The Lament for Theramore

Thee Theramore! O sadly lost!
Alliance lament frae coast to coast.
Now war grips, the barking host
May kill us a';
For noble Jaina's fabl'd post,
Is ta'en awa'.
Dwarvish Lament for Theramore *

It is the worst kept secret in the World of Warcraft that Theramore is going to be destroyed in the pre-expansion event leading up to the release of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The details are still unknown, but the destruction of the city will change the Alliance's position in Kalimdor drastically. At this point it's unclear as to whether Theramore will be in Alliance or Horde hands, whether it will remain a quest hub or become an instanced scenario of some kind, or just be left as a smoking, purple glowing crater in the ground.

And while others (ahem, Rades) have speculated on what the destruction of will mean to the Alliance from a lore perspective, I want to talk about what it's going to mean from my perspective as a life-long Alliance player.

What brought this topic to mind is that I was watching this video of what Theramore will look like after the Horde have their way with it. It broke my heart a little bit.

DUSTWALLOW MARSH

Even the name isn't really evocative of a place you'd choose to go willingly, and certainly Dustwallow Marsh isn't exactly a vacation spot. It's not pretty or scenic. In fact, it's downright dreary and just plain creepy; the sort of place you'd expect a spider to drop down out of the trees at any moment as you're walking through it. As a player, I get an ominous feeling when adventuring in Dustwallow, particularly in places like the Wyrmbog with it's wandering Dragonkin, Witch Hill and the spirits that eternally haunt it, and Darkmist Cavern with it's endless supply of eight-legged beasties.

In stark contrast to the impenetrable depths of the Swamp stands proud Theramore, a small but gleaming (relative to the rest of the marsh, at least) Alliance city perched precariously on an island. Compared to the rest of Dustwallow and Southern Kalimdor, to the Alliance player Theramore seemed like a bright shining beacon of civilization jutting out of the literal middle of nowhere. It was the essential travel hub for an Alliance player looking to get anywhere on Kalimdor since the only other town with connections to the Eastern Kingdoms was in Auberdine (now Lor'danel) and trying to get to some of the more far-flung areas (I'm looking at you, Gadgetzan) could result in a half-hour long hippogriff ride and a good chance to catch up on some reading.

Theramore was also the main quest hub for Dustwallow, and for a lot of players like myself it was the first time setting foot on the Kalimdor continent after following a breadcrumb quest from a bloke eternally standing on the Menethil dock asking whomever walks by to deliver something to the Inn there.

Now, I can't really speak to how other people level their characters, but I always made a point to go through Dustwallow with my characters. It just seemed a more natural and interesting place to go after the Wetlands than Arathi Highlands or the Badlands. I always liked the stories that were told in Dustwallow during it's first iteration. The Shady Rest Inn storyline was particularly moving, with a great emotional pay-off at the end. I've always liked the chain of quests at Swamplight Manor to cleanse "Swamp Eye" Jarl. And of course who can forget setting the raptors loose on the unsuspecting Grimtotem?

It's a zone that reminds me a lot of one of my other other favourite zones, Duskwood. It has the same kind of creepy, foreboding atmosphere to it that I like so much. And both zones had an insane amount of running back and forth before they were mercifully streamlined in Cataclysm. And all of those great memories started in poor, doomed Theramore.


THE COMING DOOM

With the impending destruction of Theramore there is a lot of uncertainty about the future of Dustwallow as it continues it's transition from sleepy, moody swamp that felt very insignificant in the grand scheme of the world to the front lines of an all-out war with the Horde. What will become of the small stories? Who's going to take the time to cleanse Jarl of his demonic possession in the middle of a battlefield? Is someone going to walk "Stinky" Ignatz home with Horde siege engines laying waste to the landscape?

But all that having been said, why do a lot of Alliance players lament the loss of this town so much?

Well, it's been talked about to death, but during the early stages of the War (represented by the Cataclysm expansion) the Alliance has been getting the hell kicked out of it. Southshore lost, massive horde incursions into the Night Elf homelands of Ashenvale and minor ones in Darkshore, the loss of Andorhol after the Scourge were finally defeated, and our new allies in Gilneas turned to homeless refugees forced to live in a tree by the Forsaken war machine. To the Alliance player, Cataclysm has been one iron-booted kick in the nuts after another.

Now we're losing Theramore. Whump. That's gonna sting the ol' Dwarf Potatoes.

I think that for me, at least, losing Theramore is going to make Kalimdor feel a lot less friendly and much more foreign. It's hostile enemy territory now, with no real safe havens worth mentioning for the Alliance. Go away, Dwarves, you are not welcome here.

But in all honesty, the real reason that people are complaining about the loss of Theramore has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with human psychology: People embrace the familiar and fear the unknown. Things that we know are comforting. And in this terrifying new world of conflict, destruction and all-out factional war that MoP is bringing with it people are naturally going to cling to those things that remind us of a simpler, better time of relative peace.

You know, when all we had to worry about was an innumerable, unstoppable undead army that was going to take over the entire world and suck out our brains. The good ol' days.

* Adapted from Robert Burns' poem Old Scotch Drink.

This Week in Raiding: Nerf Acceptance... Sort of

"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate." - Socrates

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that Dragon Soul would receive the first of a series of progressive Nerfs, starting on January 31st. They are starting with a 5% reduction in health and damage dealt to all mobs in the instance. As well, there will be a way to toggle the Nerfs off, similar to how Icecrown Citadel's buff worked.

Now, I'm sure that many of you are thinking to yourself, "Oh shit, here he goes again. Another vitriol filled post about how much nerfs sucks and how they're ruining the game. Where's the fucking exit?"

Well, stick around; I don't plan on spewing any Nerf hate today. No sir, not me. Nuh-uh.

Now, while I'm no fan of Nerfs (as you may recall from this post from September), I am in a zen-like state of acceptance with this round of adjustments for a couple of different reasons:

Firstly, Blizzard approached these changes differently than previously in that they made no attempt to hide the fact that they were coming. Even before Dragon Soul was released on the live servers, the developers told us that they would be nerfed at some point. As well, they are giving us almost two weeks of notice before they come into effect. Contrast this approach with the sudden onset of the Firelands changes and it makes them a lot easier to accept.

Secondly, they are gradual. Looking again at Firelands, the nerfs that were implemented were savage in their  scope and extraordinarily sudden in their implementation. Such is not the case with Dragon Soul. Starting with a 5% reduction in all damage and health is reasonable and won't have such a jarring effect as the Firelands changes did. Dragon Soul will not turn into pale shadow of itself overnight; the adjustment period will be slow as the nerfs are gradually but progressively increased over the next few months.

Thirdly, they can be completely turned off to experience the fights at full difficulty. This brings back the successful buff system that Blizzard put into place for ICC, whereby talking to an NPC will turn off the Nerfs so a raid group can see the fights at full difficulty. This is a tiny bone to the hardcore players out there in an attempt to keep them happy by giving them the option to make the instance the original difficulty.

However, while it's nice to have I doubt this feature will ever be used—even by the extreme hardcore amongst us. And the reason is that there is no benefit to turning off the buffs other than self-satisfaction. With no way to tell whether a boss was killed with the Nerf on or off, any boss kill after the nerfs are implemented are tainted from a progression standpoint. I can say that I am 7/7 in Firelands, but anyone can look at the date of my Ragnaros achievement and see that it occurred after the Great Nerfening of September. That kill is valued less on a potential guild application than it would be if it had been done the week before. Dragon Soul will be the same.

