WoW flameout update

Kidding, of course.

It’s been about a month since my server transfer, and while my horde o’ Horde remains marooned on Kilrogg with nothing to do, I am occasionally taking Tindalos out for a spin on the Garrosh server. This past week I’ve been on a couple of raids, nothing major. The two raid teams seem to continue on with their preferred line-ups and I have found no openings there. I knew this going in, so it’s no more than I expected. Nevertheless, when the stars align and I am online when they need a fill-in, it tends to go well.

So with the Wreck List I’ve gotten to see Nefarian die a couple of times, and yesterday I filled in on one of the raid teams as they got someone started on the new legendary quest line. It’s nice to see some more of the Firelands content, I suppose, as the raid downed three of them in short order. Considering that I hadn’t even seen two of them before, I guess I didn’t hold them back too much. Enough of their raiders know that I can step in, follow instructions, and lay the DPS smack down with the best of them, and what more do they need from a damage-dealer, really?

I haven’t seen any particularly interesting new gear, but Tindalos is decked out in his full tier 11 and a few items I’ve unlocked on the Molten Front, so he’s doing just fine. I’ve never had to have the very latest and greatest gear in order to put out the damage. Funny how that works. This game isn’t that hard, but it helps to have a competent crew. Even if I haven’t been raiding much, I know they have been. They’d have to, in order to get started on the legendary.

None of this has inspired me to stick with the game, though it has been nifty to occasionally hang out with nicer people, and on rarer occasions raid with them. Bit of a happier ending for my WoW experience than I was looking forward to on Kilrogg.

Moving on, again

Maybe for the last time, since I’m still in no mood to actually renew my WoW subscription…but I’m about done with Kilrogg, thanks to my now-former horde guild. The camel’s back broke after I picked up the United Nations achievement for the guild, by grinding out the Steamwheedle goblin reps. So they become interested in what I’ve been doing, for a brief moment. And I mentioned how I may take one last shot at Shadowmourne.

A few days later, I see the guild has set up an ICC 25 run, amazing! I didn’t even ask, they want to do this now? And I’m about to join in when they announce that it’s specifically for Captain Indispensable to get his Shadowmourne. Hey, that’s a good idea, going back for the axe. I think I’ll steal it. And, I’ll make the guild do it for me. Why don’t you come along and help? Not that we would ever help you. Well, that is the last dick move that guild will perpetrate on me. I found time this morning to /gquit my alts when no one was on to see it. I could have been dramatic about it, but it’s not my thing. Probably won’t be noticed, and certainly won’t be missed.

As for Tindalos, he has transferred to Garrosh and the Wreck List, so I officially have a geared 85 there. I can consider raiding with them, even, although they may start too early. I don’t really care. Garrosh is most likely my last server transfer. I’ll spend my last few months in the game with people resembling actual friends instead of…whatever social construct/substitute typical WoW ‘friends’ represent. If it turns out that I start to really enjoy the game again, so much the better. As far as I can tell, the whole ‘social’ thing is not even genuine, just a means to manipulate people as resources. It is odd that I never did that in a ‘social’ guild. Only in the one hardcore experience did I get to see how a more a-social system worked. Even that was too dependent on its leaders. I guess I bought into the social conventions. Silly me! Not nearly as goblinish as I’d like. Or maybe I prefer not to be.

Pricing Playstations and the Old Republic

After playing WoW for this long, these phenomena seem like bad omens for Azeroth and me. I had to look back at my last WoW-related post to see that it had already been about a month at the beginning of July, since I bailed on raiding and actively playing the game. Since then, Sue has done a little raiding, we’ve played our troll alts with the Wreck List and raided a few old dungeons for fun, and I’ve wasted some time trying out different rep grinds.

So now we have SWTOR on pre-order, and I’m looking to get a new gaming console. Kinda sad! But what else is there, when the game just isn’t doing it anymore. I can’t find the motivation to raid with our present set of misanthropes, nor do I feel like leaving them and finding some new crew, getting back on a schedule. I don’t miss having to be online at all. I have a few more things I’d like to do, and maybe some of them I still won’t get to do, like finishing the Shadowmourne quest line. I may look into how difficult ICC 25 pugs are to organize and run these days, and perhaps run a few to get the rest of my shards.

