The end of the blog

This is my last post. After today, I will be writing no more posts for WoW Philosophized, because I have canceled my subscription to World of Warcraft. I have written a farewell letter to my guildmaster, removed my authenticator, uninstalled WoW on my laptop, removed all WoW-related bookmarks from Firefox, and now, only this last goodbye remains: the farewell post. Oh god, this is going to be difficult.

I could have put this off. I spent a lot of time in the latter days of Wrath of the Lich King not playing at all, yet still blogging consistently, relying on other WoW websites for sources of inspiration when the game could give me none. Had I so desired, I could have done the same thing for a few months, possibly even longer, before anyone caught on that I wasn't basing my posts on any in-game experience. It's a tempting thing to do, too, because I really do enjoy blogging about WoW, possibly more than playing it. But I have decided to quit WoW cold turkey by dissociating myself with everything regarding the game, short of my faded druid t-shit I still have in my bureau. As part of doing that, I won't be reading any WoW blogs now that I have stopped playing, and I certainly can't write about it. So I am bringing this blog down with my account, as I think it will help prevent me from regretting this decision.

I could turn this post into an excuse to complain about everything I think is wrong with the game, but I'm not quitting because I believe WoW has become a subpar game. I may be a vanilla baby (though the fact that I really came of age as a player during Burning Crusade probably makes me more of Burning Crusade teenager than a vanilla baby), but I was never the type to claim the game had been "ruined forever" by any change that was made to it. I have stayed with WoW as it has evolved through its various phases, and though I enjoyed some more than others, the fact that I have stuck with this game for five and a half years is testament to how much I enjoyed it. WoW has been a major part of my gaming hobby ever since I began playing it, and I do not leave now because I have suddenly gone from liking the game to thinking it is awful.

No, my reason for quitting now is because, thanks in no small part to the introspection brought about by writing for this blog, I have realized that WoW is just no longer made for players like me: the loners, the soloists, the people who play WoW as a largely solo venture because its solo content is (or was) good enough to keep us entertained. You would think that I would have taken the hint from the fact that it is an MMORPG, but the gameplay was enough to draw me in and bait me into playing a game that I didn't fully realized when I started playing that I was expected to play with others. And I tried to like this game, I really did. I tried battlegrounds, heroics, raids, auction house PvP, but nothing other than the solo content could keep my interest. And now, though I enjoyed Cataclysm's 80-85 quests thoroughly, having finished those and moved back to the "daily grind", I've realized that I just can't bring myself to keep playing WoW's solo content anymore. I used to enjoy the daily quests. Outland had some of the best dailies WoW has ever seen, but they have become less and less inspired with each expansion pack. And I finally realized that I was only doing the Cataclysm dailies for the prospect of gear. Yep, I had fallen into the trap of playing for the objective rewards, but the fact that I had managed to switch out of that mode of play not long before made it easy to find my way out.

I'm reminded of what Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation said in his review of Cataclysm, when commenting about player's motivation for doing end-game content.

I asked someone who raids, "Why do you raid?" "To get the best items," they said. "What do you use the best items for?" I asked, to which they could only answer "To raid with." But it's not about items, is it? You don't honestly care if your new Crystal Nethersword is going to clash with your elite boss clogs. It's about the numbers. You want the items with the best numbers so you can use your numbers to decrease the enemy numbers until your numbers are the best in the land and all the other guilds flock to regard your numbers with jealous awe. And before you argue that lots of games are about numbers when you get down to it, no one ever ruined their lives to get 100% items in Super Metroid!

The whole review made me realize that there was less to my enjoyment of WoW than I had initially believed, but that particular passage made me really realize that it really was about the numbers. I was trying to get better gear (numbers) so that I could go into heroics with a bit of a buffer, but why was I trying to go into heroics in the first place? Yes, I enjoy taking, as doing the Crucible of Carnage reminded me, but if I only did heroics for their own sake, I would probably grow tired of them as quickly as I grew tired of daily quests (which means I would have grown tired of them after about two weeks, maybe a month because of the added group dynamic... no, the group dynamic would probably bring it down to a day). So what's left to sustain my interest in heroics after I have stopped enjoying running them? Why, the gear (numbers), of course! Yeah, sorry, I can't do it anymore.

