Much Ado About Nothing
I wasn't going to comment on Petgate 2009. It became a tired subject two minutes after it was breaking news, and I had nothing new to add to the discussion. I still don't, really. But I did read two things over the weekend that finally exasperated me enough to respond.
First, Elnia at the Pink Pigtail Inn described his reaction to the opening of the Blizzard Pet Store as "aghast." One of his commenters chimed in, declaring the entire thing "abhorrent." Aghast? Abhorrent? Seriously?
These are very strong words. If you find yourself sincerely "aghast" at anything that happens in a video game, then I humbly suggest canceling your account and investing the $15 a month in a newspaper subscription. There are truly abhorrent things happening in the world. This isn't one of them.
Second, a pair of new recruits got into the most ridiculously asinine spat I have ever seen in Surreality guild chat. One of the recruits was delighted with his new pet (not to mention his fifth name change of the week >.<). The other thought he was an idiot for spending real money on vanity items, and told him so. What started as a relatively minor difference of opinion somehow escalated to name-calling — quickly quashed, of course, but no less annoying for all that it was short-lived.
Personally, I have a very "live and let live" — or, more accurately, a "buy and let buy... or don't!" — attitude towards the entire thing. I collected non-combat pets for a while and have several that I still love (all of them gifts from my fiance at various points in our relationship, come to think of it), but I doubt I'll be purchasing a pint-sized lich or Kung Fu panda from the Blizzard Pet Store anytime soon. Still, I don't see the fact I have the option to do so as the Beginning of the End for the World of Warcraft, nor do I find any of the many arguments I've read against this type of real money transaction particularly compelling.
Here they are, in brief, along with my thoughts. (I'm sure you've seen all of them before; as I said, I have nothing new or insightful to add. I really just wanted to vent.)
It's classist, providing a visual, in-game distinction between the Haves and Haves Nots.
You have a computer, a high-speed Internet connection and $15 of disposal income each month to pay for your WoW subscription. You, my friend, are a Have.
Besides, if Black Dragonflight is any indication, people are far more likely to /point and /laugh at you for owning a Panderan Monk or Lil' KT than they are to /sigh in wistful admiration.
It devalues my pet collecting achievement.
More so than any of the previous Collector's Edition, Blizzcon or Trading Card pets (that you can still buy on ebay for a ridiculous mark-up)? By making non-combat pets available for purchase on the official website, Blizzard has effectively eliminated the after-market and made these two pets, at least, more accessible to a majority of players.
... By the way, if this is your argument, then you better not written have a blogpost recently condemning "hardcore" raiders for attempting to hoard the purple pixels. Just sayin'.
It's a slippery slope that can only lead to game-changing Real Money Transactions (selling gold, epics, heirloom gear, access to premium instance servers, etc.).
The slippery slope is a fallacy. l2logic.
It breaks immersion.
Yeah, it does. I'll give you that.
But you know what? So do Haris Pilton, Harrison Jones, the ninja turtles in Dalaran and the fact that my 16-slot backpack can somehow hold 30 Hillsbrad peasant skulls at the same time. Leah made a fantastic comment over at the Pink Pigtail Inn about the entire World of Warcraft being just a little tongue-in-cheek. If Larísa's site weren't blocked at work, I would quote it here; since it is and I can't, I recommend finding it yourself. It's the only thing related to Elnia's post worth reading.
Blizzard is selling out, man.
Blizzard is in the business of making and selling video games. We call Blizzard a studio, but that's romanticism: at the end of the day, the World of Warcraft is a product. Not art.
Blizzard isn't "selling out." It's selling — period. If this comes as some sort of surprise to you, then you really haven't been paying attention.
/shameface
The boys in my guild have reached a new low.
Apparently, they're too lazy to actually type out all four letters of the infamous "F"-word. Instead, they'll simply spam guild chat with F's.
Moar are Steen are in the Dalaran Arena? Expect to see
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
appear in /g, sooner or later.
