apology. To all those who cried foul when Real ID was first implemented in the game and were dismissed by people who said that it wasn't a mandatory feature, we also owe you a massive apology. It looks like we brought this on ourselves by not catching the warning signs earlier, and now the past nay-sayers can sit back and chuckle as they play the world's tiniest open-source violin as background to our complaints.

But how to put a stop to it? When it comes to big business, money is everything, so they only way to discourage Activision from forcing Blizzard to take the Real ID system in a direction Blizzard and the players don't like is for us players to hit Activision where it hurts (their wallets) without hitting Blizzard where it hurts (their wallets). How to do this? Well, if Real ID is out of Blizzard's hands, but the rest of WoW is still in their control, then the best way to target Activision is to stop supporting Real ID while still supporting WoW. I have already disabled Real ID on my account as a show of opposition against the direction the system seems to be taking, and I encourage you to do the same, unless you use it extensively in-game, and even if you do use it in game, you should consider the disabling it anyways for the sake of your privacy. (If you don't know how to disable Real ID, WoW.com has a good write-up about how to do so here.) As Greedy goblin says, whining is useless to make Activision change their minds; "If people turn Real ID off in masses, Blizzard will see it. If using RealID becomes "n00b" thing, if people with voice and with respect (like top players) refuse to use it, RealID will die."

Now, whether it should die is another matter, one I will consider in my next post. However, if you don't want Real ID to die, keep in mind that there is always the possibility that Activision will reconfigure it to not be such a threat to our privacy so that more players feel comfortable turning it back on.

Lessons to learn from Wrath's heroics, Part 2

Now that the Real ID fiasco is over, we can all breath a collective sigh of relief, and I can get this post out on time, rather than needing to delay it while I write another post about whether I will continue to play the game after the news of the Real ID change (the answer now is a resounding yes). A week ago, I went over lessons to learn from the various heroic dungeons of Wrath of the Lich King, and two things became clear to me: I noticed that everything I had written was negative and critical, and my commenters pointed out that the post was mostly me complaining about elements of heroics that I didn't like. Well, this week, I hope to change at least one of those, as I'll be going over more positive lessons to learn from Wrath's heroic dungeons, elements that Blizzard should emulate when they design Cataclysm's heroics. Whether this will be constructive positive criticism or just me gushing about game elements I like, you be the judge. (I would put a smiley face here if I didn't have the integrity to not use smiley faces in the main body of my posts.)

Pit of Saron, Forge of Souls, and Utgarde Keep

As much as I criticized about the amount of trash in Pit of Saron, it contains what are without a doubt my favorite boss fights in Wrath of the Lich; a shorter version would have been my favorite heroic of the expansion, bar none. As I said in my post "My Warcraft Year in Review", I love the boss fights in Pit of Saron (and Forge of Souls, to a lesser extent) because they require proactive movement. I was pretty disappointed by the encounters in Trial of the Champion because they were just damage and healing races. In fact, they were pretty much tank-and-spanks. I enjoyed fighting Eardic the Pure the most out of all of the bosses in Trial of the Champion because you actually need to move in that fight. The FoS and PoS fights all involve movement, and if you move correctly, the fights are not all that difficult. Sure, they do require a pretty high level of gear, but then again, The Frozen halls is like the Ulduar of the 5-man world, in terms of skill and gear required.

Still, you may say, other fights in other heroics also require movement, so what makes Pit of Saron and Forge of Souls special? What makes them special is that the movement involved is proactive, not reactive. There's little satisfaction in moving out of an area spell when a boss casts it out of nowhere, such as the Maiden of Grief's Storm of Grief; it's more of a nuisance than anything, especially since those spells don't do much damage (they can't, since you need time to move out of them without dying instantly), and thus moving out of them doesn't seem so urgent. However, when a boss is about to cast a spell or use an ability, and you move to avoid it, or you just move to avoid something before it happens, rather than because of something that just happened, you avoided that damage outright. Your skill and foreknowledge just made the fight easier, and that makes it much more satisfying.

In a similar vein to the fights in Pit of Saron, Ingvar the Plunderer is probably one of my favorite bosses from the first ten heroics of Wrath because the fight necessitated hiding behind the columns when he used his Smash or Dark Smash ability (granted, few people seem to do that these days, but I still do it, if only for nostalgia's sake). This was fun for me for the same reasons the fights in Pit of Saron are fun; it was proactive movement that was satisfying, rather than reactive movement that was annoyance.

Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning

Remember when I said that grandiosity in 5-man design was to be avoided? I would like to clarify that when I said that, I only meant that grandiosity is to be avoided in the layout of the instance, in terms of the ground we need to walk on. When it comes to the art design, I love grandiosity, and the Halls of Ulduar are a great example of that grandiosity in action. I don't think any instances wowed me as much when I first stepped through their doors as these two. In fact, my first foray into the Halls of Stone was lamentably short because the tank was a speed runner, and while I did appreciate the fast emblems, I ended up walking through the now-cleared instance on my own, just to admire the artwork inside (I didn't do the same for Halls of Lightning because the my first run though that instance was slower and more methodical, giving me time to admire the artwork.) It's hard to say what made me like those two dungeons as much as I did, but the lines of un-animated earthen below your feet when you first enter Halls of Lightning and the paintings in Halls of Stone stand out in my memory.

The Violet Hold

I know we can't give The Violet Hold credit for this particular element which I am about to discuss--that credit goes to Black Morass was back in Burning Crusade--but we can give The Violet Hold credit for keeping the tradition of the gauntlet-type dungeon going. I enjoy the rush of needing to run from portal to portal as new enemies appear, of needing to know when to use Dash and when to save it, and of knowing where I'll have to go if I can't get there on time so I don't lose control of the mobs. I especially like the fact that even as our gear gets better, this particular element of the instance does not change or get any easier, keeping Violet Hold interesting.

Now, with all that said, I think it would have been a wise design choice for Blizzard to make the amount of time between when a portal appears and when the enemies spawn from it vary based on how far apart the last portal and the current portal are. When a portal spawns on the far right, I know that if another portal spawns on the upper left side, on the second level, I'll need to use Dash to get there in time without the monsters parting ways and mayhem ensuing. And if Dash is on its cooldown, then I have to hope I can get close enough before they spawn to use Feral Charge. Meanwhile, when two portals spawn close to each other, we rush to the second portal and twiddle our thumbs waiting for the monsters to come out. This inconsistency is a relatively minor flaw, but if it disappears in Cataclysm's equivalent to Violet Hold (which I hope they add), then I'll be a happy Druid.

What elements would you have added to this list? Were any of the elements I mentioned things you didn't like about Wrath's heroics.

Real ID and the necessity of anonymity

Edit: We did it, folks; the change isn't going to happen. Rejoice!

I am publishing this post early because I feel the significance of the events in question warrants it.

Sometimes, the best way to summarize your feelings about recent events is with a loldog.

Boy, have the proverbial feces ever hit the fan on this one! In case you missed it, Blizzard announced that starting some time in July, if you post on the official forums, your real name will be displayed, rather than your character's name. It's a shocker, I know. They are apparently doing this in the hopes of curtailing trolling on the official forums, but it's going to have a lot of negative consequences for decent posters, as well. If this is your first time hearing about this and you haven't had time for the news to sink in yet, I suggest you give it time before you continue reading this post.

Back? Calmer? Good, let's begin.

Blizzard's decision reflects a general trend in the evolution of the internet: privacy is getting harder and harder to have. The ease with which someone with your full name and your general location can look up your address and phone number and--if they are willing to shell out a bit of money--so, so much more, is alarming. In a world that is becoming increasingly connected, staying comfortably and safely detached is getting more difficult. These aren't abstract concerns I'm saying here, either. When community manager Bashiok posted his real name, the community responded by finding out his address, phone number, and the names and ages of his family members using simple Google searches, and using that information to harass him. (though apparently, they may have mistaken a random California resident for Bashiok, for Bashiok may have an unlisted number, but that doesn't make it any less sobering) While I don't agree with their methods, I do agree with the message these rogue googlers are try to send; when people have access to your full name, it can lead to all manor of bad things.