Lastly, Dragon Soul normal modes are easy enough that it felt nerfed right from the beginning. So in that context, what does another Nerf matter? It's hard to get upset when something goes from easy to slightly easier.

I do have some questions though:

Why a raid-wide nerf? I don't think that a raid-wide buff was needed, honestly. Some of the bosses in normal modes could certainly use some tweaking: Zon'ozz, Ultraxion and Warmaster Blackhorn being the three that gave our raid team the most trouble. I sincerely believe that it's better to balance specific fights that are overtuned rather than nerf the entire instance. If a specific encounter is tuned such that the majority of people with the appropriate gear level cannot beat the encounter then by all means it should be re-balanced to bring it in line, but I feel the raid-wide approach is a bit like using a jackhammer to open a can of beans.

Why so fast? If, as Blizzard says, these Nerfs are being implemented because Raid Groups are hitting "brick walls" and not progressing, we now can gauge exactly what pace Blizzard expects their content to be cleared. These nerfs are appearing 9 weeks after Dragon Soul launched, meaning that Blizzard expects raiders to clear one boss per week at minimum before it considers them "stalled". Apparently, wiping on a boss for several weeks is now considered "hitting the wall" and "getting stuck on progression" and thereby grounds for nerfing the instance. Whereas in previous expansions wiping on a boss repeatedly was called "figuring out how to do shit" and an essential part of the learning process.

As with Firelands (which was nerfed in 12 weeks, giving slightly less than two weeks per boss), Blizzard isn't giving us enough time to figure things out. They continuously make more difficult and more elaborate dances in their encounters and are continually cutting short the time we have to learn them before getting heavy-handed with the nerfbat.

Kurn wrote an excellent article talking about the Dragon Soul nerfs and goes into a lot more detail on the timelines that previous instances have see in regards to difficulty changes. Check it out here: A Sigh of Resignation. She seems... uh... a little more angry about these nerfs than I am.


I AM THE PLAYER THESE NERFS ARE FOR

Matthew Rossi of WoW Insider shares an interesting statistic:

The Raid Finder is head and shoulders above normal mode raiding in terms of popularity. 35% of level 85 players have completed Raid Finder vs. 4% completing normal mode; that's a huge, huge shift. Keep in mind that Blizzard has more exacting statistics available internally, but this serves as an indicator of a trend.

On the surface, that is a shocking number. It seems like a lot of people have jumped in the Raid Finder at one point or another and have succeeded in killing Deathwing, far more than have done it on Normal difficulty. A 29% difference is significant, certainly, but let's think about this for a moment.

First of all, the statistic is for those players who have completed Dragon Soul by defeating the Madness of Deathwing encounter, something that can be done in the Raid Finder in an hour or two. Normal modes require a significantly larger investment in time, so it's not surprising that fewer people have completed it. Not only that, but divergent schedules of the raiders and other factors that aren't a concern in LFR can lead to slower progress. Nerfs can't fix that problem.

I don't know about your guild, but ours hasn't had enough time to even pull the Madness of Deathwing encounter yet after only 7 weeks of raiding, and yet I don't feel that we've hit a roadblock in our progression. In fact, at 7/8 I had thought we were making damned good progress towards our goal—until I heard about these nerfs that is. Now it seems that we're behind the curve and require some divine intervention from the developers.

I think Blizzard is making the classic mistake of underestimating it's user base. We're a resilient, intelligent bunch of people who are very good at figuring out what to do to get an encounter down given enough time.

I would be very interesting to see just how far people are getting in Dragon Soul without the nerfs. If 4% of level 85 characters have cleared Dragon Soul on normal, how many have gone 7/8 like me? How many are 4/8 and stuck on Ultraxion? How many are 2/8 and stuck on Zon'ozz? How many people just need more time to clear 8/8?

If specific encounters can be found that are causing the majority of the problems, then adjust those encounters to help those that are stuck and let the rest of us get back to work.


LEARNING TO ACCEPT REALITY

Frankly, I've come to accept that the days of the exquisitely difficult raid encounter are gone for good. No more will a raid encounter stubbornly refuse to yield to a dedicated and prepared raid group because the developers were feeling really evil when they designed it and just made that particular boss a massive son-of-a-bitch. The hard work, preparation and min-maxing that those encounters required are an out-dated mindset, apparently. And the raiders who enjoyed that type of challenge—the smart, resilient problem-solvers who think figuring out a problem is half the fun—are continually being marginalized.

If Blizzard feels that the raid is difficult enough that it is preventing people from completing it, then they should do what they feel is in the best interests of the health of their game. I can accept that.

Really, I don't much care what difficulty baseline Blizzard wants to set for it's raids. Whether it's incredibly hard, ridiculously easy or walking a fine tight-rope in between, I just want to complete the raid at the same difficulty level as the top-end guilds and everyone else. I don't want help and I don't want charity.

I'm not trying to sound elitist here. I don't consider myself a hardcore raider by any stretch of the imagination. I don't spend hours thinking about my spec or my gear or where I need to stand during an encounter. I have never run a gearing simulation and wouldn't know how to use a spreadsheet to tell me anything about WoW at all. All I do is show up and push buttons and dodge the fire until the boss dies.

If the fights are legitimately too hard, I'm all for nerfing them carefully and thoughtfully until they provide a good balance between challenge and accessibility to everyone. Everyone deserves to be able to play all aspects of this game, including Normal Mode raiding.

But I hope the developers never forget that there is a benefit to hard work. We as human beings learn from failure more than success. And while making raids simpler and easier is a good way to increase the overall number of raiders, allowing people to fail every once in a while—to truly have to work at something before succeeding—will make them better raiders.

Cross Realm Raiding and Crystal Ball Gazing

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” - Norman Maclean

Looming quite close, just over the metaphorical digital horizon, is Patch 4.3.2. A minor patch with a few tweaks, a few fixes and one new feature that, had it come a year ago, would have sent the WoW community into a frothy orgy of excitement: Cross-Realm Raiding.

People have been clamouring for the ability to Raid with their friends on different servers for ages, and it seemed like an idea that was inevitable ever since the cross-realm Looking For Dungeon system was introduced in Patch 3.3. And, of course, Patch 4.3 introduced the Looking For Raid system which allows raiding Dragon Soul with random cross-server people at a unique difficulty level. 

But what LFR does not address is the ability to form Raids to tackle normal and heroic difficulty modes with people who are not on your server. And while the current raid tier, Dragon Soul, will not be available initially, that's what this new Cross-Realm Raid system is designed to do.

KINDA LIKE KISSING YOUR SISTER

Unfortunately, excluding Dragon Soul leaves me a bit underwhelmed with cross-realm raiding. There will be no scouring Twitter to find a last minute replacement to fill in for your Mage who is being rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning leaving you one short for your regular raid night. No cross-server guild partnerships to form a 25-man raid out of two 10-man guilds. No Dragon Soul All-Star Raiding Dream Teams will form up spontaneously to crush the heroic modes.

