Back once again.

What happened I hear you say. Where have you been?

Well not really I've had a look at the tracker statistics for the page and interest dropped off two months ago. I'm entirely convinced that there were a number of people waiting with baited breath on my next post, the distinct possibility of a search engine visiting my blog hasn't even entered my mind.

So why post now?

I haven't had anything to say I left my old guild, set up a new one with a friend a couple of months before the release of Cataclysm killed just about everything in ICC then there was a significant *meh* from half the raid team. we went from killing heroic modes to having 6 people signed. Some of our top dps left to go to other guilds who were still raiding and what followed was a raid void till the release of Cata.

"It will be fine once everyone is levelled. . ."

Is something my self and my fellow guild founder must have deluded ourselves with. Skimming over the fact that the new cataclysm raid landscape was harder and less forgiving than ICC. So Cata dropped. We levelled to 85 at a steady pace (3rd and 6th in guild) and waited. Eventualy we had ten players at 85 two of them though were entirely social members with no interest in raiding. we wait again, post a raid for two weeks time, invite everyone in the guild. that should do it. Then it starts four, five six sign ups follow in a few days, then seven and eight. The raid light at the end of the tunnel is looming and a week to go there are 13 85's in guild and eight sign ups.

One week later eight sign ups and no raid 15 memebers at 85. Three posted raids and a week later we have our first raid. We 8 man Ulduar.

Where are we going wrong?

So with this in mind we recruit, we pick up a damn good tank, and 3 highly performing dps.
Our first Cata raid is on the horizon 2 days later we enter Bastion of Twilight and kill magmaw and play about with Omnitron for a bit. One of our new dps that was blowing the meters away in blue gear server transfers with no notice and another says "I'm having exams at school and might not be able to get on as much for a couple of months". Fair enough. I can deal with that. Next posted raid 8 sign ups but the raid after full house. I accept this as a trial of patience and wait. We kill Magmaw again and head to Omnitron and wipe we wipe mercilessly for a couple of hours. People stand in the fire, people hit the shields, people get hit by the slimes, the only group performing well here are the tanks and one of them is slightly under geared. The least geared healer is out healing the other two put together almost on some occasions. There is one dps at an acceptable standard for awareness and not dying to everything and still putting out strong dps.

Thats it! These people killed Magmaw two hours ago for the second time and managed not to get hit by flame pillars, dps the adds when they spawned and do it consistently for long enough for the boss to die. What are they doing now?

I look over the logs notice 3 major sources of raid wide death. Post my analysis of the logs on our guild forum, detail why it happened and what we can do to fix it.

Next raid 6 sing ups, no raid. Next raid 6 sing ups, no raid. Next raid 5 sing ups, one apology, no raid. Fellow guild founder blames the apathy to challenging content lays down a decree that this is the end of our guild raiding, cancels subscription.

I'm left with half a team of raiders half of them under performing. I apologise to the excellent players we have just recruited signpost them to some friends in guilds raiding and killing bosses and stop.

For a short while.

A real life friend on another server where I levelled another toon points out that they could use a solid dps to shore up their raid team, they raid (mostly) convenient times and he doesn't hate any of them, which is a bonus. So I pick up this alternate server alt a week later I got to my first raid with them half way through a lock out. We two shot conclave of the wind practice on Cho'gal. Next raid we kill Cho'gal. Raid after we one shot Cho'gall practice on Alakir. next raid we kill Alakir , practice on Nefarian.

Here I am up to date killing all the back end bosses without any real stress.
We aren't bleeding edge progression though there are very few guilds on the server have any heroic kills and Nefarian will go down this week. My Main I left behind got shuffled into a top 10 guild as a social but to all intents and purposes is hibernating.

Well with that out. I would really like to see the content on my main and where he is now is the best chance of sneaking into the content and stealing achievements but I stopped short of server transferring as I had a perfectly serviceable toon ready to go on the other server. Total time from 80 - 85 a little over 12 hours.

What are your feelings on your main? Could you leave them behind?

Newly Talented

So the new slim line talent trees.

Wow. Whats happend? Largely nothing. Blizz got rid of largely mandatory but otherwise no brainer talents. It also means that your chosen tree is going to get comparatively a lot of love as blizz stated that designed into it you wouldn't be able to go to another tree till you have 31 points in your chosen one. Running over the talent trees and dotting points around in sensible places on http://www.wowtal.com/ I found that I pretty much had less choice bar whether I wanted a pve or pvp build. Everything is more expensive as the resource you have (talent points) are now fewer. So every point you spend is in theory worth more. The talent specs I came up with also looked almost identical to my current builds bar talent trees that have changed dramatically. So what does this say about the design philosophy? its certainly less cluttered, simpler to understand and easier to build a talent spec even for the most unknowledgeable new plyer. And without a doubt your choices are more meaningfull due to limited resources. This is the key point, not due to interesting talent design. by reducing talent points and telent choices the talent process is in exactly the same place minus the padding and fluff. You are getting the same product in an easy to use a pack

RealID

OK everyone and I mean everyone involved in WoW is talking about this. I'm not going to talk about if its a good or a bad thing.

I want to know what is it for?

The idea that its to stop trolling, simply doesn't hold true. the best response in the forums that destroys this as an argument was "I didn't use my real name for my account anyway" this coupled with the ability to start an account with any name and use prepay cards means you could create an account in the name of Bobby Kotick and then run amok until you were banned.

