Sightseeing and Raiding Achievements

"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." - Albert Einstein

Perhaps one of the more lamentable facts of life when it comes to World of Warcraft raiding is that as each new tier of content comes out, the raids and dungeons of previous tiers tend to get quickly abandoned like an awkwardly phrased metaphor. This phenomena typically gets worse the older a raid is until the only time people will visit is to do the raiding equivalent of sightseeing. Now that's all fine and good if the purpose is simply to revisit a raid that has been completed previously for the sake of nostalgia, but what about someone going in to see a dungeon for the first time?

There are some magnificently complex and wonderful encounters in these old raids. The truly sad thing is that the typical sightseer will go in as an overlevelled and overgeared wrecking machine and rip through these old bosses with the same level of delicacy as it would take to open a Chunky Soup can with a stick of dynamite. Bosses die and encounters are completed with no regard to the very mechanics and elements that make the fights actually interesting. The end result is that the player smacks around some poor, lonely, underpowered bosses and gets the achievement for completing the raid, but doesn't actually experience or understand the raid on anything but the most superficial level. It's rather like going to Paris and never leaving the McDonalds in the airport; you get the stamp on your passport to say you've been there but can't really say much other than the hamburgers are awful.

Sadly, this essentially renders the Raid achievements and the titles that are associated with them meaningless.

Take my Shaman and Paladin as examples. My shaman wears the Starcaller title for defeating Algalon. She got it long after Ulduar was relevant, as an 85 in a full raid of level 85s. I defeated the encounter but really don't have an appreciation of what the fight is all about, nor does the title have any true emotional value; it just looks neat.

My Paladin, Thosif, on the other hand, typically wears his Kingslayer title with pride. I earned that title with my previous guild Shadowgarde through a lot of hard work and effort while the encounter was still the pinnacle of raiding (Halion just doesn't count and everybody knows it). The title and the achievement have meaning to me precisely because I feel that I earned them. The fact that a person can take a group of 85s and blitz their way through Icecrown Citadel in an hour and get the title makes it feel a little less special as well; I know I earned it, but others would probably just assume I got it the easy way.

Now, before anyone gets huffy and starts calling me an elitist, this is just how I feel about it personally. There are lots of reasons that people like going into old raids and dungeons at high levels, and I am certainly don't want to take anyone's fun away. But for me, the thrill of raiding comes from the challenge, and if I'm going to experience a raid for the first time, that's how I'd prefer to see it.

The obvious problem is that it's virtually impossible to get a group of people at the appropriate level in the appropriate gear together at the same time to run an old raid. Very few people will halt their levelling progress on a new alt long enough to gear him to run a raid, and even if someone did it's unlikely that they would be able to find enough other people who were doing that at the same time. It comes down to motivation: There simply is no incentive to do an older raid at the proper level. It's much simpler to either get a guildmate or two to run your alt through it, or wait until you're maximum level.

THE TEMPLATE: HERALD OF THE TITANS

There is, however, one singular achievement (technically a Feat of Strength) that a sightseeing raider can't get: Herald of the Titans. This little gem of an achievement requires a player to be the appropriate level as well as have the appropriate gear for the encounter. No overpowered tourists allowed.

This title is unique in that it is only available for a limited time while a character is level 80 and once you've passed that threshold you're out of luck on that character. If you want the title now, you're going to have to pause your XP, gear up your level 80 alt and find a group willing to go with you and kill the encounter the old fashioned way.

In essence, what this achievement does is make this single old raid encounter permanently relevant.

This achievement is not new—it's been around since Ulduar itself—but as we move into the new expansion I think it can give Blizzard a template for future raids. Why couldn't each new raid tier have a meta achievement with similar requirements to Herald of the Titans, each one with a unique and desirable vanity reward such as a mount or pet? The players that are running it while it's current would get it as a matter of course, but it could give people reasons to run the previous tier with their alts using the proper gear even after it is no longer the cutting edge. This would allow people to get the feeling of Burning Crusade and Vanilla raiding (of having to progress through each tier sequentially) if they want it, but would not actually require anyone to do it if they didn't feel like it.

And while we're on the subject, why couldn't Blizzard add similar achievements to older raids? Why not bring the Hand of Adal title back, but require that only a level 70 in a level 70 raid group could get it? How difficult would it be to reinstate the Immortal and Undying titles from Naxxramas with a character and item level restriction? What would be the effect of a Karazahn achievement that awards a miniature Wolfman or Strawman pet? Would there be a massive move towards creating level 70 raiding teams on Twitter to farm this beloved raid instance? If the rewards were unique enough, the hardcore would likely start frothing at the mouth to get alts to the proper level to get them.

