News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

My All Star Healing Team

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During a raid, your QB has the mammoth task of figuring out which classes should go where. Often times, I find myself parted from a Shadow Priest or a Resto Shaman in order to increase the longevity of other DPS classes.

It’s like a big void within me suddenly appeared.

If I was the raid leader, and I didn’t give a crap about the DPS or the tanks or what not, I would structure *MY* healing group to look something like this.

Resto Shaman

What they bring to the table: Lots of totems. If you’re Alliance, you get space totems. Having a Resto Shaman in your group means Mana Tide, Mana Spring, Wrath of Air, and that funky Draenei Mana Regen racial thingy DRAeNEI MANA REGEN RACIAL IS ONLY FOR PRIESTS! FIRED!

What others miss out on: No windfury for the Rogues or Warriors. There’s only one Shaman out of 25 players, and they’re mine!

Shadow Priest

What they bring to the table: Not only do they consistently regenerate your groups heath but they regenerate your groups mana.

What others miss out on: Sorry Warlocks, looks like you’re not getting increased shadow damage this time. If I get the health and mana regen, it means YOU aren’t getting the mana regen (Completely forgot, MK thanks).

Holy Paladin

What they bring to the table: Auras for just about any situation you can think of. Most of the time, it will be concentration aura so we don’t lose cast time during annoying attacks.

What others miss out on: The tank doesn’t really NEED Fire Resist aura does he?

Resto Druid

What they bring to the table: The tree aura is nice to have around. It’s good to know that their innervate’s are close by ready to be blown in case us Priests need it.

What others miss out on: Oh right, the tank would probably benefit more from tree form then I would. Too bad. Hey, my ship!

If I were leading the raid, I would screw over other classes completely. To hell with group optimization. We all have our dreams. Blori would probably tell me to wake up because he would never part with a Shaman in the melee group. But alas, that’s why I’m just a measly grunt and not a lead.

And You Thought Your Guild Had Drama

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There’s generally two kinds of drama that Guilds go through. There’s loot related drama (oh my god, I really wanted this item but she got it *cry*) and then there’s personal drama (oh my god, why doesn’t she talk to me anymore after I farmed her my epic mount *wrists*).

Death and Taxes, one of the top US Guilds in the world, shared their latest drama story and it’s a doozy (I certainly think so!). Note that the front page itself is safe for work but clicking on the post link itself on top is NSFW. Here’s a brief excerpt.

Time went on-about a year-and all of the sudden "Chobo" and Miyavi started having some relationship troubles. Miyavi decided it was time to sleep around some, in California, with one of the gentlemen she is friends with, and "Chobo" decided on Feb. 14th, 2008 that it would be time to end things. So, Miyavi was distraught…  …She decided, after some internal reflection, that the only viable thing to do was to find someone vulnerable in "Chobo’s" guild and to use them to get back at him.

Enter Korrupted, a guild member from DnT. He was having some shit at home in Arizona and decided that his about year+ of hitting on Miyavi would finally pay off. He started laying it on thick, and Miyavi saw an opportunity. She decided to fly Korrupted out and let him live with her. Around the beginning of March Korrupted arrives and promptly sleeps with Miyavi–less than a month after she cheated and then got dumped by her boyfriend.

Wa Wa Wee Wa! First class epic drama right there! I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never really been a part of any serious drama issues in any of my Guilds. They’ve either occurred before or after I’m in the guild.

EDIT: Looks like the story got taken down from the front page. I believe it’s still somewhere in their forums, however.

Tobold Interviews a Gold Seller

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MMO Blogging enthusiast Tobold managed get in an interview with a gold selling company that’s not based in China. I don’t support RMT at all in any shape. With that being said, that does not mean I’m not curious as to the motivations and foundations behind them. Im always interested to learn about everything and anything (I have Wikipedia as my home page for crying out loud). Tobold asked some intriguing questions and received some ever interesting answers.

EDIT: RMT stands for Real Money Trading (or the process of exchanging real money for virtual currency and items).