Now, if I were to write this post the way I have written many other posts, I would here propose a hypothetical question contrary to the point I wish to eventually prove, something along the lines of, "Could the lack of anonymity do more good than harm?". I would then examine this question, attempt to answer in the affirmative, and then show all of the problems inherent in an affirmative answer. This time, however, I just can't bring myself to do it. I certainly could do it if I were so inclined. I could talk about how anonymity on the internet has lead to a lack of ownership of one's behavior and perhaps postulate on how seeing people as avatars with user names, rather than real people with real names, leads us to have less empathy for others. (If you are looking for a good article on the subject, I highly recommend Jason McCabe Calacanis's "We Live In Public (and the end of empathy)".) But this is an issue I feel so strongly about that I just can't bring myself to feign an understanding of the other side of the argument, so I'll just have to skip that part.

Put simply, anonymity is not only something we denizens of the internet are accustomed to, it's a necessity. There are just certain parts of our lives, parts frequently made possible by the internet itself, that we don't want the people we meet in our daily lives to know about. For the sake of relevance, I'll go over the one most relevant to us, the WoW community; outside of the gaming community (and the few non-gamers who still support the gaming community) it's still not cool to admit that you are a gamer. Though we, like many sub-cultures, are gaining more respect as the years go on, many still think of the stereotypical pasty, basement-dwelling, no-life stereotype when they think of video gamers. The image of the casual gamer (a category which the majority of gamers fit in to) just hasn't seemed to have caught on, so if an employer Google's your name and sees that you have posted on the WoW forums, he will judge you for that, even if he can't be sure it's really you.

This applies more generally, as well. I can only speak for myself, but as a member of multiple online communities, there are things I may say and do online only because I know I am among like-minded individuals. On this blog, I can talk about WoW as seriously and as critically as I do because I know I'm not likely to be shot down by someone saying, "You take this way to seriously." (which has happened to me before in face-to-face conversations) In the WoW.com comments section, I can be similarly passionate about this game with the comfort of knowing that those who read what I post will not consider it odd that I care about WoW as much as I do. I'm sure you can think of ways this phenomenon applies to you in whatever internet communities you are a part of, WoW-related or otherwise.

What I mean to say by bringing this up is that anonymity is not a bad thing; it is a tool, a tool that has, unfortunately, been used by many as an excuse for bad behavior. But anonymity can be used for good. Someone who is a member of the GLBT community who is not open about their sexuality to the people they know can take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to join an online GLBT group for support in the process of coming out. Someone who is a member of the furry community who may never meet another furry in his life can go online to a furry group and realize that he is not as unusual as he may have thought. A man who is a fan of a show typically aimed at women can go online to find fan groups and use his anonymity to discuss and praise the work without the risk of ridicule. Someone who is a gamer but also has a life outside of gaming can use the fact that online gaming forums are anonymous to discuss his game of choice without the risk of ridicule from those who don't understand the gaming community... oh wait.

But really, the issue of the potential for real-world harassment (a potential we have already seen come to fruition) should be enough to prove that us being forced to use our real names on the forums is a horrible idea. It may curtail trolling (truth be told, it probably won't; I know some trolls in real life, and believe me when I say, trolls will be trolls, no matter what we may do), but it will only encourage trolling's real-world counterparts: harassment and stalking. This is a dangerous path to tread down, Blizzard, both for you and your players; I am begging you to turn back now.

Higher Learning: Waiting around for fun and profit

That's right, the advice column is back... for one week, at least. Then it'll go back to the retirement home for blog columns, where it will lounge on the beach and complain about how the miscellany and philosophy columns never write anymore ever since they had to start working overtime to make up for his absence. Ah well, c'est la vie.

One of my goals that I want to accomplish before Cataclysm comes out is that I want to earn the achievement Higher Learning. For those who don't know, Higher Learning requires you to read eight books that spawn in predetermined spots in Dalaran. They spawn every three to four hours and last only five minutes (three if someone reads them) before they disappear, and you need to read all eight to finish the achievement. Did I mention that there's a fairly high chance of a dud book spawning in place of the book needed for the achievement? And that if that happens, you have to wait another three to four hours for another chance at the book you need? Yeah, it's annoying.

Why do I want to finish this achievement before Cataclysm? Once Cataclysm hits, I will likely be too busy with all of the new content to consider going back to Dalaran and running around just to look for the books I need to finish that achievement, and thus I will have no chance at the pet or the ability to teleport to the secret room above the Violet Citadel (which, for a loner like myself, is a pretty good reward). Luckily, the pre-expansion slump gives me the perfect opportunity to take the time I need to get this achievement, and in going for it, I have discovered a technique that I would like to share with you all.