But the biggest reason that I have given up on WoW (that's really a more accurate description than "quitting") is because I have realized that the only reason I continued playing was out of familiarity. The game was familiar to me, and having tried unsuccessfully to get into other RPGs (Fallout 3 and Fable 2, to be exact), I resigned myself to continue playing WoW to get my fantasy RPG fix. The fact that I had already accomplished so much also motivated me to stick with the game rather than trying something new, perhaps out of a hobby-related version of the sunk cost fallacy. But once I stopped valuing the objective rewards I had already obtained and started to value the process of obtaining those rewards more than the rewards themselves, I realized that I just didn't enjoy the game much anymore, in spite of all of the things I had earned (lesson learned: "things" will not make you happy). I have now realized that WoW and I are like a brontosaurus: recognized as a mistaken combination long ago, lingering only out of misplaced affection for an imagined past.

Well, that affection just isn't enough to sustain my playing anymore. My enjoyment of the game isn't going through a burn-out phase, it's passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to motivate me to play other games. It is a late enjoyment. It's a stiff. Bereft of exuberance, it rests in peace. If I hadn't insisted on continuing to play, my WoW folder would have been in my computer's trash can. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-WoW-player.

And this is an ex-WoW-blogger, as well. But will the blogging itch strike me again? It very well might, and I very well might start blogging about something else on a different blog. But if I do, I will do it the same way I started this blog: I will start from nothing and earn my readership again. Whatever my new blog--if, indeed, I do start blogging again, which isn't a guarantee--is about, it will likely have nothing to do with WoW, so though I may be tempted to say, "Hey guys, come check out my new blog!", I won't do that unless someone likes my writing enough to ask me to keep them updated if I decide to write again. And as for this blog, I will leave it up as long as blogger decides its worth keeping up, and since I have it set to e-mail when I get a comment, I will still respond to any comments I get that I feel are worth as response. However, the "wowphilosophized.com" domain name will likely expire at some point, at which point you'll need to go back to typing in "wowphilosophized.blogspot.com" if you're still coming back for some reason.

So there it is. This is the end of my time as a WoW player, and there are no hard feelings on my part. This game has given me an amazing five and a half years, as well as an amazing year and a half of writing this blog. I never thought this blog would get as far as it has, and it's something that has made my time spent playing WoW better in many ways. I've had the opportunity to communicate with some truly wonderful individuals as a result of this blog, as well as be a part of the larger WoW community (the online part of which really isn't so bad), and without it, I might not have realized just how much I like writing. Thanks for reading; it has truly been a blast.

Adieu, adiue; parting is such sweet sorrow.

And yes, I'm still bitter over the removal of Tree of Life as a permanent form.

A photo-tribute to Tree of Life

Well, it looks like patch 4.0.1 will be playable some time around today, give or take a day for unforeseen additional maintenance. As you already know, this patch, for me, marks the end of an era: the end of Tree of Life as a permanent form. The comments section for that post tells me I'm not the only one mourning the loss of this beloved form, so I thought it would be appropriate to put together a photo-tribute to the tree. I do this not only to pay my respects, but because this may very well be the last time I see a tree outside of a group, for patch 4.0.1 may mark the end of my time as a druid healer. I'm with Tesh when he/she (sorry, Tesh, but I dont want to make any assumptions) said, "Shapeshifting is the point of Druids for me. I almost never spend time in caster form; if I wanted that, I'd have played a Shaman. " Well spoken, Tesh; well spoken.

So, without further ado, let's move on to the tribute.

A druid in his natural habitat: Moonglade.

A lucky screenshot of the tree's idle animation. You can't plan this one.

"Should I or shouldn't I?"

Did you know that Tree of Life has a swim animation? Neither did I. Most trees don't do so well in water, but apparently ours does.

I can't tell whether he's waving hello after making it across the lake, or goodbye. I'd like to believe it's the former...

Guess he just found out...

One last goodbye to the home zone of druids.

The tree enjoys one last dance...

Before giving in to his fate.

R.I.P. Tree of Life form, December 5, 2006 to October 12, 2010. You will be sorely missed.

A screenshot tells a thousand words

Nenunial of The Rambling Draenei Death Knight suggested we post our favorite screenshots, or screenshots that have some sort of meaning for us. I know I'm late to the game, but I thought I'd share one of my favorite screenshots with you now, since I have nothing else to post today.

Click for a larger version.

