What’s up with the Euro Beta?

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A quick glance at the Beta EU English forums shows a lot of pissed off players (to mildly put it). Statements ranging from discrimination to broken servers to unplayability. Our EU friends have one server while NA enjoys 3 beta servers. They’re virtually pleading for either queues or a second server since performance no longer seems playable.

Even on the NA servers, I’ve started to feel the crunch. There didn’t used to be a whole lot of players before hand. I suppose they’re trying to stress test the hardware.

My guess is that older beta players have done what they could or feel like they no longer wish to spend time on the beta knowing their efforts will be undone. In fact, I feel the same way. My Priest is only 73. Between raiding on live, blogging, and school it’s nearly impossible for me to level up. As a result, I’ve made a few premades to try out the various level 80 instances like Naxx which I liveblogged earlier.

I know that some of the worlds best Guilds reside over in Europe. It would make major sense for them to be given access to the beta and get a chance on a stable server to raid on. Like it or not, they’ll be the first ones in there before the average raider like myself. Feedback can’t be given on an unstable server.

So to any Euro beta players:

  • Are the conditions as bad as it’s being made out to be?
  • How is Blizzard’s response thus far?
  • What can be done to help alleviate the problems?

PvE to PvP? Bring ’em on!

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No doubt you’re aware of Blizzard’s can opening, jaw dropping, eye popping PvE to PvP transfer availability announcement.

What did my blogleagues think of it?

Personally, I’m rather stoked. I’ve leveled mostly on PvP servers my entire life. It’ll be refreshing to have some new victims players around.

So come on my PvP friends! Let’s give our PvE transferees the welcome that they so wonderfully deserve!

Deja Vu? What Happened

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The more attentive readers will understand that I had some recent downtime yesterday. I don’t know what happened. Things worked fine in the morning before it came to a crashing halt. I spent the entire afternoon trying to isolate the problem (which I thought was a theme, then a plugin, then the installation) before calling it for the evening and raiding. That ended up in me getting my Vestments of Absolution.

A few more head bashing hours later, I came really close to just throwing in the towel and retiring entirely because I was extremely pissed and frustrated. My other blogs were working. Plusheal was working. But for whatever reason, this blog wasn’t. I tried wiping the database and restoring the backup earlier from the day. No dice. I tried wiping the entire WP install and restoring it again. Nothing.

Ended up wiping the install AND the database. Restored the database from Wednesday before Syd’s and Joveta’s post went up. That’s why you’re seeing them there again because I had to manually post theirs.

All I can say is, I won’t be renewing my contract with my current host. I have another year remaining. World of Matticus will be an unrestricted free agent blog next summer.

SYTYCB

Critiques will come out later tonight. Result will be released tomorrow. Next week, you’ll find out more about the latest addition to the WoM crew.

Death and the Priest

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bad-title

This week, we were given the option of a freestyle post.  I’m sticking with that, though I am using one of the topics presented in the competition to do it.  Matt, I’m sorry but I totally disagree with you when you advocate letting your dark side out and forcing a wipe. 

So Who Calls It?

Wipes happen, every group has been there.  It may be due to a bad pull, lack of focus, or simply the process of learning a fight.  It sucks, and can feel like a waste of time.  However, it is not the job of anyone other than the raid leader to determine when it is time to throw in the towel.  The raid leader is the person you agreed to listen to in raid, they are the person you hopefully trust to tell you what to do.  I’m not advocating a blind following of everything said to where you forget your own common sense, but the authority of the raid leader is totally undermined if one of the 24 other people in the group go over his head and make these decisions without him.  If you think it’s hopeless, poke the raid leader to call it, don’t make that decision yourself.  If you are making that decision, you need to ask yourself why, if you’re not going to let him lead, is he the raid leader at all?

Why not call it?

There are really only two kinds of wipes out there; the wipes that happen on farm content because of fluke or lack of attention, and the wipes that happen while you’re in some stage of learning a fight.  In neither of those instances are early problems reason to give up immediately. 

Everyone has experienced the shaky pull, where you lose one healer and a dps or two fairly early on, and still manage to beat it.  We’ve had Bloodboil on farm for months, every week is a one-shot.  But last night, we were running with 7 healers (where we usually run with 8 ) and lost one early on to Fel Rage (he was picking through the healing crew) bringing us down to 6.  It was stressful and crazy.  Then one of our warlocks got double-boiled because someone else hadn’t been paying attention.  You guessed it, he was the next Fel Rage target and died.  Bloodboil turned and Acid Breathed the tanks, costing us two of them.  With our highest-aggro mages and warlocks “off-tanking,” we still brought him down from 20% to dead with only our pally tank up.  It was a slow kill, but it would have wasted more time to wipe, rez/run back, and start all over from the beginning.  Problems are not a guaranteed wipe. 

As for giving up early while learning content, well, why show up to begin with?  Most bosses are not the type which look at you and fall over, offering up their shiny loot because you scare them so much.  Learning a boss can be hard!  You can spend weeks, 5, 10, 15 wipes, just trying to get a boss down once.  My raid group is currently working on Kalecgos.  It’s going slow, it’s frustrating, and it’s mainly due to the expansionitis that most raid groups are facing.  We don’t call it when the first healer dies.  We don’t even call it when the first tank dies, when we know it’s a guaranteed wipe at that point.  We still need the practice on when to move, keeping our portal rotation, where to stand, how to manage the details of the fight.  There’s a lot of learning that can be accomplished by pushing forward, even if you know you’re not going to win.  If you give up at the first sign of trouble, you are never going to improve.

Things to remember

  1. Discreetly forcing a wipe just means you have something to hide.  If you have something to hide, why are you doing this in the first place?
  2. Playing this off as an innocent mistake means you know you’re in the wrong and are looking for plausible deniability.
  3. Communication is key, as is trust.  Forcing a wipe totally ignores both of these things.

In short, if you have a problem, or things look dire, talk to your raid leader, don’t take over his job yourself.