If you are going to attempt this achievement, I highly recommend that you read Breanni's guide on Higher Leraning. It covers all of the basics that you need to know to understand how this achievement works, and this post will assume you know the basics about Higher Learning.

Now, as Breanni's guide says, there are two approaches one can take to earn this achievement: pathing, and camping. Pathing involves running around Dalaran past all of the spots where the books you don't have will spawn, and while it might take less time than camping, it's likely to make one go insane (trust me on that one). However, the boredom intrinsic in camping carries the same exact risk, so the question becomes, how to mitigate that risk? I have a few steps that will help you with that, steps that are very reminiscent of the advice I give in my post on how to avoid boredom whilst leveling fishing.

1. Pick a spot to camp.
Simple, really; just pick a book you haven't read yet and go to the spot where it will spawn.

2. Go into windowed mode.
If WoW is in full-screen mode, this strategy won't work: press command-M if you are on a Mac or control-M if you are on a windows computer.

3. Open another window.
Now comes the hard part. You need to pick something you can do for an extended period of time that won't require your total and complete attention. That can be working on something semi-mindless for work or school, chatting it up on your favorite forum, or going on a wiki-walk or archive binge (incidentally, the website that those two links will take you too is a great place to go if you are bored and want to spend a lot of time doing something on the internet). Whatever you chose, it must fit two criteria: you must be able to divert your attention away from it at least every minute or so (only for a split second), and it cannot take up the full screen. You'll see why in a bit.

4. The set-up.
With WoW in windowed mode and your character near the book's spawn point, set up your camera so that you'll be able to see the spot where the book will spawn while your second window is over WoW. Once your camera is set up that way (some picture demonstrating what I mean can be found below), simply engage in whatever activity is in your second window, and when you think of it, take a look at WoW. Eventually, a book will spawn, and when it does, you can click WoW's window and read the book. Simple, really.

Here's a picture of me with my WoW camera set up to employ this method, with a helpful arrow to show where the book will spawn.


Here's what my screen looks like with WoW in windowed mode and Firefox over it.

You can click on the picture to view a larger version with better detail. As you can see, I can see the spot where the book will spawn on the left side of my screen, and I am free to do as I please while I wait for the book to spawn. If you choose to do something similar to what I did, you can re-size the window of your internet browser of choice to give yourself more space to see the book; I just have it set up this way because I always have that little space on the left side of Firefox (it's quite convenient for me).

And in case you are worried about not being able to see the book when it spawns, worry not:


As you can see, the book is clearly visible when it spawns, as long as you set up your camera so that you'll actually be able to see the book. You may need to work your second window around seeing the book if you can't work your WoW camera to make the book visible, but do whatever you have to do.

This strategy is a slow one, but I have already found two books (as well as three duds) after using it for a bit under a week, which is pretty good, considering that it doesn't actually require much time spent in WoW itself, so I can guarantee that it does work. Best of luck, and happy waiting!

Edit: I forgot to add that you are quite likely to get Manabonked by Minigob Manabonk while using this strategy, so if you are trying to get The Mischief Maker as well, you can kill two birds with one stone with this strategy.

Lessons to learn from Wrath's heroics, Part 1

Warning: This post contains two instances of PG-13 language (for those outside of the US, that means vulgar language that is fine for most teens, but may be inappropriate for younger children). Hide your infants and tweens.

With the Cataclysm beta starting and the Ruby Sanctum finally released, it's safe to say that Wrath of the Lich King is coming to a close as an expansion. Thus it's a good time to look back and reflect, to reflect on both mistakes and good decisions made. It is with that lens that I look at heroics today. Heroics will probably play a big roll in Cataclysm, as they did in Wrath of the Lich King, and though Blizzard seems to be designing their expansion to get more of those people who spend most of their time running heroics into raids, heroics are not to be ignored. They will be the first foray into group content for quite a few players, and they deserve a good amount of design attention for that reason. So, let's look back at what Wrath's heroics can teach us:

Forge of Souls/Pit of Saron/Nexus

Now, everyone loves a little bit of grandiosity from time to time, but these heroics show that in high doses, it isn't a good thing. Each of these heroics has its own unique issue with grandiosity. Forge of Souls is too big for the number of enemies it has. The long walks between packs of trash kills the suspense for me while I'm in there. Pit of Saron simply has an absurdly large amount of trash, especially between the Krick and Ick encounter and Scourgelord Tyrannus. Nexus suffers from a similar problem, although the instance itself is really just huge for a heroic. Sure, it gives five emblems, but I'd rather work harder for more emblems per instance than work longer. Put simply, heroics are not raids, and do not need to match them in scale and size.