Unless something changes, though, one day soon I will park my death knight somewhere in Grizzly Hills, maybe with the legendary axe or maybe just with a fishing pole by a salmon pool, and that’ll be it. Not going to give away my stuff or delete my toons; one never knows, could go back to it one day. And I’m not going to feel bad about playing the game for years. I’ve played it until it wasn’t fun anymore.

Azeroth blues

Three weeks into the no-raid, no-schedule switch, and so far I’m not missing it much. Granted, I don’t even play WoW nearly as much now, but aside from the subscription cost what do I care? It would be nice to get back to raiding, but after burning out on the Kilrogg guild’s social raiding pressure it has been interesting to see the result. For all that it’s supposed to be social, there isn’t a lot of casual conversation going on. I’m a non-entity in fact, just as it’s turned out before when I burned out on raiding. Not that this surprises or even bothers me.

The only person who contacted me once, did so to exert a little social pressure when the evening’s raid was short on people. I can’t say if they miss my DK, or if that’s just the social thing to say to get a social raider to join the group. A bit skeptical, I kept my responses short and non-committal, and did not raid. I stopped raiding because the raid leaders had issues. AFAIK those issues still exist. I haven’t brought them up with the guild; I don’t think it would do the slightest bit of good. If it did I’d probably end up as a raid leader or officer, and…no. It’s not for me, not again.

Meanwhile, the Garrosh server experience has been much nicer. Although there is an excess of achievement GRATZ’ing, I join in jokingly on occasion and otherwise tune it out. And the Wreck Listers also occasionally just talk; it’s not all requests for help or group invitations. Those groups and raids, of course, Sue and I aren’t a part of yet. Our little trollies are only level 32, although it has been a quick climb so far considering that we only play them once a week. It should be pretty fast until at least level 60 if not more.

Yesterday we explored part of the new Desolace. This zone has gone from a bleak, vast desert with little to do but a series of centaur kill quests, to a zone with a lush jungle in the middle and lots more going on. A fair number of zones got Cataclysmed into, well, much nicer places. (You’re the best, Deathwing!) I especially enjoyed the quest series that ends with your hordie conjuring a flaming hurricane and nuking everyone in Nijel’s Point. I never liked you guys when I had to fly out to the boonies just to go to Maraudon. Face the flaming wrath of the blood elves!

That’s right, I mean real fire! Not the other kind of flaming belfitude.

Since we recently leveled a pair of worgen through Azeroth, we’re making a point to hit some different zones. Maybe we’ll go visit the eastern kingdoms. It’d probably take 4 or 5 sets of alts to try out everything. But I don’t think we’ll go that far.

Ah well. It’s not as if I have completely abandoned the Kilrogg server, yet. The new 4.2 content is much more than just the Firelands raid. It includes new daily quests in Hyjal, and the quest line involving Thrall’s curse and rescue was fun, aside from a few flagged griefers interfering with the quests. It personally involves you in saving Thrall from certain and painful death, and along the way we get to know more about his relationship with Aggra, a female orc shaman, that ends with a sort of marriage proposal. I had previously chalked up the taciturn Aggra as the orc they sent to Thrall so he’d stop fawning over Jaina Proudmoore. (kidding. a little)

It was the sort of questing that would be nice to have more of…but there’s only so much ground-breaking, life on the line plot material one can do, especially in an MMO that for the most part remains static. Games where solo players change the world drastically, I think, will remain single-player on PC and consoles. And even those run out of steam.

The expectation game

It’s interesting to see how the new guild levels and perks have changed how the individual relates to a guild. Pug raids seem to be a thing of the past, now; what calls I do see are for a pug or two to fill out a guild group. At the same time, I seem adrift in the role of disinterested observer, unsure if I want to commit to raiding again — although I have gone on a couple of raids, it’s primarily been through ninja invites and dishonest tactics by the officer crew.

There exists a certain pressure amongst these casual guilds, it seems, to keep up with the Joneses. A sort of embarrassment at not being able to say ‘we’ve downed boss X, Y and Z’ instead of the reality (none, so far). Some fear, perhaps, that some of the more hardcore types will /gquit if the guild doesn’t produce some boss kills and purples for them. This is the expectation game.

The relative handful of hardcore types in the guild produce most of this pressure. The rest comes from the sense of entitlement many others seem to feel. They’ve hit 85, they’ve done some heroics; the raid bosses should surrender their goodies like the proverbial prom night score. My sweetie refers to this as the Wrath mentality — expecting to be able to play the game like it played in WotLK. Heroics as facerollers. These opening raids like Naxxramas. And Naxx was easy. Wasn’t it?