Hell, a new Lady Vashj title might even make Kurn resubscribe for Mists.

Blizzard has made a big fuss about making sure that there is lots of things to do at maximum level, but adding a couple of these little achievements and rewards scattered through the beloved and excellent older content would give people things to do before max level that are equally important to do. Right now, the content is massively weighted towards the maximum level, and that is by design, but that also means that—by design—there is a massive amount of content that the vast majority of people will never get a chance to experience properly.

With the advent of Cross-Realm Raiding and soon Cross-Realm Zones there will potentially be lots of players who might be interested in halting their levelling progression on an alt in order to do some older raiding for their one shot at a unique reward. It may help remove the pressure to level as quickly as possible just so that there's something that they can do with their friends, and allow people to stop, smell the roses and actually experience the content that's out there in this big, virtual world of ours.

The Joy of Lowbies

"It strikes! one, two,
Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch,
Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest;
Would thou could'st make the time to do so too;
I'll wind thee up no more." - Ben Jonson The Staple of News


As I mentioned in my last post, I don't have much in the way of free, unimpeded time to dedicate to WoW these days.

The only raid boss that I attempt these days;
believe me, this is a fight with a lot of movement.

I'm sad to say that such an odd, irregular and easily interrupted schedule is not one that is conducive to raiding. Over the past couple of months or so my level 85s have withered due to neglect. My regular raiding has completely ground to a halt after going 8/8 on two toons with no heroic bosses down at all.

With only an hour or so of available time in an evening, running dungeons or LFR seem like an exhausting, implacable mountain to climb and not worth the effort. Doing daily quests gets very boring very quickly. Maximum level PVP is new and scary and intriguing, but would require a fair bit of effort to get the gear that would allow me to survive for more than the brief moment between when an enemy sees me and when he decides that I should be dead.

So what's a Dwarf to do?


THE JOY OF LOWBIES

I am an Altaholic, but not in the usual way. I am in a guild with several people who I would consider the norm for extreme cases of Altaholism: They tend to create an alt and focus intently on it until it reaches max level before giving a new one any real attention. Consequently, they have a lot of max level characters and characters that are well on their way there.

I am a little different. I have dozens of low level characters of every race and every class scattered around 10 or 12 different servers. Not including the Death Knights (only one of which I've ever gotten out of the starting zone; he's level 62), only a couple of these characters are above level 25. My highest level Horde character ever just dinged 18. Seriously.

I really enjoy low level characters and low level questing. There is something very compelling about boiling a class down to its very essence and seeing it naked and helpless in its infancy. In those initial levels each class is very similar: Uncomplicated, pure, and a joy to play. To see which skills are learned and when, and to discover how to use each new skill and see the way a class gradually becomes more complex is very intriguing.

I'm not really clear as to why, but I seem to hit a brick wall between level 14 and level 20. In the mid-teens the class will have taken shape and while many important and class defining abilities are yet to come, the fundamental structure of how the class is played is evident. For me, at least, this is when the experiment to test my attitude towards a class feels as if it's run its course.

As well, it's at that point that a character is out of the starting zones and into the next areas (Barrens, Westfall, etc). These zones are larger and more involved than the starting zones and feel more general and less specific to the character. This is when my mindset changes from, "This is a fun toy to play with," to "Oh gawd, I have how many freakin' levels to go?!?". Taking a character through these zones begins to firmly cement the notion in my head that I'm committing to the grind to get the character up to max level; a long and daunting process, especially for someone who levels as slowly as I do. Therefore, any character that makes it past that barrier and hits 20 is one that—in my head, at least—has been selected to survive and make the slow journey to level cap.

I have really only levelled a couple of different characters past this breaking point. My first character, a hunter, got to level 48 before he was abandoned and left to rot as I switched servers. My Warrior, Priest and Paladin all got to max level in Wrath, and two of them have gone onto 85. Thallie, my Shaman and current raiding main (the cobwebs on her are, at least, fresh) was the first character I created when Cataclysm launched and is the only one that I have managed to take to max level since then. So many more have failed this litmus test and remain unlevelled and unloved.

It seems that the decision to go past the level 20 barrier is a significant one for me. It is a mental commitment to that character; a commitment to learn and master the nuances of the class at the very highest levels. However, if the class, or the character's name or the server or anything else doesn't feel right, then that character is doomed to a shadowy half-life of neglect. Not to be deleted, but doomed to sit in the Inn at Sentinel Hill or at The Crossroads with pitiful white or grey gear, never to be the hero that they could be due to the capriciousness of my whimsy.