The short description is that this shot was taken of my priest after he used an Elune Stone on himself and then casted Holy Nova. There's a story behind it, though. You see, when I first bought Holy Nova from a trainer, I hadn't heard very good things about it from the various priests I had talked with. From what I had heard, there were simply better spells than Holy Nova for any situation where it might be useful. However, I was curious about it, so I gave it a cast after I got it. Well, what those curmudgeonly players had neglected to mention was that the animation for this spell is just plain beautiful. I was blown away by the visuals, and I especially liked the way the little specs of holy light lingered after the spell was cast. When the Lunar Festival came around, I hit upon the idea to use an Elune Stone in conjunction with holy light to create the effect above. It looked so good to me that I took a screenshot of it and kept it around, which is why I can share it with you today.

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...

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.

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.

Druid healing in heroics in flowchart form

I have resigned myself to doing heroics so I can get a cloak for when I level from 80 to 85, and in order to save my sanity, I have decided to run them as a healer. I find healing to be a much more relaxing job than tanking, and with all of the gear everyone has, healing in heroics has become quite simple--so simple, in fact, that it can be reduced to a flow chart, which is exactly what I have done here. For the sake of ease of use, I have highlighted the starting point of the chart in a red box.

















Click for the full size.

When spells are put in pairs or triplets, use them in order from let to right. For the sake of space, I used icons rather than spell names. Here's a visual guide in case the spells aren't familiar to you.

= Healing Touch




= Lifebloom




= Nature's Swiftness




= Nourish




= Rejuvenation




= Regrowth




= Revive




= Swiftmend




= Tranquility




= Wild Growth




Note that this post is only meant to visually cover what spells to use for restoring health. For a more complete guide to druid healing, I highly recommend Lissanna's healing guide. I was going to write more on the other points of druid healing, but I am too busy to do so this week; expect more info on druid healing in heroics next week.

Why have solo content in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game?

Whenever I talk about solo content in WoW, if I ever lament the sad state of it these days (whether it be on this blog, in the comments section of WoW.com, or anywhere else), I frequently get reactions that sound something like this: "WoW is a massively multiplayer online RPG. Why worry about the solo content?" I think we can all agree that WoW needs some solo content. The question is, how extensive should that solo content be? Should we expect Blizzard to deliver engaging solo content to us players on a regular basis, or should we greet extensive solo content with a surprised, "Solo content? In my MMO?"

Picture is unrelated.

It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.

Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.

This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.

It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.

Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.

That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.

I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.

Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.

I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.

Advice for emblem-gear-fueled dungeon speed runs

I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that the new emblem system has changed the face of the five-man dungeon scene, making it near unrecognizable compared to what it once was. Heroics these days are more comparable to running Scarlet Monastery at level 60 than Blackrock Depths. It's safe to say that much of we thought we knew about five-man dungeons has changed, and new assumptions need to replace old ones if we are to evolve to face the new challenges (or lack thereof) that await us on the other side of those instance portals (now replaced by an interface). Many have made these changes subconsciously already, but some may have avoided heroics during this time of great change, and this guide is for them. Note: This guide only applies to heroics, and only to the original Wrath heroics. The advice bellow doesn't apply to raiding or The Frozen Halls.

Tanks:
-Focus on whatever the DPS is attacking.
When it comes to trash, kill order is mostly meaningless these days. As much as you may want your DPS to attack the healer first, you will encounter DPS that just won't want to do it. Rather than getting worked up over them, it's better to just go along with it and focus on causing threat to the enemies they are attacking. Why? Let's say you focus on causing threat to the target you think should die first. This makes it easier for the DPS to over-aggro, so you will lose control of the mobs, making the battle slower. If, however, you focus on what the DPS is focusing on, you stay in control on the situation and the mobs will die faster, making the run faster, and because the mobs won't be running around doing damage to everyone, the run will be more enjoyable in general.

-Focus on AoE threat while fighting trash.
Back when kill order mattered, you would try to cause the most threat to the enemy highest on the kill order while not causing too much AoE threat because your DPS would be focusing on the target of highest priority and not trying to cause massive AoE damage. These days, DPS just want to AoE everything down, meaning if you try to focus on causing most of your threat to one target, you'll end up only holding on to that one target. Though you should use your auto-attacks to cause extra threat to whatever your DPS is attacking (as per the previous piece of advice), you should focus on using your AoE abilities rather than your single-target abilities.

DPS:
-Try to attack what the tank is attacking.
The tank losing control of trash is bad. Sure, with the kind of gear you're wearing, you can probably afford to take a few hits, but if the tank can't keep control of enemies, he can't cause as much damage to them as he could otherwise. As such, the run will be slower. The tank will be causing the most damage to his target, so it helps to focus your attacks on whoever your tank is targeting. You can turn on target-of-target in the options menu to make this easier.