Of course not. Naxx became easy; it didn’t start that way. Though I was not there for the opening raids (I was leveling/gearing a DK, and then my priest), by the time I had raid-ready toons the sense of where to begin was still shaking out. Heroics weren’t that easy; some of them stayed hard till pretty late in the game, or until Oculus got nerfed, heh. And then there were the new ones, like Halls of Reflection. The newest raids, like Ruby Sanctum. Very hard and somewhat unrewarding.

As part of that Wrath mentality, she wonders if the Blizzard devs were showing us the future with those dungeons and that raid. Perhaps she’s right.

So now, we’re five weeks in, and the guildies who are raiding (not me, mostly) know a little about a lot. I’ve been suckered into attending a few times, and what I see is painful. Hours of wiping. Strategies that will supposedly work, and then they don’t. Watching the officers tweak things and generally flail about. It’s hard to learn much of anything from an encounter that only lasts about a minute, even thirty seconds before it starts to fall apart.

At the same time, she questions whether it’s going to be any fun to submit to the next couple years of raiding, if this is all there is — a quick trip to 85, some dungeon warmup exercises, and then dive into raid instances. For years. The prereqs seem so much shorter. Admittedly, I lack the additional delay I had in Wrath of having to level the DK to 70 first, whereas the non-DK ‘mains’ started at 70 rather than my 55. But that only added about a week for me.

I’ve done the tank thing, the raid leader thing, and the officer thing before. I know what they could be doing better, what I’d do if it were me. It’s not me in charge, nor do I particularly want it to be. And since I’m not in charge, I don’t speak up much. We only set aside a few days where we could raid…and we needn’t do it. If we don’t make some kind of decision I expect the guildies will stop asking after awhile, and move on without us. There’s enough game to play without raiding that we could be at it for a long while, and when that gets old, well. Maybe it’ll be time to set it aside.

So we’re on the cusp of that decision: commit to more raiding, and all that it entails, prep work and study and arguing with folks, the ‘second job’ problem nobody likes, in return for the challenge and reward of raiding; or just screw it, don’t play that game of expectation. Should be an interesting week.

The sin eater

Been a curious weekend, thanks in part to my last WoW post I guess. Curiouser still that my conclusion was a bit off. Well, let’s say more than a bit. Rather more.

Ah well. When it’s this bad, they had better be good friends. Fortunately, they are! And this summer of discontent will pass.

So instead of a predictable, temporary doldrum because of summer or the economy or pre-Cataclysm blahs, the summer of discontent turned inside out and exploded. The guild-of-friends has shown itself to be a more typical species, the guild-of-internet-acquaintances. It was an interesting experiment while it lasted, but perhaps there’s some quality to friendship that can’t be captured by a single interest, even if we seem to spend so much time together at that single interest, or occasionally meet up IRL and hang out and talk about…our mutual interest.

It must be a strange sensation for the more social types, to see a group grow from friends to friends-of-friends to friends-of-friends-of-friends and etc. until you’re in this cliquish organization you don’t know anymore and then…it’s become what you set out to avoid. A few years ago, I can recall back when the guild was young or in pre-planning, reading some papers the social studies majors have written on guild interaction. Ours has become a statistic. I wonder how much of it was predictable.

I was treated to a variety of insults and detachment has served me well. It was interesting to see what personal data of mine they dredged up, how it made them claim they understood me or how they tried to use it to hurt me. It was interesting to see the misunderstood remarks, and to ponder how deliberate that misreading may have been. Detachment allows me to choose freely between feeling offended or hurt by a cheap shot, or taking amusement from it. An insult presents a choice: we choose to be offended. Society has rules, manners, of course. But such systems of propriety are based on values, which are, in turn, choices.

Friendship was of course the running theme. I thought you were my friend. You don’t know what friendship is. You can’t lecture me. I’d be the first to admit…well, maybe the only one to admit that no, I don’t know for sure. After the weekend, though, I have some new data on what it is not. Time to revise the theory. Perhaps it’s a sliding scale from acquaintance to friend. It seems ironic that as one has less invested in an acquaintance(friend?)ship, things like propriety — being nice — seem to matter more.

Unfortunate, I suppose, that the concept of ‘friend’ has become so squishy, been appropriated by social networking and made to do things it shouldn’t, stand for things it’s not. Likewise the paired concepts of loneliness and solitude; there is a difference. Some more irony for me as I find a relevant quote from a theologian I’m sure I disagree with when it comes to god-concepts.

Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. — Paul Tillich

And yet, how to explain the masses of immature jerks that populate the realms of Warcraft? Oh, they can’t all be overweight, pasty basement dwellers. They’re not all cloistered monks or Blizzard wouldn’t be busy foisting social networking onto its gamers. Someone has to want that crap.

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind. — Giacomo Leopardi

One my brother might sympathize with, at any rate. Sheesh, not much WoW to this one eh? Well, sometimes WoW becomes philosophy. If loneliness is pain, and this social ‘pain’ is a choice, then I am glad I do not care. Instead, it is a joke, and so I smile.

Observations on burnout

Although I have largely removed the disease of burnout from my WoW playtime, I still run into it while waiting to die. Raiding becomes waiting. More discussion, after weeks of it in game and on forum sites. More internet problems. More waiting. People say they know what to do, until they don’t. More discussion; more waiting. What is left to discuss? What question has been left unasked? What video unwatched? How long has it been? How long have you had to do these simple prep tasks?

Let’s go die already.

Aside from that boredom aspect, it’s nice to be rid of most of the burnout. Instead, I get to see it in others. I see it in the people trying and failing to offer advice and they don’t get listened to. I’ve learned that there is a time to offer advice, and a time to not bother. For the most part I don’t bother. If you don’t get listened to, then don’t bother. Why add to the frustration? They don’t want your help. They shouldn’t need your help. They chose to lead. Let them.

I see it in the internet problems that make us all wait and wait, and wait some more. Yeah, we have people with dicey connections. They’re working on it. Why are we waiting on them now? We can’t do X encounter without them. And yet, it’s no one’s fault, but they’re unreliable. We really can’t do X encounter. So what are we doing here, trying anyway? Well, someone else is leading. Let them. It’s their choice.

I see it in the raiding-time split my alliance pals have made, to allow for some different folks or different toons to run the early, easier encounters. As a practical consequence my tank has been badly limited in gear upgrades, but someone else is leading. I’m not going to fret over someone else’s choice. It’s not important to them.

Seems I’ve traded burnout for detachment. It’s not quite good, but it’s an improvement. I’m left with a couple hours of waiting and occasionally holding a raid boss while everyone else learns. Someone else could do this. A robot could do this. Seems like nearly anyone else could do this. Maybe they should.

Despair…so delicious…

Ah well. When it’s this bad, they had better be good friends. Fortunately, they are! And this summer of discontent will pass.

Some intellectual stimulation

Although my interest in the Greedy Goblin waned somewhat during his last experiment in PvP, the new pug guild does make me curious, and the ongoing ‘undergeared’ project too. It is reminiscent of his soloing and duo-ing old vanilla instances at level, like two level 18′s taking on Wailing Caverns or somesuch. A lot of gear is no longer a challenge, just a matter of time, but skill is a challenge. Their latest one was to pass the Festergut dps check in blue gear. Well, that was a bet the naysayers lost.

Granted, they have the 25% buff, but how many of us would really want to take on Festerface and Rotgut in old ilvl 200 blue gear? I wouldn’t. I’m still lamenting my squidadin’s old ilvl 213 epic shield from Naxx. I know, there are options other than lootship, but there’s not enough time in the day. Well, that and no one wants to run regular HoR or 25-ToC, where the other options actually are.

I suppose that in a way my DK’s change in raiding crew is an undergeared project. Maybe underskilled, too, but we’ll see how it goes. Raiding is still taking up too much of my week but I may have to let it ride for awhile. For once, it’s Sue’s drive and ambition, not mine. She wants to see the end of ICC. Both factions’ raiders have potential to see and beat up the Lich King. But I’m not sure which side will make it first with us in tow.

For my part, I’m not too worried about it. I’m done with my hardcore experiment and it was fun. Burnout is now a question of how long will this raid hold up while wiping repeatedly? And it seldom damages my calm. They usually have less time or patience than I do. I just chuckle over the mess and fly back. Ah, I remember when I learned not to do that…and that…and that.

I get my tanking fix with the alliance; my smash-face fix with the DK; my rogue spices things up, as her dps is still growing; and I continue to build on my other alts when really bored. I even dusted off the undead priest over the weekend, who hasn’t seen much action since Ulduar. Terminal boredom may result in leveling the 72 belflock.