The idea that it brings accountability is true to a degree some people will be more likely to be more considerate. Others and we will call them ass hats will keep on doing what they have always done as would any John Doe/Smith/Sing/Chin/Kim or whatever common name is relevant in your part of the world who would have no fear from this. Blizzards argument against the fake names is that they will have a team looking closely at accounts to find fakes, this is fine with the obviously fake but stolen or forged identities can be easily acquired. A TV program in the UK about 10 years ago proved it was simple enough to get a credit card in the name of now Prime minister Gordon Brown through a few simple steps with easily available information and documents. Accountability has just flown out of the window for someone determined enough. While that may seem a little far away what about someone who now uses as their account one that belonged to someone else for whatever reason above board or not. Lets say someone plays on the account of a deceased relative. No comeback unless you go out of your way to track IP adresses. which is entirely doable for blizzard as they have helped American police capture an escaped felon via his character name and IP adress. So in these cases how would RealID make people more accountable as if they broke a law, then they can still be caught.

Lets have a quick look at what happend when in an attempt to smoothe this and show it wasnt such a big deal Blizzard employees published their names. It seems Blizzard are content to let their customers lose the protection that they are going to have to give their employees. Not pleasant. Heres a recent news article showing the extent some gamers will go. This is not a one off. The type of game wow is draws in people with obsessional personality types and can be a haven for people with little social skills, it is also something that people become attached to and feel very strongly emotionally. Recent research shows that people exhibit similar brainwaves patterns when thinking about themselves as they do when thinking about their in game avatar, their avatar has become an extension of self. What some people are willing to do in retaliation for some slight is not constrained by what you think is reasonable. RealID would undoubtedly make it easier for someone to find you.

So back to my question. Why are Blizzard doing this the answer I feel the most confident about is this.

Please give your own answers.

Social raiding

Social versus hardcore.

What is it. What makes someone a social raider or even a "social" player and what makes someone hardcore. I observed some people chatting and paraphrasing it came out a little like:

"cataclysm raid lockouts will ruin social raiders chances of sponging kills/loot/achievements from real raiders as at the moment the hardcore raiders would fill up the numbers in 10 mans prop up the raids and boost the socials through the content."

Now I don't like carrying bad players. After hitting 80 on a brand new toon and finding that after reading about gear and dps priorities for 30 mins I could put out 1.8k dps in quest blues/greens from the mid level zones (hadn't even seen Ice Crown or Storm Peaks) I'm more than miffed when I see someone doing less dps than 1k and they aren't the healer for the instance. These people are probably the target of the arrogance seeping out of that quote. Though by some standards people might consider myself a social in the guild I'm in. I don't do 25 mans with the raid team, I cant due to real life commitments so I do 10's as there are more runs organised at more convenient times and now and again I sneak into a 25 man with them when I'm not busy. Am I social? I sign up for "silly" runs to AQ 40 for mounts and go galavanting off into old instances for achievements and again more mounts. I help out if they are short on stuff like that mostly because of my personality type. I like to be busy. I pug TotC sometimes not because I need any drops just often because I'm on fairly late and it gives me something to do that can indeed still be challenging even if sometimes its down to the ability of the group rather than the difficulty of the content. These I undertake as "social" events an opportunity to interact in the game space with people in an enjoyable way. So social I am. Yet as all the people who have just identified with my personality type issues and don't see themselves as the target of the quote can identify with. I do not need the charity of the hardcore raiders to get me through the current content. A fellow guild member with a similar situation as myself to raid attendance also took offence to the statement and took them to task. After a bit off defensive fumbling and lame attempts at justification of the position the offending guild members then fell silent with a little unease hanging in the air the guild master suggested that we weren't socials more "non raiders" meaning that social in his mind is something different (derogatory?) to how I perceive it. Now to give a bit of perspective I and the other offended guild member regularly out dps some of our 25 man geared raiders (same class and spec) when we step into the 25's we don't stand in the fire and we can do the safety dance. Both of us have been asked on a few occasions to step up to the 25 man team and have turned it down because of our commitments. So where does that leave us. Are we forever stuck as social with the baggage that comes with it until we sneak into a 25 man LK kill or until the social tag is amended after someone can truly see our worth?

Well personally Cataclysm raid lockouts wont make any difference to people sponging loot off anyone else that's still going to happen. It just means the difference between Hardcore and social in gear (and epeen) is smaller.

Anyway does the perceptions and stereotypes of social/hardcore carry with it expectations of ability and experience? How many of us bridge that divide?

First !!

I have an idea in my head on how this blog is going to turn out and I'm going to share it with you. It's going to be about WoW. Not a forum to bitch or moan about it just a place to air observations and put up ideas for discussion, discussion being the most interesting part of the proposed vision. Comments on posts that are really idiotic greatly off topic or crass trolling will just be scrubbed a la the Greedy Goblin approach to commentary. Given all that falls into place then its going to be a read filled with enthusiastic amateur observations and theorising on a cyber society that the vocal minority of it spout praise and vitriol in excessive amounts.

Will this blog be any different to the others? Yes of course and no obviously not. We are all human after all.

New posts will happen when I stop playing WoW long enough with a coherent thought train in my head to drop something (subjectively) worth reading, or like the rest of us when I have nothing better to do at work.