So having said all that, with a fervent desire to play but with limited play time in which to do it, I have been spending a lot of time with my low level Alts lately. Some have pushed past the elusive and mysterious Level 20 and have become, at least in my mind, actual characters, whilst some are still merely interesting toys to experiment with. It's been a lot of fun, and I've been indulging myself by seeing areas of the game and doing activities that I've never done before. It's as good a way as any to ride out the end of this expansion, at least until the raid healing bug bites me again.

On Flexibility, Emotional Attachment and Mister Spock. With Ice Cream!

"Thus, flexibility, as displayed by water, is a sign of life. Rigidity, its opposite, is an indicator of death." - Anthony Lawlor, A Home For The Soul

Those of you who follow this blog closely and spend just a little too much time obsessing over it (and you know who you are) may have noticed that there has been a distinct lack of Paladin related posts around here recently. In fact, looking back at my archives the last post that talked about Paladins specifically was way back in July.

There is a good reason for this: I'm not raiding with my Paladin any longer.


A DISCLAIMER

You know, I started this post with the best of intentions: A short, to-the-point post about what I've been up to in WoW and why I'm not posting about or playing my Paladin. Half-way through it turned into something completely different. I guess you and I will both find out what the hell I'm talking about when we get to the end because I have no idea where this is going any more than you do. Maybe there will be Ice Cream and Whisky. Goodness, that would be nice, wouldn't it?


SHAMAN: The new Battle Medic? At least this one's actually a Dwarf.

With Dragon Soul on the PTR, I was approached by our Guild Master who asked me a question that took me by surprise: Would I be willing to switch my raiding main in order to help with raid healing? It turns out that our guild is so full of main-spec Holy Paladins that it is a little bit like a large, overfilled doughnut—taking a bite of which will get Holy Paladin goop all over your shirt. And that shit is hard to get out.

In the interests of trying to avoid a 10-man raid with three Holy Paladin healers—which would strain just about anybody's tolerance for egocentrics in a raid, I imagine—I switched my Raiding Main to my (then) newly 85 Restoration Shaman.

My GM's reasoning was pretty straightforward: Dragon Soul looked to be a very raid healing intensive series of fights and even with the strength of the 4.3 Holy Radiance changes it seemed as if our normal Paladin/Paladin/Priest setup wouldn't be ideal. This was made especially clear when we found that some of the fights would require only two healers, and neither Paladin had a DPS off-spec. My Shaman provided my GM with a different option.

So, the week before Dragon Soul opened I was running through Firelands, healing on my Shaman. I admit, it felt odd at first. Even though I had levelled her completely through dungeons I was woefully unprepared to take her on a raid. My understanding of the subtleties of the class were at a very basic level, my UI was not set up properly and her gear was, shall we say, eclectic; an odd mix of items cobbled together from every possible source and not powerful enough to even qualify her for the new Looking For Raid feature.

She's nicely geared now, although there are still some problem spots due to some very bad loot luck in Dragon Soul. I'm not sure why, but in our raids the only Tier Token that ever drops is Vanquisher tokens—we literally had a new Death Knight alt get his 4 piece in a single night, and the only reason he got each token was because all the other Vanquisher eligible players already had theirs. Meanwhile, I, along with a lot of other people in my raid group, are organizing strange voodoo rituals to influence the gods to drop something—anything that we can use. Now, I know that no one really cares about other people's loot problems, but that night made me want to roll a Druid just so I could actually get a drop.

THE SPOCK PRINCIPLE: The Needs of the Many, blah blah blah

Imagine, if you will, a dwarf lying on a brown leather couch, a worried expression showing through his beard and his armour poking holes in the leather and setting it smouldering because the shoulder piece is on fire, which for some inexplicable reason is perfectly normal. Next to him, seated at a comfortable armchair is a bald man with a white goatee neatly trimmed into a point and a notepad on his lap. He leans over towards the dwarf, and in a thick German accent asks, "Und how doez ziz make you feel?"

A long time ago I wrote an article entitled What Makes a Main?, in which it I talked about the emotional connection to a character as the fundamental element that determines which character would be a person's "Main Character". While that criteria certainly wouldn't apply to everyone (there are people who change their mains constantly due to many different factors, for instance), but it is absolutely true of me. My Holy Paladin is my main because I am emotionally invested in him, both in terms of character as well as the play-style and mythos of the Paladin. My Paladin just feels right.

So when Mylindara asked me to switch for the good of the raid, I felt a little conflicted. From a dispassionate point of view he made a lot of sense because even while temporarily undergeared, my Shaman brought something to the raid that we were lacking. Emotionally, however, my main is still my Paladin, and is the character that I am most interested in playing and progressing. Not only that, but I enjoy healing on the Paladin more than the Shaman.