Healers:
-Do some damage if you don't need to focus all of your time on healing.
If you and the tank are in great gear, you probably don't need to spend all of your time healing him and the group. In the olden days, it was considered unthinkable for healers to do any damage to enemy targets. After all, they need to heal when people take damage, and healing causes threat. The DPS can stop doing damage if they cause too much threat, but healers don't have that luxury. Extra threat was just something healers didn't need; it was something they couldn't afford. These days, however, you'd be lucky to break 1% of the tank's threat in an average heroic run. As such, consider dropping some damage on your enemies to make the fights go faster. This will be easier for Priests and Shamans than for Druids and Paladins, of course, since Druids need to leave Tree of Life to do damage, loosing a healing boost in the process, and Paladins can't do much damage without entering melee range, but Priests and Shamans should definitely consider dropping the odd offensive spell when they have nothing better to do. If anything, it will make the run more fun for you while you wait for your tank to drop bellow 95% health.

-Forgo mana efficiency for spell potency.
If you out-gear heroics and are rocking tier-nine or ten gear, you don't need to worry about mana. You do, however, need to worry about wiping. Heroics have become so easy these days that players simply have no patience for wiping. Now, granted, wipes are a near impossibility these days, but you still don't want them to happen. An unexpected development (adds, runners, etc.) can cause a sudden influx of damage, even in these heroics that we have all run before, so you need to stay on top of your game. In fact, being so comfortable with heroics likely leads us to make mistakes we would not have made in the days when they were difficult, if only because of sloppiness. Anyways, your main goal is to avoid a wipe, and knowing that running out of mana is a near impossibility unless you are blatantly overhealing everyone, you should feel free to use your larger, more expensive heals to reduce the chance of a wipe to near zero. It may feel wasteful, but it's only wastefulness if you can run out of whatever you are using.

100th Post!

It's almost hard to believe, but the numbers don't lie: this is my one-hundredth post. Yep, thirty three miscellaneous posts, thirty three advice posts, and thirty two philosophy posts (we don't talk about that Thanksgiving-week Friday post) have finally brought me to this point, and like the then soon-to-come end of my long, strange trip, I feel this occasion warrants some reflection about what I have done so far, why I did it, and what I may do in the future. After all, if reflection--especially reflection on those kinds of topics--is not the very essence of philosophy, I don't know what is... ok, the Socratic method is a better candidate for the essence of philosophy. Point is, I'm going to reflect.

I remember when I first started this blog. I caught the blogging bug after reading the article How to get your blog crashed by WoW.com on WoW.com. Something about the article struck a chord with me. I suppose it was similar to the feeling I get when reading an online strategy guide for a game I plan on buying; I seem to have a penchant for going into a completely new situation with some foreknowledge, rather than going in blind. Anyways, something about that article made me realize that I wanted to blog. Thing is, I had tried blogging in the past and could never stick with it. I had two dead blogs that were the I-write-when-I-feel-like-writing kind of blogs that were simply my thoughts of the day. They failed because I lost motivation to write in them, so what could I do differently to avoid losing motivation in this new venture?

I settled on two things to keep me going as I started this new blog. One, I would keep to a schedule with my posting. I always have an easier time doing things if I set out a schedule by which to do them, so I figured blogging would be the same, hence the Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting scheme. Secondly, I decided to focus my efforts on one subject, rather than just write about what I was feeling that day. I knew that would make it easier to stick with the blog, since I always have an easier time coming up with ideas when there are some restrictions placed on me, and I knew subconsciously that writing about one topic would be more likely to generate a steady readership. I didn't acknowledge it then, but I wanted to be read. There was some post on some blog (sorry I can't be more specific, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it) on getting started in blogging that stated that anyone who says they are "blogging for themselves and themselves only" is likely deceiving themselves. Blogging is a public medium, so if someone writes on a blog, they likely want their work to be read, if only on a subconscious level. If that were not the case, they would likely write in a LiveJournal instead.