Whisper Elam a question about shaman theorycrafting, count to 20, and then log onto an alt?
More of the same.
So guess what I heard myself saying — saying, not typing! — when one of my customers e-mailed me this afternoon about a $0.70 overcharge on her October invoice.
(Seventy cents? Really? A multi-billion dollar company — not mine; my customer's — is counting pocket change? Come on! This is the equivalent of one and two-fifths of a can of Diet Coke!)
Still. I am /so/ ashamed.
My first glimpse of Black Temple
The first time I experienced Black Temple, I wasn't a raider; I was a tourist.
Surreality was still working on SSC and TK when the T6 attunements were patched out of the game. Many guilds at our level of progression leapt at the opportunity to skip ahead to Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, but our ragtag group of lore junkies and obsessive completionists was determined to see Lady Vashj and Lord Kael'thas defeated before retiring Tier 5. (Besides, I had read on the realm forum that 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC translated from WoW into English as "we don't do anything hard," and I didn't want Surreality to be looked down upon as one of those guilds. The "months behind" badge, on the other hand, I wore with pride.)
Even with attunements lifted, Black Temple seemed a far distant goal. It loomed over us, both literally and figuratively: an inscrutable monolith, mysterious, seemingly impenetrable — wonderfully, awe-inspiringly epic. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a daily ritual, but I often found myself veering north and east from the Sanctum of the Stars, putting my one-woman crusade on behalf of the Netherwing off for just long enough to hover in the shadow of the former Temple of Karabor and dream of the day that I would slough the mud and muck of Serpentshrine Cavern off of my boots and ... crawl through the mud and the muck of Illidan's sewer.
In those days, Surreality had become something of a haven for the alts of hardcore raiders, who enjoyed our relaxed guild culture and often hung out with us outside of raid times. (Or at least, that's what I told myself. Maybe they saw it as the equivalent of reading to kindergartners: WoW volunteerism, as it were.)
One night, the most egregious among them — a Tier 6 shaman many of us regarded with something akin to hero worship — offered to take us on a guided tour of Black Temple, using his main guild's raid ID.
To this day, it remains some of the most fun I've ever had in-game.
First, there was the sheer awe-factor. I was in Black Temple! Me! Black Temple! Sure, it's old hat now ... but at the time, Black Temple was the domain of the elite. The <Fires of Heaven>'s and <Forgotten Heroes>'s of the world raided Black Temple — not me! And yet here I was, a fledgling warlock in Frozen Shadoweave and that slutty red dress from Magister's Terrace, towing my imp around like a teddy bear and gaping at the ghosts of vanquished trash mobs.
And then, there was the light-heartedness of it all. It was so. much. fun. to be running amock in the scariest zone in the game, pretending we were raid bosses and intrepid adventurers and erstwile heroes, telling each other that this is where Gurtogg Bloodboil will be and this is where we will save Akama — or die trying — and oooo, look, are those ghosts on the ceiling?
* * *
I've come a long way since then, obviously, but I was reminded of this experience yesterday when responding to Light's comments on a recent (and apparently controversial) blogpost.
"The thing I notice the most about WoW players is that they expect Blizzard to hand them everything in terms of how to make the game harder or more interesting," Light wrote.
I replied with the now-standard counterpoint: "The thing I notice about WoW players is that they expect Blizzard to take them on a guided tour of all the content in the game..."
... and yet, ironically, my first glimpse of what remains my favorite content was — quite literally — a guided tour!
Why then, as Juzaba asks, do I begrudge others that experience?
I don't.
What I regret about Blizzard's paradigm shift is the knowledge that I will never again feel the kind of awe I did upon entering Black Temple for the first time — or the third1, because when I returned as a bona fide raider (with a jagged shard of Kael'thas's soul tucked into the pocket of my robes to prove it!), it was just as epic. But if every challenge in the game has an easy-mode counterpart, then the truly "new" experiences will be few and far between and every hard-mode victory will feel at least a little hollow.