Portrait of a Pissed-off Dragon Aspect

No, without the ability to run the current raid in a cross-server group, this feature will be an afterthought, and is probably the reason that it seems to have been welcomed by the WoW community with a resounding wave of meh. 

What it can be used for is to join LFR with a larger group than was previously available (yes, it's Dragon Soul, but only the watered down version), join a Battleground as a premade group, and to run through older tiers of raiding content.

Very useful stuff, and I think that the Battlegrounds feature especially will be used a lot. However, the system will never live up to it's potential until the current raid tier is able to be done with a cross-realm group. 

I can only speculate as to why they decided not to include it. Perhaps they felt that it would dilute the value of guilds. Maybe Blizzard didn't want people instantly transported to the raid instance as they are with LFR, thereby preserving the one, final reason people have for actually leaving the capital cities. It's possible as well that there is a technical reason, too, but most likely Blizzard decided to exclude Dragon Soul for a gameplay or balance reason.

Regardless, it seems that Blizzard is taking the cross-realm capabilities of WoW very seriously, and I imagine that seeing cross-realm raiding with no restrictions is only a matter of time. Which is great. I really look forward to the days ahead where the entire WoW population (faction permitting, of course) is at my disposal when I need to fill a hole in a raid. 

INSULATION FROM ISOLATION

However, once cross-realm raiding of current content goes live, how long until we have cross-realm mail? Cross-realm chat channels? Cross-realm universal auction houses? And eventually, are cross-realm guilds possible?

I am just indulging in some wild and completely unsupported speculation here, as Cross-Realm Guilds are certainly not a feature that anyone has even hinted at being on the horizon, but it seems as if it would be the next logical step in the direction that Blizzard is taking us. It would pretty much remove all the remaining barriers between the various different Realms and create a single cohesive WoW population. 

If this truly is the direction that Blizzard is moving, it may serve to be a very clever way to prolong the games life.

I think that it is clear that after being at the absolute top of the MMO world since 2004, there are more days behind WoW than there are in front of it, at least as the biggest and most relevant of the genre. Don't get me wrong, I don't think WoW is going to die any time soon, but I don't think it's possible that any game—even this one—has 14 years of staying power. Times change, games change, new games come out. Such is the way of the world as so will it be for WoW.

It is a certainty that at some point WoW will start to diminish in terms of active players. It will be slow and subtle but will eventually leave some servers as ghost towns, their capital cities echoing with the unheard cries of NPCs trying vainly to add colour to an empty world. I've always believed that the first definitive sign that WoW is truly on the downward slope is when Blizzard starts consolidating servers in order to keep the population of active players high enough to be viable.

However, what does it matter if your server is virtually abandoned if your guild is spread-out over 20 or 30 different servers? While it would be rather odd to go to Stormwind (or whatever the hang-out du jour is in the distant WoW future I'm describing) and have it deserted save for a single, lone naked Night Elf dancing on the mailbox, as long as there are enough people online on some server somewhere to do the group activities the game will have the appearance of vitality.

And in the end, in order for a game to survive it has to still be fun to play. WoW without people isn't fun. And the perception that there are loads of other people around ready to do something with is critical for any MMO to stay alive and vibrant. 

To that end, the cross-realm features that Blizzard has implemented, as well as those we can speculate that they might implement at some point are great steps to unify and enlarge the pool of players that a person can interact and play with, which will help the game survive and prosper for longer than it might otherwise. And as someone who plans to play this game for a long while yet, I think that is a great thing.

Encouraging Infidelity: On Burn-Out and Blood Bowl

"The universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it." ― Terry Pratchett

When I was in high school, O those many years ago, my best friend and I would spend countless hours in my basement sitting on our billiards table playing games. It was an old, heavy commercial pool table, originally used in some bar somewhere, and very sturdy. We would sit on it—inadvertently destroying the felt in the process—and endlessly play a game that captured my imagination fully and completely. The game was Blood Bowl; a tabletop fantasy football miniatures game from Games Workshop. It was (and still is) a game of mayhem and bloodshed, all about the unfettered joy of bashing the living hell out of someone all in the name of good fun.

Back then I was completely hooked on Blood Bowl and pulled my friend Mike along with me. We had a large league just for the two of us, and we played literally hundreds of games against each other. I kept detailed statistics, agonized for hours trying to come up with names for new characters to replace fallen players and created logos and back-stories for my teams and players.

Yes, I was a massive Blood Bowl geek. Needless to say I didn't have a girlfriend at the time.

Still, the time I spend with Mike playing Blood Bowl was well spent. An absurdly high number of inside-jokes were created on the top of that billiards table and each square of that polystyrene pitch that we played on has a great memory attached to it—often involving the death of some innocent Goblin or Halfling who unwisely chose to try his hand at football one afternoon. In fact, the phrase, "squit like a pimple" was used often to describe the precise way that a Halfling dies when faced with a large, angry Ogre. A lot of these jokes have stuck with me, and thinking about any one of them can send me into a giggle fit. The name Steve Tuttle, for instance, cannot be spoken around me unless you want our conversation to be cut short by a lot of frantic chortling. Best not to ask why.


THE WHEREABOUTS OF A CERTAIN DWARF

Why am I writing about this on Battle Medic, an unashamed WoW-centric blog? Clearly, reminiscing about games played during high school has no relevance to slinging healing spells during Spine of Deathwing, right?

However, the excitement that Blood Bowl filled me with has only ever been matched by one game: World of Warcraft. When I first started playing WoW it engulfed my imagination like nothing else had since those long lost days on the pool table, and in my excitement I yearned to learn everything I could about the game; to get a deep, fundamental understanding of everything that Azeroth contained. This blog is the result of that passion.

Lately, though, I have been feeling a little tired of WoW. Looking at the character selection screen made me feel like I was going to work―doing something I had to do, not necessarily something that I wanted to do. Obviously, that is a counterproductive feeling towards a recreational activity. The last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to go to another job. I want to have fun, damn it.

Now, please don't misunderstand me, I am not quitting World of Warcraft. Far from it, actually. I am still raiding regularly, and my guild and I are progressing nicely. In fact, on Monday night, Mountain Top went into Dragon Soul and managed to down 7/8 in a mere three hours. Aside from a couple of hiccoughs on Zon'ozz, it was a very smooth raid, really. But I wasn't truly excited about it. Not like I was when we got the good Majordomo down, nor did I feel the exhilaration of when Cho'gall fell for the first time. It was just... something to do.

Dwarven cheerleaders come prepared
with their own kegs.

I contrast this to the joy that I felt playing WoW when I first started raiding, and there is definitely something missing. This was crystallized in my mind over the New Year holidays when I installed a new game to try out: The video game version of the game that absorbed so much of my youth, Blood Bowl. When I tried it for the first time on New Year's day, I was enthralled. All those old feelings and memories came flooding back and I remembered what being truly excited about a game felt like. And I also realized that it had been a while since I sincerely felt that way about WoW.

(Then again, he thinks, as his silly Dwarf team fumbles the bloody ball yet again, this damned game is the stupidest, most frustrating, damned, arrrrrrgh, fargin' greasy bastich son of a ...)

Burn-out is a mental state. I think it happens when one perceives that the effort expended to do a task becomes greater than the reward one expects to receive upon it's completion. Considering that the reward for playing WoW are intangible things such as relaxation, enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment, it's a tricky thing to gauge. At what point do I think that my playing time could be better spent doing something else?