After posing this perspective I’m often asked, “So why do Blizzard ban RMT accounts then?”, and the answer is always the same. To open a WoW account requires both a CD Key and subscription, but as Chinese credit cards are not accepted this become a 60-day pre-paid game card. A Chinese workroom would pay around $35 for both these resources, the majority of which goes right into Blizzard’s pockets. As a rough estimate based on experience within Chinese workrooms, I would say 200,000 workroom accounts were banned in 2007, 99.5% of which would have been replaced by a new account (with a new CD key and pre-paid card) right away. Based on these numbers, the banning of Chinese “Gold Farmer” accounts was worth approximately $7,000,000 last year alone. Now you can better understand why RMT continues to exist and why legal action against RMT is extremely selective.

Obviously a controversial piece like this would garner a few negative comments. Sure enough, a brief look at the comments showed several dissatisfied readers. True, Tobold had to publicize the address of the company in question but I think a link is a fair trade off in order to ask honest questions and get honest answers. The world revolves around a give and take relationship and you can’t expect to get something for nothing.

There’s been documentaries and interviews of serial murderers and rapists and other criminals done before in the past. It doesn’t mean we support what they do. Interviews like this help in expanding our understanding and view of deviant acts like this.

If you’re against buying gold or RMT in general, then it’s highly unlikely that reading an interview like this will change your mind.

In Vancouver, we have a special place in the Downtown East side called a Insite. It’s essentially a safe injection site for drug users to go to in order for them to practice what they do in a safe place. This government funded installation is meant to help drug users in a controlled environment that is fully staffed. Obviously a place like this can send the wrong kind of message; namely that the government supports illegal drug use. On the other hand, if an individual is going to shoot cocaine or do drugs anyway, at least there’s a hygienic place that exists where they can go to in order to do it safely without overdosing themselves.

Applying this to WoW and RMT, I’m more aware of the trades and practices that dealing with Chinese RMTers can do. This organization reports itself as being in America which means it is subject to American laws and business practices. I’d like to say that offers an element of comfort to players who might be desperate enough to turn to RMT in the first place.

Disclaimer: I mentioned it earlier and I’ll say it again. I don’t support RMT at all. But I still like to learn. If you’re going to comment, please do it respectfully with regards to the views of others.

Technorati Tags: , , rmt, , , tobold

Raiding is Hardly Hardcore

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I want to direct your attention to a post made by Galo, at Ardent Defender. The post is an example of the casual guild experience when they raid. In the last paragraph, he poses a question:

Am I hardcore?

It all depends on the measuring stick that is being used. But in this case, Galo, no you’re not. Here’s a pattern that I’ve discovered when I’ve raided with "casual players".

  • Ten minutes to buff
  • Not listening or following instructions in raids
  • Frequent AFK breaks
  • Ridiculously late start times (an hour after a scheduled raid begins?)

Behavior like that is just unacceptable to me. It proves to me that a player is lazy and unmotivated. No real raider wants to raid with players like that. They give "casual" gamers a bad name since that’s what they’re frequently classified under.

Here is my other question. Why are players who do the exact opposite of what I’ve listed above considered hardcore?

Namely things like:

  • A quick 30 minute buff after a player dies
  • Staying quiet and doing as the raid leader says
  • AFKing only when necessary and only on trash
  • Showing up on time

That’s not hardcore. That’s showing that you’re willing to work for your gear. Galo has no problem getting gear since he does heroics regularly with relative ease.

My advice

Join that Guild, Galo. They sound like the kind of players you will get along with and progress with. Sure you might not be able to make all their times, but the runs you can get in on them with deliver a huge thrill for you. It sounds like you actually want to go somewhere. I’ve had to make the tough choice of parting ways with some friends a long time ago to play in my guild now. But we’re on the same server and we still chat and I still play with them every now and again. Just because you change guilds doesn’t mean you change friends.

I guess one would say I’m a zentastic player.

But throw away those old stereotypes of raiding. Don’t be a casual raider. Don’t be a hardcore raider. Just be a raider.

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Hitting the Big Time

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Do you know when you’re considered popular?

When people on your server send you tells and in game mail asking you for advice and telling you that they read your blog. That’s when you know you’ve hit the big time.

In other news, I finished Professor Layton after 2 straight days of mental elastics. Now you know why the lapse in posts recently.