Trial of the Champion

I don't really enjoy the bosses in Trial of the Champion all that much. With the exception of Eadric the Pure, who is the one boss in that instance whom I enjoy fighting, all of the other bosses have abilities that cause high damage, but can't be mitigated in any way. That instance simply expects you to heal through that damage, with no way for skilled players to avoid it (again, with the exception of Eadric). Not only is that lazy instance design, but it also makes the heroic unengaging and annoying when players don't out-gear it and simply boring when they do.

Oculus

Oh Oculus; how I love thee, and yet how the playerbase does not. If any instance is rife with lessons to be learned about the design of heroics, it is this poor sap.

Let's start with the good points... er, point. Flying in an instance has been one of my dreams since I first bought Flight Form. I longed for an instance where flying was an integral part of its execution, where you would fly from platform to platform on your own flying mounts. I guess you can see that Oculus didn't fit this vision very well. Not only were we unable to fly around on our own mounts, but the instance was so unintuitive designed that trying to get anywhere was a nightmare. Flying in an instance can work, but the instances need to be designed so that the path you take through them is more intuitive than it was in Oculus.

And about those mounts. Let's get one thing straight; I enjoy vehicular combat, but only during quests (where the vehicle in question is simple to operate and often grossly overpowered) and PvP (where there is plenty of room for trial and error to get used to the vehicle). In Oculus, none of these luxuries were given to us players: the drakes were hardly overpowered, complex to maneuver and fight with, and mistakes lead to death, which is par for the course in PvP, but a huge inconvenience in PvE. Vehicles in an instance can be a good thing, but they need to either be simple, or there needs to be a way for players to get used to them, something like the daily Aces High! and how it related to the Malygos encounter.

Forge of Souls

I have one gripe specific to the Forge of Souls, a gripe relating to those packs of casters who don't like to move when they are aggro-ed. They are far apart from each other, too far apart for a tank's AoE attacks to hit them all, and there is no way to set up an LoS pull to bring them closer together. This creates a very difficult situation for us tanks, and I implore Blizzard, when they design trash packs with casters, that they add one of the following elements to those packs: the casters actually move, they are placed close together, or there be a way to LoS pull them.

Halls of Reflection

While I'm discussing specific gripes with specific trash enemies in specific instances, allow me to discuss the gauntlet in the beginning of Halls of Reflection. Now, I have no problem with trash that is actually difficult; it makes what is normally a boring part of the instance more interesting. And I have no problem with trash that required crown control; it's my understanding that we'll be seeing more of that in Cataclysm, so we may as well just accept it. And I have no problem with gauntlet type events where enemies spawn automatically; Violet Hold and Black Morass were two of my favorite heroics back when they were a challenge. Each of these distinct elements, I have no problem with individually, or even in pairs. However, put all three together, and you have a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

"Clusterfuck" really is the best was to describe the trash in Halls of Reflection. When I looked up the definition of that word to make sure I was using it correctly, I found this: "Its more precise usage describes a particular kind of Catch-22, in which multiple complicated problems mutually interfere with each other's solution." That describes the trash in Halls of Reflection perfectly: the enemies do a lot of damage and have many abilities that make fighting them a royal pain, so crowd control is necessary. However, crowd control is difficult to pull off because the enemies spawn sporadically thanks to their gauntlet-style setup, so pulls and the crowd control used to make them manageable can't be planned out beforehand. In short, it's a mess, a huge mess.