WoW is an interesting game in the sense that it becomes somewhat like a relationship. Time needs to be spent to maintain the relationship or else it will begin to decay—manifested by characters falling behind in progression, gear or daily quest rewards and the like. The more developed the relationship becomes the greater the feeling of obligation to maintain the relationship. For me, at least, it's this sense of obligation that has contributed more than anything to my burn-out.

And I don't know about anyone else, but WoW is unique in that, like a relationship, it creates a feeling of monogamy unlike any game I've ever played before. The notion that the characters in the game need to be constantly maintained leads to the feeling that playing anything else is like cheating on your spouse. I think this is the reason that a lot of WoW players get upset when their fellows begin dating another game such as Rift or Star Wars: The Old Republic. Faithful spouses are the ones that are most likely to look down upon infidelity. Frankly, this idea is kind of insane; it's just a game after all.

I think it's normal and unavoidable that after doing an activity like playing WoW for a long, continuous period of time to feel less enthusiastic about it than when it was fresh and new. I've been playing it to the exclusion of just about anything else for over three and a half years now, and at least for me, right now, the lustre of the game has worn off a bit.

And given that it's unrealistic to play the same game for three years and still remain as excited about it as when it was new, yet not wanting to give up on it, means that I need to manage my feelings of disinterest.

I have been giving some thought as to what can be done to take a break from WoW, get refreshed and get one's mojo back while still maintaining the relationship.


FIVE THINGS TO DO IN A GAME THAT YOU'RE BURNED OUT ON

1) SET A GOAL THAT YOU WANT TO DO, NOT THAT YOU HAVE TO DO

The first step for me is to remove the feeling of obligation. I want to play the game because I want to play it, not because I have to play it. During the Firelands patch the prospect of grinding out a month of dailies was an incredibly unappealing thought that made me want to think twice about logging in until eventually I just stopped doing them and felt a lot better. Same goes for capping Valor Points; it's something that is nice if I can do it, but if I don't manage it every week I'm not going to fret about it.

Once I realize that I don't need to play if I don't want to, I need to find a goal that makes me want to log in. I realize how much stuff that I haven't actually seen or done in the game, so there are lots of potential goals or achievements to go for. For instance, I decided that I wanted to get Jeeves for my engineer, and while it was a grind to try and get the recipe, I actually enjoyed the process knowing that the reward at the end would be something that I and my raid team would find extraordinarily useful.

Make the goals small and doable in easily accomplished chunks. There is no point in taking on a task with a grand scale that will simply increase the feeling of obligation or force you to quit before it's done. Failure to accomplish a goal will only make the burn-out worse.

2) DO SOMETHING IN GAME YOU'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE

While there are some people who have been playing this game so long that they have literally done and seen everything, I cannot even begin to list all the things that I have yet to do. I have never levelled a horde character past level 15, and there are whole zones that I have never experienced other than riding through to get the explorer achievement. PVP is still more-or-less a mystery to me. There are more than a few raids I haven't seen, and I really haven't raided seriously in any role other than as a healer. I could go on as the list is extensive.

When burnt-out from doing the things that one normally does, it's time to change it up. Find something—anything that you haven't done before and try it out. The worst thing that can happen is that you won't like it.

3) INTRODUCE SOMEONE NEW TO THE GAME

Enthusiasm is very infectious; if it caused sneezes it would be considered a Level 4 Biohazard and very serious men in very serious suits from very serious government agencies would be present to monitor the situation any time a 13 year-old girl told her friend about Justin Beiber in case a pandemic broke out and doomed the Earth. It's serious shit.

It's interesting to see a game that I'm so intimately familiar with through the eyes of someone new to the game. I watch my young nephew play, for instance, and am amazed at the things that he finds interesting and fun. Fishing, for instance, is tremendously entertaining for him. And he would happily have his character swim for hours in the rivers and lakes. Seeing the things that he finds interesting and fun is fascinating, and allows me to see the game through the eyes of a 9 year-old.

So try finding someone who hasn't played the game before and show it to them. Even if they don't go and pick up a copy, show them how to play and let them give it a try. Sharing their experiences as they see things for the first time is a fantastic way to rediscover the magic yourself.

Alternately, help someone learn to do something that they don't know how to do. Try showing a guildmate the ropes of a role they don't often do. I have often found that they best way to discover new ways to do something is to try to teach another person how to do it. It can be a lot of fun, and is very rewarding.

4) BE MORE SOCIAL WHILE PLAYING

It cannot be argued that the most compelling feature of any MMO has nothing to do with graphics or quests or gameplay, but rather in the people that play the game. Whenever I log onto WoW and see our guild chat silent, it's a little bit deflating. I love lively chatter, and having a fun conversation is a great way to get me in a great mood.

Meeting and talking with someone new is a great way to reinvigorate interest in an MMO, and can potentially expose you to a different way of thinking about it. There are literally thousands upon thousands of potential friends online at any particular moment; all it takes is a little bit of effort to meet them.

5) TALK ABOUT IT. WRITE ABOUT IT. SCRIBBLE SOMETHING ON CAVE WALLS USING CHARCOAL ABOUT IT

There are a gazillion support groups out there for just about every conceivable problem that a person can possibly have, and they work. Talking about feelings and problems with people who share them is a great way to begin to get a grip on them.

So talk about how you're feeling about the game. There are any number of places you can do it: Post on forums; comment on blogs (like this one!); write a blog or hell, even talk about it in trade chat if you're desperate. The point is, don't keep it bottled up. You'll feel better. Honest.

As a blogger, Battle Medic has been my outlet for a lot of things when it comes to WoW. This post has been wonderfully cathartic in getting some of this stuff off my chest and feeling better about this game. I plan to do this more often, and focus more on the things I really enjoy about this game.


FIVE THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THE THING YOU LIKE TO DO BUT REALLY WANT TO DO SOMETHING

I think I may need to tweak that title somewhat. It's not exactly pithy, is it?

There comes a point when it's just time to get the hell out of dodge for a while and actually take a break. Even though I don't plan to quit WoW any time soon, the past week or so of not really playing WoW very much has been nice. A little distance has been a very nice thing, indeed, and I'm starting to feel the irresistible urge to return to the sunny shores of Azeroth.

So what can be done to take a break from the game and reinvigorate the gamer's soul?

1) PLAY SOMETHING ELSE FOR A WHILE

Feelings of infidelity aside, there is no reason why anybody needs to be a monogamous gamer. WoW's feelings won't be hurt if you start seeing something else on the side, regardless of whether it's a single player game or another MMO. I flirted with Lord of the Rings Online for an afternoon, and other people have dived into other games head first, and through it all WoW has soldiered on and is always ready to take back it's players who have strayed. Variety, as they say, is the spice weasel of Neptunian cooking.

Games—all games—are a lot of fun. Over Christmas my Dad and I played a game of Tiger Woods golf on his Wii (the fact that my father has a gaming console and I don't felt a little odd, honestly). As we were starting up the game he said, "I didn't take you for a golfer."

My reply was simple, "I'm not a golfer, Dad. I'm a gamer. Let's rock." And despite the horrifically bad slice in my golf swing, we had a blast that night (and the whisky helped, certainly).