Surreality is currently working on the heroic Twin Valkyrs. It's a hard, fun fight. I'm enjoying myself, especially because I can feel us progressing. We're learning with each new attempt. I can't claim that every wipe is productive (some are just dumb), but most are. The fight hasn't clicked yet, but it will — and when it does, I know I'll be happy and exhilerated and relieved, all at once.
But, still, compared to my TBC experience ... I can't help but feel that this is methodone.
If the new model is working for you — if you find the easy-mode/hard-mode dichotomy a perfectly acceptable, even brilliant compromise — then I'm happy for you. Truly. I'm not asking Blizzard to re-tune the raid content to my specifications; I'm simply expressing regret and a vague sense of loss over the end of an era.
- Remind me to tell you about the second, some time. For now, suffice it to say that it involved two warlocks, a prowling cat druid and a very naughty game of dodgeball with two Eyes of Killrogg. ↩
WoW is too easy.
Sorry, Larísa. But this has been my opinion since the debut of Naxxramas v2.0, and I stand by it now — even if it means I'm one of those unrepentent whiners who has reduced our beloved innkeeper to the use of Internet shorthand. (Don't feel bad! I've been known to do it too. The other day, I even used the word fuck in guild chat. /shameface)
"Hands on heart, how many of you have actually killed Yogg-Saron 25 man?" Larísa asks, uncharacteristically blunt. I imagine her standing in front of a warm and inviting fire, wagging a diminutive finger. Her pink pigtails bob as she shakes her head in disappointment.
Not quite that many. As a matter of fact, people seem to have given up [on] him altogether. I haven't got any scientific evidence that this is the fact, but from what I read on the blogs, it appears that most raiding guilds have stopped aiming for an Ulduar clear. They make ToC, Onyxia, and not much more than that.
Why? Well, I guess they find him too hard compared to the upgrades he offers. The wipe/gear quota isn't favorable. And fine, that's their choice. But don't come and tell me that the raid instances in Wrath are too easy!
I understand the point that Larísa is attempting to make, and I certainly appreciate her perspective: few things irk me more than people who pre-judge a situation — which is exactly what Larísa feels those players who complain about content they have yet to fully experience are doing.
I'm not sure I agree. To me, Larísa's rant begs a question: "How much content do you need to have completed before you're entitled to an opinion?"
Larísa is prepared to listen only to those who are farming Algalon and clearing ToC hard-modes "without any effort," but I find this position rather short-sighted (and no, that isn't a potshot at gnomes!).
Reading her post, I was reminded of the druid formerly known as Karthis — now Andrew, Of Teeth and Claws — who canceled his subscription relatively early into Ulduar because he knew that hard-modes wouldn't satisfy his hunger for new and challenging content. Far from finding his perspective irrelevant (to my knowledge, Andrew didn't raid Tier 8 long enough to see Yogg-Saron defeated), I find it telling: someone who loved the game enough to devote a significant amount of his time to writing about it — and, indeed, was widely regarded as a pillar of the druid community (a feral Phaelia, if you will) — has written it off entirely.
Andrew didn't need to see Wrath to its end to know that WoW was no longer a game he wanted to play. I may be projecting here (Surreality and Que Sera Sera were in virtual lockstep for most of Tier 7), but it seems to me that his disappointment with Naxxramas and the one-shot wonders (as Keaton calls them) was compounded by months of idle frustration, during which the only real challenge in the game was finding 25 players who were still interested enough in raiding to attempt 3-drake Sarth.
For Andrew and players like him, Ulduar was a classic example of too little, too late. Sure, it was harder than Naxxramas — but it wasn't significantly harder, and certainly couldn't hold a Kobold's candle to The Burning Crusade's sophomore tier.