So the real question that I, or anyone in a similar situation must ask themselves is: When does the needs of the group trump the desires of the individual? Should we always be selfless in order to help the group, or is it alright to say "No" so we can play the game the way we want to? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one when the ultimate goal of the game is individual entertainment? What would Spock do?


FLEXIBILITY: When is it okay to take one for the team?

I think the answer greatly depends on what type of player a person is. I believe that there are two extremes to this question where the answer is obvious and unchanging, and then there is a vast grey area in between where a large percentage of the player base sits.

The Activity-Centric people amongst us will look at this question as absurd because min-maxing every aspect of an encounter is fundamental to their play-style. Changing their character to bring that one extra buff or cooldown to the raid in order to gain any advantage—regardless of how small—is far more important than the attachment to a certain character or class. For them the emotional need is to progress at a personal level, and which character they do it on is only a secondary consideration; a tool used to achieve the desired end.

"Please don't shoot me"

The other extreme is the Character-Centric people. These folks form an incredibly strong emotional attachment to their characters, and asking them to switch their Main Character—or even to change their character's hair-style—is like asking them to shoot a puppy. It'll break their heart and the aftermath will be very messy to clean up. Not to mention that I like puppies, and well, shooting them is just wrong. I mean, look at those eyes.

The vast majority of us, I think, fall somewhere in the middle. I have always considered myself more of the activity-centric type, but again, if I am to be truly honest with all of you, I tend to let myself get attached to my characters quite a bit and was a little bit annoyed when I was asked to not bring my preferred character to the main raids. There is a constant battle raging between the two sides when I'm making the decisions as to what to play.

In the end I made the change and the raid team is the better for it, I think. We have a good core of raiding healers now, with a lot more flexibility than we would have had otherwise. I may not be playing the character I would like, but the decision was right because the activity, in this case, was more important than my personal need to play the character.

And I suppose that's the fundamental answer to the question of when it's okay to make a personal sacrifice for the team, and the answer is a lot more simple than the length of this post would suggest. Simply put, if the goal is more important than which character accomplishes it, make the change and be happy about it.

Now, as I'm writing this I'm thinking to myself, "Damn, you've really outdone yourself in stating the blindingly obvious. Should we do a section talking about the different ways water is wet? Way to spend 1400 words talking drivel, dumbass".

It is a pretty straight-forward concept, but I think that everyone is going to approach it differently and everyone is going to have a different reaction to being asked to change the way they like to play the game. It all depends on the balance between the activity and the character within a person.

For me, the activity of seeing our raid progress smoothly won the day over my own desires to play the Paladin. So for now at least, the Battle Medic is a Shaman.

Have you ever been asked to play a class or role that you didn't prefer so your group could move forward? How would you react? What sort of balance to you have?


OH MY GAWD, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS POST AGAIN?

Oh yes, Ice Cream and Whisky. Excellent.

There ya go. Ice Cream and Whisky all in one.
It doesn't get much better than that.

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.

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.

Inconvenience, Entitlement and The Abominable Greench

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch..."

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,

Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

As in the real world, Azeroth is crazy busy with holidays this time of year. The Feast of Winter Veil is upon us and brings with it many new and interesting things to do. New dailies, lore and as with most of the holidays we have a big bad boss to fight for a chance at some holiday themed loot.

This Winter Veil is threatened by The Abominable Greench, who has stolen presents and other holiday goodies, hoarding them in his cave in the Alterac Mountains. There, adventurers must gather to defeat this implacable monster with a taste for Grandma's fruitcake. At stake, the very fate of Winter Veil itself.

Okay, that might be exaggerating things somewhat. The world will likely not end if Little Johnny doesn't get his toy train. But still, ooooo, The Big Bad Greench. Scary.


INCONVENIENCE AND ENTITLEMENT

"Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV

That ain't workin' that's the way you do it

Money for nothin' and your chicks for free" - Money for Nothing, Dire Straits


What is different with this years holiday boss is that the Greench is not available through the Dungeon Finder as the other holidays bosses have been. During Brewfest all you needed to do in order to defeat the wicked Coren Direbrew is to press the I button and you would be instantly transported to his location with a party of fellows to help you dispatch the fiend and collect your goodies. With The Greench, however, a long flight (for Alliance folk, anyway) to the Alterac Mountains is in order, and then the long wait in hopes you can find other people there to help you kill him.

Compared to past holiday events, this is inconvenient. Blizzard obviously has the technology to automate the Greench destruction process, but chose not to. Probably due to the fact that the Greench does not or could not be made to exist in an existing dungeon and the developers likely didn't want to spend the manpower and resources to create an instanced version of Alterac specifically for the Greench. There are more important things for the developers to work on after all, like fixing the silly Mature Language Filter bug that doesn't allow me to express myself with my accustomed colour and wit in Guild Chat.