Exclusively playing a single game—even one as vast and deep as WoW—is very limiting. Expand your horizons and try something new. You may find, as I have, that cheating on your game may just remind you of why you fell in love with it initially.

In fact, it was cheating on Warcraft that inspired me to start writing this post. The days I spent transfixed to my computer pitting eleven stout Dwarven footballers against enemies on the Blood Bowl pitch were so exciting and so much fun that I was reminded of why I play games in the first place.

2) DO SOMETHING CREATIVE

Of course, there is more to life than gaming. Sacrilegious, I know, but perhaps the best thing to do when you're burnt-out on a games is simply not to play anything.

For me, whenever I'm feeling in a rut or depressed, I find that doing something creative will always lift my spirits. Writing, for one, is a phenomenally powerful power-scrub for my brain, and always helps me regain my emotional balance. Likewise, spending some time working and playing with photographs is always good for my soul, like eating a bucket of chocolate at Halloween.

Personally, I find that doing something that allows me to flex my creative muscles—especially if it produces something tangible, like a finished print I can hang on my wall—is a tremendous stress reliever. I don't ever do it often enough for my liking, but I always feel better after I'm done.

3) GET SOME EXERCISE, SLACKER

I am the single worst person you could ever imagine to give this advice given that I am one of the most sedentary people on the planet, but physical activity is a perfect way to change the switch in your brain from the CRANKY BASTARD mode to the ULTIMATELY CALM CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE setting. It's good for the body and the mind.

Every Friday during the winter my wife and I go Curling. I always feel emotionally recharged when I get off the ice, especially if I've had to sweep hard and am physically drained. There is just something purifying about getting a good sweat on, especially if it is then followed up by a pitcher of lager at the bar that's attached to the rink.

Yes, I know, it's not the most effective diet and work-out plan. This could explain why I don't ever lose weight.

4) READ A BOOK

Likewise, giving the mind a workout is equally good for the spirit. Plopping down in front of a cozy fire, or on the couch with a glass of wine and a great book is a wonderful way to change your attitude. It always works for me. It's very peaceful, very zen, and allows me to put my mind in neutral and forget about all the crap that I have to deal with during the day.

Of course, when the Dwarfling insists that she wants some attention and oh my doesn't that book look like a fun thing to grab and see if it fits in her mouth means that I seldom get time for this particular option these days. But any chance I get to steal a bit of time to plant my face between two pages, I take it.

5) SPEND TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE YOU

The final, most obvious and infinitely most effective tip I have to combat burn-out is this: Go spend time with someone that puts you in a good mood. Hang out with your buddies, get a hug from your wife or a cute Holy Paladin that drops by your house occasionally, go play with your kid or even chase the dogs around the backyard. Just find someone who makes you smile and let them do the hard work of cheering you up.


BURN OUT IS A REVERSIBLE STATE OF MIND

Feeling burnt-out on WoW is an emotional state that can be reversed. Any of these tips can be utilized to get yourself in a better mood and back to doing what you want to be doing. The real trick is, and one that can't be answered by anyone but yourself, is to figure out what you really want to be doing. There is no point in forcing yourself to play a game you no longer find fun.

However, I think that most of us still enjoy World of Warcraft and don't want to leave the game permanently. I think it boils down to giving yourself permission to do something else, to remove the pressure of needing to maintain the high maintenance WoW relationship, and allow yourself the freedom to do other things.

Go ahead, cheat on WoW with another game or with your family. Take a step back from your sense of obligation and take it easy for a while. I think you'll find it will still be there when you have the urge to come back.

And I think that you will want to come back. It's been two weeks for me and I already do.

What's Up, Dwarf?

"Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread." - Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

It's been a while since I've posted anything substantial and I thought it time to catch you all up on what I've been up to lately. I have never been one to do the more personal posts, but I'm getting sick at seeing this blog wither and die like a spring flower in the harsh bitterness of an approaching winter. Cheerful metaphors aside, I need to get some things out of my head and onto the blog. I apologize in advance for the distressing lack of WoW content in this post.

"Omnomnomnom"
The face of pure destruction has never
looked so danged cute.

It feels like life is getting more and more hectic everyday around the Fannon stead. The Dwarfling is a very robust 9 months now, in perfect health and fully mobile; she's crawling and scuttling around like a famished Zoidberg going after a discarded hamburger. Nothing is safe from her wrath, and a rapid and frantic baby-proofing of our house is taking place at all hours of the day as she finds new and wonderful things to get her hands on to destroy.

I'm realizing that this parenting thing is a marathon that I have not trained for; my stamina is not nearly buffed enough to keep up with a rambunctious child. And it's only going to get worse as she realizes her legs are not merely for kicking the dogs when they get too close. Once she's walking, I'm doomed.

I know all the other parents out there are reading this with a bemused, knowing smirk on their face, and a feeling of pity mixed with a certain smug satisfaction that the hell that they went through is indeed universal.

Still, she's a treasure. The best part of my day is seeing her face light up when I get home from work. Nothing in this world beats a child that's happy to see you; I look forward to it all day.

Really, being tired from chasing a kid around isn't really the major stress source in my life at this moment. That honour definitely goes to my job. If you are a reader of my Twitter account you've no doubt read my many vitriolic tweets threatening to walk out. Well, dear reader, I am still in the same job I have been for the past two years. I haven't made a move yet because the hours are really quite cushy, but there isn't a day that goes by where I don't want to punch all the things, jump in a rather expensive vehicle and drive it through a plate-glass window. I'd love to just rage quit, but knowing that the Dwarfling is depending on me for everything she has means I can't be hasty when it comes to the major source of income in the family.

I bring all this up on Battle Medic because all this real life stress is affecting how I perceive this game. Frankly, I think it's clear that I've been going through a rather serious bout of depression for the past couple of months which has been negatively colouring my attitude and sucking the fun out of most everything in my life. I feel deflated and helpless when I log into WoW and look at the character screen these days - knowing that no matter what I try to do I will likely get interrupted by family matters and be unable to finish. I don't think I've done anything on my main other than raid in over a month because I just don't have the time. It's a terrible feeling and it has turned my stress-relief activity into an actual source of stress. I hate that.

Normally when I write something like this I try to broaden the topic a bit to make it less about me and a little more universal. But in this case I can't. I can't tell you how I'm going to work myself out of the funk that I'm in, nor can I offer any advice if you're going through something similar. I don't have any answers this time.

But what I can tell you is what I've been up to, trying to keep myself distracted.


WHAT'S UP WITH THE BLOG, DWARF?
(Are you still posting about WoW, or what?)

I'm not going to deny that I have been feeling very lackluster about posting Battle Medic these days. This post took me more than two weeks to finally finish, and I'm still not really happy with it. Looking at the blank post-entry page gives me the same feeling as when I'm looking at the character selection screen; a deep sigh and an immobilizing sense of panic.

The invent of the IntPiPoMo challenge that I have been tackling has been relatively lackluster in terms of generating traffic to the blog, but if it has accomplished nothing else it has got me posting again. It's been nice to be able to talk about something that I'm passionate about that is related to the game but not necessarily about the game - if that makes any sort of sense at all. It's been nice to get back into my image archives and show my faithful Battle Medic readers some of the other images that I work on and to talk a little about how I make them.


WHAT'S UP IN WARCRAFT, DWARF?