It's players like this that Larísa fails to take into account when she points out that a small percentage of raiders have defeated Yogg-Saron, let alone faced down Algalon or achieved a Tribute to Insanity.
If the game were truly too easy, She of the Pink Pigtails contends, shouldn't more people have completed it?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Larísa's assumption is that those players who have given up on Yogg-Saron — or Algalon, or hard-mode Anub'arak — have done so either because the content is too hard, or because the wipe/reward ratio isn't high enough to make attempting it worthwhile. But what about those players who haven't attempted hard-modes, not because they aren't capable of them, but because they simply can't bring themselves to care about the over-tuned versions of under-tuned fights they've done countless times already?
The flaw in Larísa's logic is that correlation does not equal causation: while some players may have given up on Ulduar because ToC 25 renders even hardmode loot obsolete, others are almost certain to have moved on for other reasons — such as boredom, frustration and even disgust with the same recycled content.
And, really, who can blame them? After months of progressing through Ulduar, farming Ulduar and cursing Ulduar as the only relevant raid content available, many players — myself included — have no real desire to return to Ulduar to work on hard-modes that look exactly like the familiar, normal modes with one or two gimmicky additions.
The Choice is a Lie
Blizzard's intention with Wrath was to make the raid game accessible to even the most casual of players. In spite of some initial misgivings as to how this would be accomplished, I think most of us were supportive of that. After all, it takes a pretty selfish person to say "Nuh uh, no, mine! Take your grubby little, scrubby little hands out of my raid zones!" Sure, some of the truly hardcore may have been thinking it — but the majority of us were cautiously optimistic, even hopeful. We knew that Naxxramas would be easy and attunements were to become relics of the past, but even in the absence of gated content, we expected the difficulty to ramp up with each successive tier.
Instead, we were introduced to the easy-mode (I'm sorry, is that offensive?) normal-mode/hard-mode dichotomy.
Larísa has extolled its virtues on more than one occasion. She believes that hard-modes allow individual players and guilds to set the bar at exactly the right height — creating, in essence, a customized gaming experience from a one-size-fits-all kind of a brand.
I'm not buying it.
For me, the problem with hard-modes is that they create the illusion of new content without actually being new content.
Saresa explains it beautifully:
I want my difficult raids to be new, exciting and fresh. Killing a boss with a couple more adds, or a little less assistance, or on a timer just doesn’t cut it for me. I remember in BC, I was always so excited downing a boss. It was HUGE to see them die for the first time. Now? Blah. Snore. Even on hard mode it feels like ‘I just killed the tacky, slightly more difficult mode of a boss I’ve already killed’. There is no exhilaration in hard mode raiding. Fun? Oh sure! But, at the end of the day, the boss is dead, and I just don’t really care.
Trial of the Crusader is a perfect example. Because new bosses were released at the rate of one per week, by the time we could zone in to Trial of the Grand Crusader, we had already faced (and defeated!) the Beasts of Northrend no less than ten times between ToC 10 and ToC 25.
Do you know what the differences are between the Beasts of Northrend on normal-mode and the Beasts of Nothrend on heroic-mode?
In heroic-mode, everything hits harder and has more health.
The bosses enter the arena on timers.
Fires do DoT damage.
And there is no run-speed buff during Icehowl's charge.
From a practical standpoint, this changes exactly nothing. The tanks still have to set up a taunt rotation. The healers still have to heal the tanks through impales and bleed damage and the raid through AoE damage. Everyone still has to move out of fires and poisons. No one can stand still and stare Icehowl down as he charges straight at them.
Heroic Beasts of Northrend is the same fight as Beasts of Northrend!
Harder? Faster? More frantic? Yes.
Less forgiving? Most definitely.
New? Exciting? Epic? Not at all.
And therein lies the problem.
I’m dual-wielding mice today.
Keaton called me at the office on his way into work today.
"My mice are broken!" I wailed.
"Excuse me?"
"My mice. Mouses. Whatever."
"Are broken?"