These thoughts occurred to me as I was hovering over the Greench's cave, admiring his 3.4 Million health and the beautifully wrapped presents dangling from his horns. I was annoyed. Annoyed that I had to spend ten or fifteen minutes just getting there, and then finding no one to group with to get the boss kill and save Winter Veil. I was annoyed at the simple inconvenience of not having this boss kill handed to me as previous holiday bosses had been.

Needless to say, that is a terrible attitude to have. It's a sense of entitlement; that everything should be easy and convenient and require virtually no real effort. Money for nothing indeed - Mark Knopfler, you are truly the great prophet of our time.

As I was sitting and waiting for enough people to show up so that a group could be formed I started thinking about how easy everything has been made in WoW. The Dungeon Finder, the Raid Finder, the ease of levelling and so on. I don't want to complain about these things, because honestly I think they are very important changes and overall very beneficial to the game. The Dungeon Finder revolutionized the accessibility of dungeons and heroics, and the new Raid Finder is doing the same thing with Raiding. These are all great things. Easy is not necessarily bad.

However, what all these systems have done is create an expectation that things will always be that simple. And in those few moments as I was waiting, I started thinking about what my expectations were and frankly, just how spoiled I have become because of all of the great, time-saving convenience gifts that Blizzard has given us over the past couple of years. And the fact that this time I had to do things the old fashioned way suddenly didn't seem like such a big deal.

Still, it bothered me. Am I, and by extension the WoW playerbase as a whole, so spoiled that we can't handle a little inconvenience? Are we so used to getting everything we want, right when we want it that we can't deal with even the littlest setback? Are we forever in the days when a single wipe in LFD or LFR means that the group breaks up and everyone goes back to their little personal corner of Stormwind or Orgrimmar complaining at just how bad and impatient everyone else is. Is that really where we are?


THE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

All your presents are belong to us. Rawr.
Note the self-satisfied smirk.

So there I am: Up in the air on my flying mount thinking all these profound thoughts on the nature of entitlement and humanity, all the while the Greench is still down there needing to be killed. That's when something magical happened that would never have been possible if the encounter was set up through the Dungeon Finder.

Waiting with me were two other Alliance players and on the other side of the snow covered mountain plateau were hovering two Hordies. On a PVP server such as mine, situations like this can get messy, and involve a lot of running back from the graveyard as the factions fight amongst themselves and no one manages to get anything done. It was a standoff, with no one daring to pull the boss in fear that the other faction would attack from behind.

Suddenly, someone unexpectedly pulled the Greench and without a single word or indication, everyone there attacked the boss and left each other alone. We fought the Greench together; Horde and Alliance, fighting alongside one another getting something done in the spirit of the season.

Soon the Greench died to our collective, cross-faction efforts, and there was a great deal of /bowing, /waving and an overall general feeling of seasonal cheer and camaraderie, not unlike the temporary seasonal armistices between Allied and German soldiers during the bitter trench warfare of World War I. And like those weary soldiers in the battered fields of France a century ago, no one wanted a war - the Alliance and the Horde players that were there just simply wanted to be able to celebrate the season (in this case the seasonal achievement) in peace. Which is what this season is all about, isn't it?


THE ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

Well, not always, of course. Stories like that are the exception. More likely, if a soldier was to stroll out into No Man's Land - Christmas or no - he'd be shot before the second verse of Silent Night. But no one remembers the second verse anyway, so it's probably for the best.

When I went to kill the Greench on my Shaman, Thallie, it was a bit of a different story. As I got there, I noticed that there were a large number of skeletons in front of him, and I swear that the bugger had a self-satisfied smirk on his face. I figured that perhaps some unwise souls had tried to solo him, with fairly predictable results.

Go Go Mountain Top Vengeance Squad!

Well, not quite.

As it turns out, a Horde hunter was hiding in the cave, sniping people as they attempted to fight the boss. He managed to kill me a few times as before I got fed up and had enough. Obviously, the spirit of the season did something nasty to this guy's eggnog and he wasn't exactly in a giving or charitable mood.

So I did what any self-respecting, non-PVPing healer would do: I called in the reinforcements.

Within three minutes, I had 3 hardcore PVP specced guildies zoned in and hunting for this guy. If there is one thing my guild is extraordinarily good at, it's raining fiery vengeance on any player foolish enough to ambush one of our guild in the world. Within a few moments we had showed him the other, much more violent side of seasonal cheer.