I have still been playing WoW over the past while, even though I haven't really been posting or Tweeting about it. I have a lot of posts in the works with my thoughts and reactions to the upcoming 4.3 patch and the new expansion which will hopefully be insightful even if they aren't exactly timely. Raiding is proceeding well enough, and I'm starting to get the itch to take my recently 85 Resto Shaman into the Firelands now that her gear is approaching acceptable levels. Not that I have time to raid with another character, mind you.

What I have been doing with my playing time is to work on some side projects.


The Deadman's Challenge

I started Vrykerion and Pysnister's Ironman Challenge as well, creating a soon-to-be-dead Orc named Grykthar. I plan to post more about this in a bit, but my spin on it makes it a perma-death challenge. So no items other than white and grey, no heirlooms, no dungeons, no nothing - and when the character dies he's dead for good.

I don't think that Grykthar will ever survive to be max level - in fact I fully expect to be writing many tales of woe and misery as I kill off character after character in ever more gruesome and entertaining ways. Look for a detailed introduction to Grykthar and my Deadman's Challenge coming soon.


Gnome Clone

Lillifleur the Gnome Clone
Fear our spiky and flirty Hair-dos!

More recently I have joined the Gnome Clone Army of [ Punt This ] with my lovely little clone mage Lillifleur. If you haven't heard of this before, it's a project started by Alas; the goal of which is to create an army of Gnome twinks, all with the same look, "uniform" and similar names, that will run roughshod over the Level 24 Battlegrounds. The idea has exploded on Twitter, and the Glorious Clone Army has surpassed 100 members, none of which are more than three feet tall.

Personally, I've been having a blast with my little clone. Levelling as a mage is fun and I think I may become addicted to blowing stuff up. She's an absolute beast and has already reached level 20 - by far my highest mage to date. Not only that, but the Clone Army is filled with scores of intelligent, witty and fun people, mostly culled from Twitter. Guild chatter is fun and lively, and I have been enjoying the levelling process.

Given my current state of mind, this project couldn't have come at a better time. I've tried starting other lowbie characters (my Druid is still languishing at level 24), but the prospect of levelling a character to 85 is a very daunting thought when time is an enemy. Getting a character to a "Level Cap" of 24, on the other hand, is simple, quick and painless. I'm excited to log in and play my little clone and I'm looking forward to getting her into some Battlegrounds and burning some Horde faces. I can't say that I have been excited about much of anything lately, so this feeling is a nice change of pace.

The highlight so far happened last night: A spontaneous flash mob of Gnome Clones descended on the unsuspecting denizens of Stormwind and entertained the bewildered spectators with Gnomish dancing and formation marching accompanied with loud and vociferous proclamations of gnomish supremacy. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in game, to tell the truth. By the end we had about 20 Lilli's precision marching from the Dwarven district to the Cheese Shop by the main gates, followed by a large crowd of very curious and fun-loving converts to the gnomish cause.

The Gnome Clone Army invades Stormwind to start a Dance Party

Quite a sight to see.


WHAT'S UP, DWARF?

Hopefully, my spirits. It's funny, but since I started writing this post several weeks ago, I have hit lows and highs - my mood has been quite variable and unpredictable - but I'm feeling a little better these days. Work has been less than completely awful the past few weeks, and the constant stream of house-guests, events and other time-sinks that have been eating away at my soul are done at least for the near term. And last night I actually managed to force a little alone time where I could just sit back and enjoy myself. It was nice and desperately needed.

With any luck your favourite Battle Medic will be back in good spirits and posting more soon. Thank you all for your patience, and perseverance to actually read through this rather whiny post. Writing it seems to have helped; I hope it wasn't too painful to read. But at least you've got a bit more insight as to what I've been going through personally the past while.

On Raiding Disappointment: An Open Letter to Blizzard

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure - Peter Marshall

Dear Blizzard,

As a subscriber who came to World of Warcraft with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Cataclysm represented my first true opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new content. For the first time I felt as if I wasn't lagging behind everyone else and was finally experiencing content the way it was meant to be experienced. I greeted the new expansion with a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm.

Cataclysm introduced many controversial changes, many of which were not received terribly enthusiastically by the community. I, on the other hand (being an avid Kool-Aid drinker), was thrilled with a lot of the changes, and incredibly excited to see the new content, experience the new levelling experience and, most importantly, to progress through the new raids. I understood the need to make the game more accessible, and supported the changes.

In fact, I was very frustrated with a lot of the complaining and the griping coming from the WoW community. Back in March I wrote a post critizing the community for having a "Doom and Gloom" outlook on the current state of the game, saying that people come and go, but the game itself was in a good place.

This week, you proved me wrong, Blizzard. I now feel compelled to add my voice to the chorous of the discontented.


Lord Rhyolith: Call me Admiral McROFLStompyPants



And it's because this week saw the introduction of significant nerfs to the Firelands bosses, crippling each boss - in both normal and heroic modes - anywhere from 15 to 25 percent in damage done and health, as well as simplifying several of the more difficult mechanics. This was done in an unprecedentedly brief time period since the raid was released.

Regardless of what your intention is, the significance of this change is instantly and universally understood by your player base: If you didn't clear Firelands before this nerf, you failed. Here are your free charity epics.

This is the exact same message that was sent regarding Tier 11 when Tier 12 came out. Didn't clear it before? No problem, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. Don't worry, the Internet Dragons are toothless now, so you won't get hurt. Just try to stay awake, okay?

At least back then we had a new, full-difficulty raid tier to busy ourselves with. Reducing the difficulty on previous tier content in order to allow more people to see it makes sense, at least. And it worked; raids were able to go back into Tier 11 and cut through the bosses like a they were barely there, and mechanics that were previously raid killers became irrelevant.

These changes to the current tier are completely inexplicable and inexcusable. They go too far, much too soon.

I mean, it's not as if people were complaining that the Firelands bosses were too hard. Quite the reverse, really; early on a lot of people were complaining that Firelands was decidedly too easy and that Raid Teams were blowing through it far too quickly. And it wasn't just the elite raiding guilds that were expressing this opinion, either.

Our raid team, for instance, is not at the cutting edge of progression. We are never likely to compete for a Realm First but neither are we at the bottom end of progression. We are probably the poster children of your average raiders; a casually-oriented guild that raids 6-8 hours a week. We expect to tackle the encounters, learn them and defeat them as they were originally designed.

Why aren't you giving us the time to do this?

My guild and I have been raiding Firelands from the day it was released. We were a new guild then, still gelling as a team, but we went in and got things done. Some of the encounters were really challenging and tested us; we wiped more than a few times on some of these bosses, which made downing them that much sweeter. I don't cheer out loud - causing my wife to give me strange looks - when we down an easy encounter. No, that is saved for when we overcome a significant obstacle that has stood in our path blocking our progression like an obstinate traffic cop. I like cheering, Blizzard, but where are the obstacles?

Wednesday night we went through Firelands after the nerfs and did six bosses. The difference in the level of difficulty is painfully obvious. It's actually invasive. Bosses that previously required precise play, good communication and teamwork even at good gear levels are now simplistic and easy. Lord Rhyolith, for example, lasted less than 10 seconds into Phase 2. I didn't even have time to get into position before he died. The burn phases of Shannox and Beth'tilac, which were previously heavy-damage phases that required the use of healer and tank cooldowns as well as skillful play to get through, are similarly laughable. As a healer, it seemed like Health Bars barely moved in those phases.