So, on that fateful Monday night, I wrote the post that started it all. Some of my earlier posts were posts I knew I wanted to write from day one, such as a philisophical analysis of the Barrel series on XKCD, how to level fishing without being bored, and why you should not rush to the level cap. It was nice to finally get those thoughts out on some tangible medium, and the thought of others potentially reading those thoughts made it even more tantalizing. That last point is rather ironic, because one defining feature of those early months was the lack of comments on my posts. Aside from one encouraging comment by Larisa of The Pink Pigtail Inn on my first post, I didn't get a single comment on any of my posts until November. That's five months that I, for all intents and purposes, wrote for myself and myself only.

Why did I do it? Because I love blogging. Sure, the fact that people are reading the things I write and commenting on them factors into it, but at the end of the day, I love expressing my opinions and ideas in a public medium. I also enjoy writing, as evidenced by the fact that I won NaNoWriMo 2009, but the usual genres of writing (fiction, poetry, song-writing, etc.) just never did anything for me. Something about blogging made it different; it was probably the fact that blogging appealed to my practical nature in some way. Blogging became a way to exercise my writing skills that I could do on a regular basis and enjoy. In short, I found a hobby, and I loved it.

The fruits of my labor paid off when I finally had the opportunity to market my work in an appropriate way. I had never been one for self-advertising, and it was mostly a lack of marketing that caused my first few dozen posts to go un-commented. The reason I never self-marketed was because I could never find a way to namedrop my blog without seeming like I was shamelessly advertising myself. What I wanted was a way to name-drop my blog that was still relevant to the topic at hand, and that opportunity came with the wow.com post World of Warcraft and Philosophy now on sale. Since I was in the middle of reading World of Warcraft and Philosophy at the time, I posted my thoughts on it and also mentioned the fact that the book has been out for a while (in order to gently say that WoW.com was late to the game), a fact I knew since I googled "World of Warcraft and Philosophy" before starting my blog to see if this niche was already taken and had found the book by doing so. Thus I knew the book had been around at least as long as my blog, and my blog had been out for quite some time. I then left the link to my blog in parentheses ("in case you are interested"), and that got people to actually read my blog. I only get a comment here and there, but considering that I had been writing for myself for so long, that was enough for me.

My big break, though, would come later, about three months later, when WoW.com posted an article in response to my post on how the new emblem system ruined heroics. I remember the day it happened quite well. You see, I have blogger set up to e-mail me when someone comments on one of my posts, so I got an a-mail when the first comment on that post was left. I then got another e-mail, telling me another comment had been posted. This was my first post to ever receive more than one comment, so I thought to myself, "Wow, I must have really struck a chord with my readers." Then I got a third one and thought to myself, "Ok, this wouldn't happen under normal circumstances. WoW.com didn't link to me or something, did they?... Oh boy, they did." I got a total of twenty-seven comments on that one post, and I started getting comments on my old post as well. I had finally been noticed.

As exciting as this was for me, I also got butterflies in my stomach. Why? I suppose it was because having an audience exposed the fact that I hadn't held my posts to as high of a standard as I would have if I knew people were going to read them. For example, I'll be the first to admit that my suggestions at the end of my post on how the new emblem system ruined heroics weren't good ones. I only wrote them so that post wouldn't be another post full of complaints without any actual helpful content. In hindsight, though, I wouldn't have written them if I were more concerned with the quality of my post, because they were just bad. Still, I left them in because at that point, I was still mostly writing for myself. My lack of readership meant that this blog was a safe little haven for me where quality didn't matter as much as it does in the other aspects of my life. Once I had a bigger audience, that changed, and the fact that my less-than-good posts could now be scrutinized was what gave me butterflies. Of course, I didn't dwell on that point, because I had finally accomplished my goal in starting this blog: I had become a read* blogger.

So that's my reflection on sevens months and one hundred posts. I look forward to seeing what the future brings this blog, and I hope you'll be there to see it with me.

*On a different note, we really need to agree on a different spelling for the past-tense version of the verb "to read."

I did it.

No words need be spoken, for they already have been.

WoW Philosophized loves the Discovery Channel

(Inspired by this edition of XKCD.)

I love my druid,











I love the bear form dance











I love my shaman,











I love to spec enhance











I love the whole world








and all its mounts and pets










Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada












Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada











I love the channels,




the places to discuss












I love the emblems






and post-nerf Oculus


















I love the whole world;











Cataclysm will rock






Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada











Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada













I love my dual specs,




I love epic flying;










I love heroics








that don't involve trying













I love the whole world,









though Duskwood kind of sucks











Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada








Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada











Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada

The world (of warcraft) is just awesome.

Boom-de-yada boom-de-yada