"Yes. One won't right click and won't left click."
"So you're dual-wielding them?"
"..."
Yes, exactly.
Inscriptions and arcanums to become BoA …
From the latest PTR Patch Notes 1:
- Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
My initial reaction: ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH. WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE TOLD ME THIS /////// BEFORE //////// I LEVELED INSCRIPTION ON A SECOND CHARACTER?!
Two seconds later, after I'd come to my senses: ... I don't actually have any characters who are exalted with the Sons of Hodir, do I? 2 Carry on, then.
Feel free to /facepalm. I know you want to.
___________________________________________________________________________
- In general, I don't care about the PTR. Like I told Elam, there's far too much to do on Live for me to angst over potential upcoming changes that are, after all, potential. ↩
- Don't look at me like that! There's only so much polishing of the helm and thrusting of the spear a girl can handle. My raiding main (and now my baby critchicken) is a Scribe, anyway. ↩
Contemplating alt ToC 25
Keaton and I have been considering running an alt-friendly ToC 25 on the weekends. It was initially proposed as part of our recruitment strategy, and even though it's no longer necessary (last night, we ran a wait-list four raiders deep and recieved four additional applications!), I still think it's a good idea.
A well-managed alt-ToC has the potential to be a fun and relatively low-stress way to play with friends, gear alts and include mains who didn't make the guild run earlier in the week. I'm sure we'd have to PuG a few spots, but even that could have great PR value.
We've been tossing the idea around for a while but haven't had time to sit down and work out the details — so if we do organize something like this, it probably won't be until next weekend. Still, I was interested to read this morning that Bellwether of 4Haelz has been running something similar on her server. It makes me all the more excited about our plan (and reminds me that I'll have to lay some ground rules first, which is the unfun part).
Highs and Lows
Leading a raiding guild is a lot like riding a rollercoaster: a tense ascent, followed by soaring highs and soul-crushing lows in frighteningly rapid succession. (I extended the hell out of this metaphor in my first draft of this post, but it ended up sounding more like sex than Six Flags... so, nevermind.)
Two weeks ago, Surreality downed the Heroic Beasts of Northrend for the first time. Riding that high, we went on to one-shot Three Lights in the Darkness — allowing our Discipline Priest to forge Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings — and two-shot I Choose You, Steealbreaker!, starting us on the long quest for Algalon.
Last week, we 24-manned Trial of the Crusader and called two of our three weekly raids for poor attendance. One of my veterans admitted that he was contemplating a strategic /gquit and an officer suggested that we seriously consider merging with another failing guild.
Yesterday, we one-shot the Heroic Beasts and took down Heroic Lord Jaraxxus — breaking into the server's Top 10 for the first time since our inception. Tonight, we have every intention of taking on the Faction Champions on hardmode — and a preliminary look at sign-ups tells us that its very possible we'll succeed. (In filling the raid, that is! The Faction Champions themselves are another story entirely.)
Update (12:14 AM): Yep, Faction Champions > us! But we did go from wiping ten seconds into the fight to downing the first three focus targets, so it's only a matter of time before it clicks. We also managed to pick up a new warrior, rogue, hunter and elemental shaman in the last two days — so I think I can close recruitment to anything that isn't a shadow priest or critchicken for the time being.
Coming out!
When I started Fel Fire, I didn't know what direction it would take. (Confession? Ten months and one domain change later, I still don't!) I "aspired" to attract an audience in the same way that I once aspired to raid: "maybe, someday ... later." In the meantime, and for at least as long as it took me to find a voice, I knew I would be writing primarily for myself.
I know, I know. All bloggers say they write for themselves. But if that were really true, why not write in a Word document or a pen-and-paper journal? Why bother with the Internet at all?
Personally, I wanted to be heard. I just wanted to be in control of who and when.