There is no thrill or enjoyment in beating up crippled children, Blizzard, and that's what you've turned these raid bosses into. You might as well give Fandral Staghelm a wool cap and a cane and rename him Tiny Tim. I actually felt sorry for Rageface the other night because he died so quickly, and his whole purpose for living - to Rage on Faces - was no more painful than a puppy dog licking ice cream off your toes. It does not qualify as something to be concerned about any longer. PETA will be hearing about this.

I think that in the pursuit of the noble goal of making the game more accessible to a larger variety of people a large chunk of the challenge of World of Warcraft has been removed. Many aspects of the game have fallen victim to this, with the endgame being the most notable and most damning, but even levelling is now so quick and painless that there is no sense of danger left in the game. Even without heirlooms, enemies fall over dead with little more than a mere glance, and there is a distinct lack of worry that something is actually dangerous. Low level dungeons are, even with poor gear, ridiculously easy, which is especially obvious when the vast majority of boss fights last under 30 seconds.

In fact, there is so little challenge left in WoW that your players are taking it upon themselves to make the game more difficult. Your very intelligent and creative players are coming up with things like the WoW Ironman Challenge and the Naked Dungeon Challenge just so that they have something to do that doesn't involve one-shotting the poor denizens of Dun Morogh on yet another overpowered Alt.

Thomas Paine said, "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value", and I think that is a lesson that has been forgotten. There is a benefit to difficulties, a benefit of failure. Overcoming adversity is how people learn and improve, and it's how fierce emotional attachments are created. Raiders who raided Molten Core don't look back on the gear that they got with such love and devotion because getting it was easy, but rather because the blood, sweat and sheer red-hot effort that they expended to get it has branded it into their souls.

I think it's time to put the challenge back into the World.

BALANCING ACT

I understand that balancing the many different types of players and trying to make everyone happy is a difficult, if not impossible task. I can't think of a more thankless job that trying to please eleven million people, all of whom want something different, and at the same time trying to feed the corporate overlord's insatiable lust for profits.

I know that there are quite a number of people who are happy with these changes to the raids because it gives them a chance to finally see the content. But I think that there is a difference between seeing the content and experiencing the content.  The idea of merely seeing the content reminds me of a tourist: Someone who comes to visit and see the sights, but wants to have a good, relaxing time and not really get their hands dirty. While experiencing the content implies slogging through the worst that the raid can throw at you and working through the inevitable failures and hardships. These are two very different types of players who want two completely different types of gaming experiences.

However, nerfing current content when there is no alternative, higher-end content available means turning everyone into the Tourist.

I know that Patch 4.3 is brings us the Raid Finder tool and a new difficulty level that caters to the Tourists, PUGers and people who just want to see the content but are, for whatever reason, unable to raid at the normal difficulty levels. I'm sure it's your hope that this elmininates the need for nerfs such as these, and I'm optimistic that it will work very well. But that doesn't change the fact that in this patch, on this raid, you took away my challenge.

We're going into Firelands to kill Ragnaros for the first time this week. Last week it was an exciting prospect, now it's just something to do on a Sunday. Oh, we'll get the achievement, but the accomplishment has been made lesser. Like Roger Maris, I will forever have an asterisk next to my 7/7 achievement.

Sincerely,

Fannon

Dwarven Battle Medic and Dissatisfied Raider.



Ragnaros: Still tough, but 25% less satisfying.

 
 

Mobile Blogging

This is what Sex would look like if it
came with a Data Plan.

When you write a blog, you never know when the inspiration may strike to write your next great post, and having the ability to write on the go is very desirable. These days smartphones are everywhere, have more power and utility than my first five computers combined and are a great way to quickly jot down an idea or churn out some word count anywhere.

In fact, this post is being written on an iPhone while I'm on a break in a training seminar.

APPS

Depending on which blogging platform you choose, there are dozens of different Apps to blog on the go. Most, however, are geared towards Photo Blogging as opposed to actual post writing, but there are a handful of apps that will allow you to blog just about anywhere.

The official Wordpress
App = Pure Win.

On the iPhone, at least, Wordpress is extremely easy; providing an official and feature-rich free app to manage all your blogs. It gives a complete mobile dashboard that allows you to do just about anything that you can do on a proper computer. Writing posts, managing comments or tracking stats are all available to you any time you can type on your phone and not walk into a lightpost.

Blogger, on the other hand, is a little more difficult. For some odd reason Google doesn't provide an official app to write posts, but instead have an E-mail based system for creating content. It is much less robust than the Wordpress app, but does allow some limited functionality.

A quick search of the Apple App Store will bring up dozens of apps - some free and some available for a fee - that will allow more integration with Blogger. This post, for instance, is being written by the free version of BlogBooster, an ad-supported app available for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 that will integrate with just about every blogging platform out there. It is by no means perfect - with one or two extremely annoying quirks - but at least it allows me to do things like italics and bold and not just plain text. And, hello? Who builds a word processor without a flipping undo button?

With both of these apps you can sync the phone with your blog so that you have a copy of your drafts and recent published posts on your phone, which allow you to work on them offline. Very handy if you don't have access to reliable Wifi or 3G coverage. It also removes the bandwidth concern of being constantly connected to a website; just type away and upload your post when you're done.

KEYBOARD

iPhone 4 Keyboard: Not as bad
as it seems at first.

Mobile phones these days come with all sorts of different keyboards, from standard QWERTY style hardware ones, software based ones like the iPhone, or simple phone-style numberpads like on the Blackberry Pearl or other more conventional phones. Obviously, a keyboard with proper, physical keys is easier to use, bit I'm surprised at how good the soft keyboard on the iPhone is; and autocorrect is not nearly as evil as I was led to believe. I find that typing is fairly quick, given it's a two-thumb process and accuracy is not all that bad with a little practice. I find the keyboard is much easier to use when using it in the horizontal position.

Editing, on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. With no arrow keys it's very hard to precisely position the cursor on the word or letter that needs changing, which results (autocorrect thought that results should have been exults for some reason) in retyping whole words when attempting to change something small. And selecting the right word is challenging for someone with the dainty thumbs of an 800 pound Mistvale Gorilla.

THE VERDICT

A smartphone, no matter how sophisticated or sexy, is by no means the ideal blogging device. And while I would never want to write anything substantive using this iPhone again, I certainly like having the (thus? Really autocorrect?) option to be able to do some writing on the fly when a computer isn't readily available. The app options available are varied and most will do a very good job at the basics, but will quickly run into the limitations of a device that just isn't designed for the task.

For the record, this post was written on the iPhone and edited on my main computer at home. This Dwarf's mommy didn't raise a masochist.
 
  

Trolling for PUGs: Adventures in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub

The doors to Zul'Aman, which no one
will ever see from the outside again.

I must admit that I was a little late to the Zandalari party. I always try to stay away from new content when a major patch like this drops for a day or so to let the servers stabilize, so I didn't attempt a run on patch day even though my pocket Tank was asking me to.

I probably should have, however, since my wife and daughter got home the next day after almost a week away visiting relatives, and the Dwarfling was making sure that she was the centre of attention. I didn't actually get a chance until Sunday to try one out.