It just goes to show that magical season of fellowship or no, some people are just inherently douchebags.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Winter's Veil from Dwarven Battle Medic! And honour any unofficial armistices lest we not forget the guild banner that gets planted in your buttocks. Happy Holidays!

One Year Later...

“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln 

One year ago Sunday, I was sitting in my office at work. It was a cold, snowy, miserable Saturday in December, ensuring that only the bravest and most motivated customers would dare visit the lot. In an attempt to stave off a level of boredom that would have resulted in me falling asleep at my desk, I started casually fooling around with Blogger to see if I could find a blog design that would catch my eye. An hour and a half later, I had the basic look that you see here now (unless you're on a feedreader) and my first post up. The rest, as they say, is history.

I've talked before about what motivated me to begin writing Battle Medic, why I chose the name and who my influences were - all really excellent topics for an anniversary post, but I'm not going to go into all that again. But I have been doing some pondering on my experiences and feelings about this whole blogging thing.


SOME VITAL STATISTICS

Because I'm sure there are people out there dying to know...

Over the past year, as of this writing Battle Medic has seen over 41,500 pageviews according to Blogspot's statistic's page. The best month I had was June with 6,136 views. As well, I have a good number of subscribers to my feed, although I don't really have an accurate way to track that. Google Reader tells me that 188 people are subscribed to the blog.

4 of my Top 5 all-time posts in terms of traffic are unsurprisingly due to being linked by the 800 pound gorilla of the WoW blogosphere, WoW Insider, which always results in a 20-fold increase in traffic for a day or two. However, the post that is hanging on in fifth place is my most controversial post, but also the one that I am most proud of writing: On Raiding Disappointment: An Open Letter to Blizzard. Although some people didn't agree with the content of the post, I think that in terms of the way in which the ideas are expressed it is my most powerful bit of writing. I'm glad that it's managing to hold on to a top spot, despite not being linked by WoW Insider.

I'd like to give a shout-out to my top referrers while I'm at it. WoW Insider is, of course, the site that has sent me the most traffic, although it's not as extreme as you might think. Blessing of Kings - the big daddy of Paladin blogs - is second, even beating Google. It appears that a lot of you use Rohan's Blog Roll to find your way here, and I credit getting listed on his site as what really got Battle Medic off the ground in terms of traffic and exposure. Thanks, Rohan! Orcish Army Knife, Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon round out the top referrers.

I am extremely proud that Battle Medic is listed on so many Blog Rolls around the blogosphere, and I thank everyone who thinks enough of my writing that they would add me to their site. It's a thrill every time I run across a blog that I'm unfamiliar with and see my blog listed there as something that they read and recommend.

All told, I have been extremely satisfied with the amount of people that are seeing what I write.

Traffic, however, is not that important if the people visiting are not finding the content engaging, and the only way to really know what you, the reader is thinking is the comments. There are a lot of reasons why a person wouldn't write a comment, but the only thing that is going to make someone (especially someone viewing a post in a reader) to stop what they're doing and respond to a post is if it has a compelling message. Agree with me or not, I value every single comment that I have received on Battle Medic, and over the course of the past year people have commented 572 times on the blog. Now I just need to be better at responding to them.


IMPRESSIONS AFTER THE FIRST YEAR

I can honestly say that Battle Medic has not quite turned out the way I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I am very proud of the posts that I have written, but I hoped that it would have turned into more of a Kurn-esque resource blog rather than the personal game journal that it is now. While I would like to do more analytical posts, I think one of the most important lessons that I learned is that while those how-to and resource posts bring in a lot of views from the search engines, regular readers are more interested in what a blogger thinks about something. It's the personal opinions and viewpoints that keep bringing readers back.

That idea has shaped the evolution of Battle Medic more than anything.

Well, aside from the Dwarfling. I've written about this numerous times - it's almost to the point of getting quite stale - but my life, and consequently my ability to focus on my blog, has changed remarkably since I started a year ago. There have been far too many of the "I'm tired, no time to write" posts for my liking. The last thing I want is to turn this post into another of those, but the Dwarfling certainly has had a big effect on my posting and gameplay.

Still, I have enjoyed writing this blog more than I ever would have thought possible. Before starting it, I didn't realize how much I enjoyed the process and creative release of writing. More importantly, though, I didn't realize that I had something to say. I have opinions on this game and my experiences playing it, and I had no idea that there was a burning need to express them until I started writing about them. It's made me think about the game quite differently.


COMMUNITY

Writing a blog is fun, but interacting with the readers is much more rewarding. It's that interaction that begins to build a community, and the WoW Blogging community is great. It's diverse, engaging and very supportive. I don't think there would be much point in blogging in a void.