Even more than that, I wanted the freedom to rant. My blog would be my catharsis: if a guildmember said something mean, or stupid, or if I wasn't sure how to deal with a situation or had an especially bad day and needed to break down completely, then I wanted the opportunity to do so without having to worry about creating tension or causing drama or just making myself look like a crazy woman.
And so — with no clear goals but all of this in mind — I made a deliberate effort to hide myself from my guild.
I've been known in-game as Sarielle from the moment I awoke in Death Knell, but I reversed the letters in my name when I registered my first Wordpress account and become "Elleiras" instead. Over time, I cultivated an awkward kind of one-sided anonymity: telling my fledgling readership just enough about my "true" identity that they could find me if they wanted to, but keeping Sarielle safely un-Googleable.
By the time that Eanin (of Main Tankadin fame) started blogging, I found myself second-guessing my decision. As much as I wanted to promote his blog and encourage him to continue writing, I was afraid that doing so would out me to the rest of our guild. I /waffled for so long that Eanin eventually stopped updating. Given how busy he is in Real Life™, with a doctorate in progress and a baby on the way, I doubt anything I could have done would have changed that — but I do regret the missed opportunity, if only because it means that my need to protect myself prevented me from being a good friend.
In some ways, it still is. Elam removes his blog's URL from his signature line anytime he posts on the realm forum (because we link to each other and he knows I don't want to be found). He and Naithin have been known to talk in riddles in guild chat simply to avoid outing me, and even those members who have stumbled across my blog (via WoW Insider links or the occasional application it brings in) have remained respectfully, if awkwardly, silent.
And especially after watching the camaraderie develop between bloggers like Amber, Kyrliean and Mikata, who share a guild tag, I can't help but feel that my recalcitrance has held us back in some small way...
Anyway, at about the same time I moved to altadin.com, I stopped trying to hide. I didn't publicize my blog, per se, but I did start using real names (insofar that names like Malamo and Ouchilicious can be represented as "real") and even linked to the guild site as a part of my ongoing recruiting effort.
Today, more and more of my guildies are finding their way here, or at least to Elam's blog, which means they'll end up here eventually (unless I petition the Shaman-Who-Doesn't-Ramen to strike me from his extra-curricular existence — which I won't do, because I rather like being a part of it).
So — as of this post — I am officially out of the WoW blogging closet. And after the better part of the year, I think I'm finally okay with that.
(I deleted all of the mean stuff already, anyway.)
On a somewhat related note ...
I have to give my guildmates credit. It took two full weeks of raiding with a tree named Forrest for someone — affecting a falsetto, so I'm not entirely sure who (my gold is on Lupius!) — to finally break down and make the inevitable "run" joke on Vent.
I won't repeat it verbatim. Let's just say it involved green fire and a tree druid and leave it at that.
And in the off-chance you didn't catch on to the fact that the name of the druid-in-question is also a link, I'll make it obvious by welcoming Surreality's newest blogger to the 'sphere! He is a frequent commenter on many WoW blogs, so you probably already know him, but he's carved a niche of his own.
You can find it at (wait for it...) My Name is Forrest...
Forreststump.
I see you there, Googling me.
Whoever is Googling the full-text of my /off-topic post is freaking me out. Stop that!
Alts! I haz them.
Nerd Points!
Recent Comments
- Alexander Doetsch on This post is dedicated to Elam.
- James Greene on The Undying is not fun.
- Judy on An Update, In Pictures.
- Yarisel Cannon on Not it!
- Bob2 on An Update, In Pictures.
Recent Ramblings
- An Update, In Pictures.
- Hey, remember that warlock pet bug?
- A long over-due and rather jumbled update
- You know it’s time to end the blogging hiatus …
- So.
Less Recent Ramblings
- November 2011
- November 2010
- April 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
Surreality Blogs!
- Anea.nu
- Confessions of a Feral Druid
- My Name is Forrest…
- Shaman On Ramen
- Tahas, Not Tatas
- Tank'n'Tree
- The Argent Champion