I was excited to hear that they were bringing these two raids back as extra-difficult 5-man heroics, similar to the Icecrown Citadel heroics. I didn't get a chance to run either of these raids when they were relevant, and somewhat stupidly didn't run them before Blizzard whisked them away from us, so I was going into them completely blind - with only a Wowhead breakdown of the bosses to guide me.


BRING A LUNCH - THIS IS GONNA TAKE A WHILE

Zoning into Zul'Gurub for the first time, it's immediately apparent that it feels a little different than most other 5-mans. It felt big. And though Blizzard was clever to make most of it avoidable, there is a ton of trash there; the place actually feels populated, like a giant troll city should. Seeing it for the first time it's very easy to imagine this place as a raid.

The first run through this incarnation of Zul'Gurub was with a guild group of more casual players: The tank and I are regular raiders, but the DPS, though raid experienced, are not regular raiders these days. Regardless, everybody's gear was more than adequate to run these dungeons, so there was no problems there.

My impressions of this dungeon are that each of the bosses is considerably more difficult than the other Cataclysm heroics. The first boss Venoxis gave us quite a bit of trouble, and feels like it's a test aimed at the healer. The panther boss, Kilnara, gave us a lot of grief as well; it almost feels like that fight could use two tanks. Zanzil was tough as well for our group, but it felt like we were going to get it. Unfortunately I had to quit before we finished him off and I didn't get to see the last boss.

In looking back, it really did feel like a raid. Not just because it took us almost 3 hours to get to Zanzil - by which time Mrs. Fannon was giving me dirty looks, sharpening her kitchen knives and laying out old sheets around my computer to soak up the blood - but because the difficulty of the encounters and the co-ordination required was a lot higher than I was expecting. Thank goodness we were on Ventrilo.


OH DEAR LORD A PUG

The real fun in Zul'Gurub came yesterday when I tried to PUG it using the LFD tool.

Call to Arms was asking for both Tanks and Healers, so I muttered the immortal last words, "What the heck, it can't be that bad, can it?"

Suffice it to say, an hour and several wipes later, we were not past the first boss and I ditched the group. The tank, while her gear was sufficient, had never seen any of the fights before and had no idea what she was doing. In addition, she was completely uncommunicative and so bloody slow; and not she's-just-being-a-cautious-puller kind of slow, either. It was more like the pause-for-five-minutes-with-no-communication-between-each-pull type. I think that she was reading up on the fights while she was tanking the trash. It was quite painful.

At Venoxis, the DPS seemed to think that Green=Good and made sure to stand in it frequently. Neither the tank or the Death Knight seemed to have their interrupt ability bound, or didn't have the first clue when to use it even after I explained the fight and which ability to interrupt.

And a note to the hunter: Jumping over the toxic maze lines will still get you killed. Don't do it, please.

So, yeah, it can be that bad. Best to wait to PUG this instance for a few weeks until people get a handle on it.


FINALLY, SUCCESS!

Can you tell which
items are new?
HINT: They are Brown.

A guildie and I queued up for a random last night and got Zul'Aman. Firstly, what a beautiful instance! Assuming that Zul'Gurub looks more-or-less the same as it originally did, you can really see a difference in visual quality between the two of them.

It was slow - we certainly didn't get the timed run - but successful. Our tank was good for the most part, and while there were a lot of mistakes on the trash, we got though it in reasonably good time - about an hour or so.

It's hard to compare them after only doing each one once, but Zul'Aman definitely seems like the easier of the two. The mechanics of the fights seemed less complex, and the bosses felt like they weren't hitting quite so hard. And the Eagle boss is just plain fun.

The run was made all the more worth it when I handed in the quests at the end and received replacements for a couple of problem areas in my gear: Shoulders and Legs. 353 isn't as good as what Cho'gall drops, and they're not itemized perfectly, but they're a damned sight better than what I replaced. That makes me a happy pally.

The only drawback to these new epics is that they don't go with the Tier 11 armour at all. Still, the skulls are very stylish; I'm sure that they will be all the rage this season.

THE VERDICT

While I agree that these instances are quite difficult and very long, they are a lot of fun. The difficulty will not be all that horrifying once everyone knows what to do, but they certainly aren't instances that can just be facerolled through. There is a silly amount of damage being spewed out of everything in these places, and if someone is not paying attention death will come all too swiftly.

I'm very happy that Blizzard gave us another gearing path as well. It was painfully obvious that there were some glaring holes in the loot distribution, with bracers being the worst. These instances, dropping gear that is halfway between heroic level blues and Tier 11 epics, fill that gap nicely - making for a much smoother and easier gear progression. As well, having quests inside the instances that give very useful gear means there is much less griding required to replace a piece. And is it just my imagination, or do these quests give rewards based on your class?

I'm very happy with what I have seen of the new dungeons so far. They're challenging and fun and provide some much needed loot. I'm also glad to have a chance to see them as relevant content - even if they are not exactly the same as the old raids. I'll talk more about recycling content in another post that I'm working on which should be finished in a few days.
 
 

Day Sixteen: What I Miss Post-Cataclysm

This post is part of a series "20 Days of... WoW Blogging Challenge", a blogging challenge suggested by Saga at Spellbound. She proposes twenty questions to be answered in twenty days and I, foolishly, have decided to take up this most daunting task because clearly my schedule is not full enough.

DAY SIXTEEN: WHAT I MISS POST-CATACLYSM

“There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today's topic comes and an opportune moment, actually, because I've been longing for a pre-Cataclysm feature lately.

I really wish Blizzard had left the 25-man and 10-man raid lockouts separate.

Now don't misunderstand me; for the most part, I am a huge fan of the Raid Lockout system that is in place now. While things may get a little bizarre when Heroic modes are thrown into the mix, on the whole the Lockout system is a marvel of simplicity and flexibility. And I love that both raid sizes give the same quality of gear as it ensures that 10-man raiders are not second class citizens.

But it would be nice to be able to do run both sizes in a week if you wanted to.

I am running into a peculiar problem right at the moment that being able to run a second raid lockout during a week would help solve. I have been raiding twice a week for almost 4 months now, am 9/12 and yet my gear still sucks. Apparently my luck with gear drops was a feature that was nerfed in 4.0.

Back in Wrath I could have ran a 25 man raid to try and get another shot at gear but with a single lockout system, I'm stuck at waiting until next week for a chance at a drop. For all the flexibility that the Cataclysm system gives us, this feels very restrictive.

In my opinion, with a Valor Point cap and no difference in the gear being dropped, there is very little point in having the lockouts tied together. The reason behind the change was that Blizzard did not want people to feel they needed to do both, but all they have accomplished is taking away the possibility for people who want to run both. And in doing so they have unnecessarily slowed down the gearing progression.

Oh, on a slightly unrelated note: what's with all the Holy Paladin gear being on the really hard bosses? A Retribution Paladin gets his bracers off of Omnotron - which once you figure out is a piece of cake - and a Holy Paladin has to kill freakin' Cho'gall to get his. I think Blizzard really does hate healers.

Yesterday, DAY FIFTEEN: ART, INSPIRATION AND A DESKTOP BACKGROUND
Tomorrow, DAY SEVENTEEN: MY FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD (OF WARCRAFT)