Everyone I talk to, whether it be on Twitter, forums or through comments, has been amazing. Support, advice and sympathy have been offered whenever I've been feeling like a grumpy Dwarf, and congratulations are never in short supply when something good happens. And, of course, there is nothing that will generate conversation and comments like posting a picture of the Dwarfling; the internet certainly seems to be taken with her.

I was planning on doing a list of people who have been influential to me and the blog and thank them, but honestly, there are far too many to list. The post would either get too long (it already is... this was supposed to be a short post!), or I would end up forgetting someone important, and I would hate to do that.

However, if you are reading this blog regularly, I thank you. I appreciate how special it is that someone takes time out of their day to read the drivel that I spew onto the interwebs. I hope that what I write is informative, enlightening or at the very least entertaining.

If you have ever commented on Battle Medic, I thank you. Believe me, I know how hard it is to comment on a post. Personally, I find it much harder to write an interesting comment than I do an interesting article. Know that each and every comment, regardless of whether I get off my tuckus to respond to it or not is read and appreciated. In fact, I get a shiver of anticipation every time I see that there is a new one.

If we have ever interacted on Twitter, I thank you. I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon quite late - I still haven't had one year on that yet - but I have a really good number of followers. In my wildest dreams I didn't think that there would be that many people interested in what I have to say.

If you are a blogger and have added me to your Blog Roll, I thank you. If you've ever ReTweeted, linked or written a response to one of my posts, I thank you.

If I have influenced you in some way - to start a blog, join Twitter, think about screenshots differently, or even to ditch all the other races in favour of the clearly superior Dwarves - I thank you. I write this blog for myself, but to know that there are people out there who enjoy what I write enough that it inspired them to do something themselves is very satisfying. I'm glad I could help, and I thank you for valuing what I do here.

And if you read this blog and didn't like it, well, I thank you anyway. Honestly, I get a lot of positive feedback here (the WoW blogosphere is very supportive), and I would love to get some idea of what I'm doing wrong. So thank you for all the constructive criticism in advance.

There... I think that covers just about everyone.


THE FUTURE OF BATTLE MEDIC

Back on that blustery day last December when I pushed the Publish button for the first time, I had no idea whether I would enjoy blogging or whether I would keep up with it. So many of the projects that I take on start out so brilliantly and then fizzle into a small, grey lump of nothing, and I'm glad that I've managed to keep Battle Medic as active as I have, given the circumstances.

I will continue to write this blog as long as there are people reading it. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to increase the frequency of the posting around here, as it's been much quieter than I'd like since August. I look forward to writing another of these posts next year!

Day Fourteen: This Upsets Me

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 FOURTEEN: THIS UPSETS ME

Well, I gotta tell you: I'd be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that... is dangerous. And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you. - Fight Club

This post is, by far, the hardest of this series so far for me to write, and it has caused me to fall off the one-post-a-day pace in a rather spectacular fashion. This is upsetting.

I am a pretty even-tempered guy and it takes a lot to get me upset. I'm not the kind of person to start frothing at the mouth and stomping around the house in a blind, red-faced rage that causes the neighbours to hide their children and fetch their shotguns. That's only happened once, honest. Since I started taking the pills I'm much better.

There are many things in the game that annoy the crap out of me. People not eating and drinking after a resurrection and expecting me to heal them annoys me. In fact, most people these days don't even bring food and water into a dungeon anymore because they know the healer will be there, and that annoys me as well. Tanks not waiting for mana, DPS pulling for the tank and taking too much damage, healers who don't actually know how to heal are all things that are annoyances, but I wouldn't say they upset me.

I can also get frustrated. Progression content frustrates me at times. Last night Nefarian taught us a lesson in humility as he proceeded to wipe our raid repeatedly and efficiently; with most of our attempts ending after a minute and a half. That was frustrating, but as we were just learning the fight it wasn't upsetting.

Nothing in World of Warcraft really gets me upset or mad. Real life, on the other hand, is a different story.

Writing this post has been upsetting. In thinking about all the things in the real world that upset me, I have managed to piss on my own brain and my mood has gone downhill. So let me conclude this post briefly.

I have a long list of failings, and any time one of these personality flaws affects my life in a negative way I get upset. I have no desire to go into detail about these things, because frankly, I have never been a person that likes to dwell on things that upset me. This is why this post is so freaking hard to write.

Whenever I get upset or mad about something I invariably do two things: express the emotion, and then move on. I try to keep a positive mental attitude as much as I can and so I never stay upset at anything for long. This, in turn, upsets my wife who says that I am no fun to fight with.

Now, I need to go to my happy place and reset my brain to get rid of this post.