So, for future reference: difficult trash that requires crowd control? Fine, just give us the time we need to mark the enemies and set up the pull. Difficult trash in a gauntlet-style event? Fine, just don't require us to use crowd control. Trash that requires crowd control in a gauntlet-style event? We'll begrudgingly accept it; just don't give it insanely high damage, so we actually have time to get it under control

I know that most of the things on this list were things that I felt Wrath's heroics did wrong, so next week, I'll be going over what certain heroics did right and what is worthy of being copied by Cataclysm's heroics. Until then, what heroics will you be happy to leave behind when Cataclysm launches, and why?

Alts for their own sake?

Full disclosure: I'm a recovering alt-oholic. For as long as I have been playing WoW, I have always felt the temptation to see how the other nine sides live. The sheer number of alts I rolled that never made it past level 20, or even level 15, astounds me sometimes. I used to go through a very predictable pattern with my alt-itis: I'd grow envious of one class, roll alt of that class, give it a profession I was envious of, play it, get board with it somewhere in the 10-15 range (or sometimes even before then), and repeat that process about six times, give or take. I would then have a mini existential crisis where I would look at that screen of alts and wonder, "Why do I keep rolling alts that I never play? No more of this!" I would then log in to each alt individually, sell all of their stuff, send the money to my main, and delete them. I would then promise to myself that I would not roll another alt without having a good reason to do so. I have gone through this whole process at least four times thus far, enough times to have gained some insight into how and why it happens.

One thing that is consistent with most of the alts I roll is that I never roll them for the sake of just leveling them. In most cases, what motivates me to roll an alt is the desire to use that alt in end-game content. It's usually jealousy of that class's abilities and perceived strengths that draws me away from my druid. Perhaps a class looks fun to play as a DPS, or perhaps the class's healing or tanking style looks more varied than my druid's and thus more engaging. Inevitably, though, I realize that it will likely take me months to reach that point (that point being level 80), and I realize that I will likely never be able to use my alt for group content. (What's that you say? Run dungeons on the way to 80? Um... no.) And with the possibility of using that alt for level cap content gone, my motivation to level it goes as well.

So it seems the issue is a disjunction between my motivation for rolling the alt in the first place and the amount of effort I am willing to put up with to get it there. After all, when you roll an alt, you start with a very small selection of that class's abilities, and if the goal is to play the class because of the class's playstyle, it's disheartening to only be able to start with a skeleton of that playstyle (it's really just the ribcage, if we want to stick with that metaphor). That's part of the reason that I've always thought that a good middleground between the people who want to be able to start alts at level 55 and the people who think we shouldn't be able to do that would be the ability for us to start our alts at level 20. That way, you skip the most boring levels and start at the point where most classes start to come into their own and feel like the class they are. In other words, you could skill the lol-smite/lol-wrath/lol-judgment stages in which the classes are incredibly boring to play. But that's a topic for another time.

Of course, the obvious answer is to just roll an alt for the sake of playing the alt, for the sake of experiencing the class as it evolves and comes into its own. My most successful alt, my shaman, who is now level 66, was rolled for exactly this reason, which is part of the reason why I have stuck with him for so long. So why isn't this enough of a motivator for me to stick with an alt? Why isn't playing an alt for its own sake enough to motivate me to roll an alt?

I think it has something to do with the issue of meaning. Perhaps in WoW, as in life, we desire a meaning for our actions, a motivating factor to motivate us to play. Fun can certainly be that motivating factor, but I see fun in WoW as similar to happiness in real life: they're both one answer to the question of what to live for, but for some, they are insufficient answers, not enough to make all it worth it. Perhaps you don't know what I mean, but maybe some of you reading this do; maybe you have experienced the dissatisfaction with living for day-to-day experiences rather than for something greater. Life isn't constantly enjoyable, so living only for the moment can backfire when that moment isn't a particularly good one.

Alts are the same way. They are certainly fun, but some parts of the leveling process are just plain grueling, including the lol-phases listed above, the 40-50 stretch, quest items with aggravatingly low drop-rates, etc. In those moments, it can be easy to forget the fun times you had with your alt and the fun times you will have if you continue playing. That's where that long-term goal comes in. That long-term goal is what will keep you playing through those uninteresting stretches, because achieving that goal will make it all worth it.

So the real question becomes, are those long term goals necessary, or are the fun moments themselves enough motivation to keep playing one's alt? I guess this is just a question that every player needs to answer for themselves.