I guess I get enough intellectual stimulation from theorycraft and don’t care for the cerebral style of nuke from the back of the raid in a dress. It ought to be my sort of thing.

The ashen verdict is in

It seems appropriate that the current end-game faction matches my current mood. After frittering away a couple of weeks looking for someplace to raid again with my DK, and questioning why I even bother, lately I’m not bothering. The high-end guilds are either falling apart or just fine, thanks, and I have nowhere to look but pugs. That would be fine if I had ever completed Frost Infusion, but no dice. It seems proper to set aside the quest for the orange axe and stop caring.

I took my shot and it didn’t work out; have to have a top-flight guild lined up in advance to have any chance, I guess. I can pick it up later when it’s completely obsolete and irrelevant, but for now I see little point in trying. Overall, it was a reasonable success in achieving some high-end raiding and more timely progression than I’m used to with casual, friendly guilds. It may take more time and luck than I have to find a better home to raid on a tighter schedule. I knew, going in, that the hardcore guild I joined was a business-type decision, and I’m not going to miss them.

Live as jerks, die as jerks, eh? I will do them the unnecessary favor of not calling out the guild by name, but they were ok with acting like pricks to the rest of the server and now the ones remaining are screwed. They’re either incapable (bad rep) or unwilling (slackers) to start recruitment again, and it’d be a bad time to try anyway. After the past few weeks of watching them struggle just to field a decent ICC 10, I may just leave and be a guildless wonder, or put my DK back in the guild of friends with my alts.

So I don’t care if the next content patch and the Ruby Sanctum are coming out in the next few weeks. I opted in for the Cataclysm beta but I don’t expect to get an invite, and I’m not sure that I care. It will be enough to fool around with my alts, with my horde rogue, and think about whether I’m going to stick around for Cataclysm at all. Now that the hardcore experiment is over, the main sticking point is getting to play with Sue, since the rest of you goofballs went and quit. We did originally have it in mind to play together. If we’re hardly ever going to, not much point to it.

This may look grim, but really it’s not. It’s freedom, from a time-consuming raiding schedule, perhaps from the game entirely. If the game is boring enough to inspire me to go back to the gym and the treadmill, that is probably the best turn of WoW events in years. It’s like…oh, I know what it’s like.

So if I go back to the gym and start grinding treadmill, maybe I’ll gain Parents faction rep…gah! It never ends!

Alt-tastic weeks ahead

Not much to add about my DK lately. She’s in something of a holding pattern for the week, as I have made a move on the GDKP (bidding gold for gear) raid this weekend. It’s a good time for it, since the usual IRC antics with my brother are on a holiday break. Time will tell on whether or not I get to stay in the hardcore guild I’m in. They seem to have shifted emphasis to a heroic 10-man. Perhaps we’re being left to our own devices, like the erstwhile MT/raid leader. Or perhaps I will soon be free to find a new guild.

On the bright side, no longer having to slave over my DK gives me more time for my alts. Clearly I did need a break, and I am not slaving over them as I did my death knight, but a few little things over time have improved them. Happily, my pally alt is a serviceable offtank for ICC, which my guild of friends seems to need now. They’re now running as much of ICC as most pugs get to, which is admirable progress in-house, even if it is an alliance of guilds doing it. And they join larger alliances and pugs for 25s. The pally really needs a shield upgrade though. Don’t we all.

My shaman, not needed so much lately; but that’s ok. They are alts after all. I can still improve him with the odd heroic or pug raid, and I have. Not real fond of the tier 10 style, though. But the sanctified upgrade at least sports a nice shade of blue glow, instead of the sickly puke-green. Or perhaps flu-snot green. Whatever. It’s far from sinister. Run away, the shaman’s infected!

It has occurred to me that he is one of rather few males I play, and I don’t even like his look either. I hope the male worgen look all right. Clearly they have put some time and energy into the females, but, well…how shall I put this. I don’t look to play werewolves with that foxy appearance in mind. I set aside the less diplomatic way to put it. Use your imagination.

And my long-neglected and sometime horde AH mule, the belf rogue is now getting closer to level 80, and seems to have hit her leveling stride. In random dungeon pugs, she’s competitive doing single target dps with the other classes spamming AOE. Makes me look forward to her performance at level 80. FoK spam!

Rogues seem so OP in ICC that I am interested to see how mine performs, should I run enough heroics etc. to get her into some.

It’s good to have other goals and ways to have fun with the game. Otherwise, what’s the point?