Yesterday, PEOPLE I ADMIRE
Tomorrow, A MORE CHEERFUL POST ABOUT MY DESKTOP BACKGROUND

Blogservations: Random Thoughts on Writing and Warcraft

This post is a desperate attempt to find a reason to use the term “Hodge-Podge” in a way that doesn't require double-quotes.  Success is by no means assured.

I have been blogging now for about six weeks and have recently been dealing with a minor bout of writer's block.  It's my first, so I'm not entirely sure what to do with it; is there a protocol or tradition for dealing with your first bout?  Are you supposed to frame it and put it on your wall like the first dollar that a fledgling business earns, to forever be a reminder that, yes, things have sucked worse than they do now?  Or is the inability to get past the blank word document a dirty little secret that you need to take to your grave, since talking about it is considered a grievous faux pas like mentioning a no-hitter during a baseball game?

As a complete non-sequitur, I really like abusing semi-colons.  I feel like every sentence deserves one.   Besides, I think that commas are overworked and that it's a good idea to give them a break unless they start a revolution and overthrow the world's governments.  I, for one, welcome our new comma overlords.

It's not that I don't have any ideas on what to write, I have lots of ideas for posts.  In my drafts folder on blogger, on my work and home computer's word processors are snippets, thoughts and orphaned titles of posts that are germinating in my brain but can't seem to get out of the grey matter.  There is no greater feeling of creative helplessness than staring at a blank page or canvas without the faintest idea of what to fill it with.

Even the Blog Azeroth Shared Topics, normally a goldmine for any Warcraft blogger that is feeling lost for a topic, have eluded me.  Last weeks topic “An Open Letter To…” stumped me for a solid week, and after each attempt was mercilessly aborted for being completely awful, I just threw up my hands and walked away from it.  I thought that a topic with completely endless possibilities would be fantastic, but the lack of direction ended up taking my mind in so many directions that physicists are going to have to create a few new dimensions just to accommodate them all.

At least with the current one “Are Five Levels Enough” I can simply say, “Yes” and move on.  Hey, does this post now count as my response?  I can already feel the link love.

After six weeks of writing for my blog, I've managed to observe a few things.  First of all, this project really is the first real writing I've done since university.  I worry that my style has become, well, rather staid and boring at times, having something to do with the fact that the major source of actual, real writing that I've done for the past ten years have been professional letters for work.  Inserting some personality and humour into a serious post can be mind-numbingly frustrating, and at the same time I wonder if small, throwaway posts like this one aren't worth the bother since why waste everyone's time?  There is always the nagging self-doubt hanging in the back of my mind that when I am writing something personal nobody is really all that interested in reading it, and that I'm not enough of an expert to write the IMPORTANT POSTS.

Still, I've really enjoyed writing again.  It's always something that I've enjoyed but never did, so this has been a wonderful outlet for me.  To both of the people who have read this far, I truly appreciate it.

Another thing I've observed is that Twitter is enormously distracting when you want to get any real work done.  Want to sit down and write a post?  Oops, Twitter has a new message.  Need to do the job you get paid for?  Wait, what is twitter saying about Wil Wheaton?  I always feel like I'm missing something vital and game-changing when there is a new, unread Tweet.  I get this weird burning in the back of my brain when I can't click on it to find out what it's all about.

In the past, whenever I've been feeling creatively stagnant, there have always been a few places I could go for inspiration.  For my photography, I could go to an art gallery or peruse any of the dozens of books that I have on the subject.  If I just wanted a buzz and a boost to my overall creativity, I would read U2: At The End of The World, which for some reason works on my brain like putting a packet of Mentos into Diet Coke:  everything gets all fizzy and starts spewing out uncontrollably and eventually you'll end up sticky.

For writing, however, there really is only one book worth picking up; only one book that energizes me enough to face the demon of the blank Word document.  (There you are Semi-colon, my pretty.  I've missed you).  Douglas Adams's The Salmon of Doubt, which in a sense is not a proper book:  merely a collection of writings from one of the most brilliant minds to ever postulate that sticking a fish in your ear was a good idea.  The articles in the book itself are wonderful to read, but most importantly, The Salmon of Doubt shows me how to be a writer.  There is no trick, you just have to write.  You need to write all the time, about whatever comes to your mind.  Vomit it on the page (or in this case laptop... who writes longhand blog posts?) and see if there are any undigested chunks of good writing in there.

I picked it up last night and started reading it, and well, 900ish words later here we are.  In case you haven't guessed yet, this post has nothing to do with WoW and the title was just to draw you in (I'm sneaky, aren't I).  But as a new blogger, and a person who only recently started to think of themselves as a writer, I felt I needed to get this out.  I think there are at least one or two readable bits here, although I'd be careful... it might just be some corn that I ate last night.