When the non-raiding rogue goes raiding…

I’ve been neglecting my rogue of late. It’s not that I have grown tired of him it’s just that I have had other things with other characters to do.  So on Sunday I dusted off the old daggers and set about spending some quality time with said Rogue. I had some specific things in mind, mostly General Achievement based – nothing that would require much skill (just as well really). Some of the more active guild members decided on a VoA10, good luck with that I’ve got books to read for Better Read. I’m working my way through the books when it turns out they have 9 people for VoA10 and need a dps slot. There weren’t too many online at the time and the options were pretty much me, the guy in the BG or the person who was AFK. They drew the short straw and I said I’d give it a go. But oh its been so long since I raided, my skills as they were are not so much rusty as corroded and crumbled to dust.

So let’s do a quick checklist on the sort of things we all know should happen.

1. Know the Instance and the strategies for the fights. Ok, it’s the bit behind the WG fortress doors. I knew the first boss fight, I’ll wing the rest – how hard can it be?
2. Come prepared. Ensure you have flasks, health pots and stat food. 2 out of 3 here. I have my health pots and stat food always, my flasks are in the bank. Hell, I was summoned from Scholomance  and I don’t use flasks in there!
3. Use a MA macro. Yay, remembered that one. Even managed TotT on the tank (well, after the second pull I did anyway)
4. A Dead Rogue does no DPS. Well – no deaths at all from me, how pro am I? I even managed to stay out the green shit fairly well. To be fair though it was mostly red or white, didn’t see much green at all. I even managed to drop out and heal myself when necessary.
   
5. Rogues do damage, that’s what you are there for. I managed about 4300 dps throughout, which while I felt it was slightly low wasn’t bad considering Mutilate had been nerfed slightly since I last raided and I was seriously rusty. On the meters I came in fourth marginally behind a DK who was on about 4305 but the top two were pulling 5-6k  so significantly behind them. Overall not too bad a performance I felt.
6. Loot Boss. Not a single rogue item the whole time. Just meh…..

7. As a Mutilate rogue ‘Hunger for Blood‘ should be up the entire time. Oh f***, f***, f***ety F***!  I only remembered this after the fight. Three bosses, various trash and not once did I put up HfB. My head is hung in shame. No wonder I felt the dps was a bit low…

8. As a mutilate rogue you should always Glyph for HfB. This works like a charm, providing you hit the hfb button of course.

No one in the guild mentioned anything about it all. I was the only rogue there, so the question is were they too polite to mention it, did they just think I was that clueless or did they not notice. I’d prefer answer 3, but I can’t see it somehow. Perhaps I just need to do a bit more of this kind of thing (I mean raiding and not missing out on HfB, lets not do that again).

Back to rogue school for me, probably with detention and extra homework. Next post won’t be until they let me out. I may be some time….

Blog Update

Inserted an RSS feed and also added a link to Wasmemon Troll blog. I can’t help it – I like Trolls as a race (despite never playing one properly) and anyone who is blogging about Trolls will get my support. The site is also well written and I like the humour – check it out.
Aside from that I’ve also been playing WoW as opposed to reading about it on various blogs. I’ll see if I can manage a ‘proper’ post in the next day or so.

WTS Thick Hide

I’m still finding my way around this blogging thing but it turns out even in this world of blograft we still have  drama. Except rather than see it flow across the screen in green text or in guild forums  we have blogs, comments and comments on comments.  The recent blog drama started off as a fairly simple thing, I didn’t even see it at the time, but it sure snowballed quickly enough that even I couldn’t miss it. The scenario:

Blog 1 (Cranky healer) makes a post about RPing.

Blog 2 (Anna) decides blog 1 is out-of-order on said RPing post and posts her own opinion of the Blog 1 post.

Blog 1 /gquits or rather makes farewell post and deletes blog.

Lots of people with no involvement up till now start dissecting all the points and claims, counter claims,  sides are taken, and almost everyone who is anyone (or aspires to be) has an opinion.  Popcorn is bought in vast quantities and the blogging community watch for the next round. As Bill Shankly famously said  “ Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that. ” It seems that the blogging community is a bit like that with the Cranky drama.

Here’s my view on the whole thing – I don’t know these people (any of them), and while I don’t wish them any harm or unpleasantness, what happens to them won’t affect me at all. It seems completely blown out of proportion to me. Over reaction fueled by over reaction. I don’t understand the need for any of the bickering. Agree to disagree and move on.

I am slightly cynical, and having seen the amount of traffic this generated at other blogs I wonder if some of the posts and comments made are simply designed to generate more traffic at their own sites by linking to the sites where the drama unfolded. I don’t think there is any way to prove it one way or the other and of course the same charge can be levelled at me. I suspect some will be trying to manipulate the situation for a personal benefit and some won’t. Deciding upon who is and who isn’t  will be a very subjective call and not one I’m prepared to make.

If you write a blog you can’t choose who reads it. If you write a blog people will comment on what they see, so sooner or later someone will make a comment you don’t like. If you can’t deal with that then writing a blog is not for you. So far I’ve yet to experience that side of blogging, but if/when I do I’ll simply delete any comments made here I don’t like and ignore any others that are elsewhere. My blog is not some democratic process with a constitution and an equal voice for everyone, it’s just my ramblings and I’ll be judge and jury over what appears here and what doesn’t. It cannot be worthwhile to write a blog if you find the comments some people make (even if only a small minority) get through to you and cause distress, writing a blog should be for pleasure, it’s not a duty owed.

Why Stamina is the Most Important Stat For the Non-raiding Rogue

I go through phases with WoW. At times it’s all exciting and I log on with a list of things I have in mind to do, and there are so many I know I won’t get through them all. Plenty left over for tomorrow, the next day or whenever. At other times I can’t think of much I want to do at all. This is how I have been the last couple of days.  Log on, do the cooking daily and the JC daily on my DK and then …. well….. what?

It’s not just me either, my usual circle of playing friends are all feeling pretty much the same. They are less likely to be on and when they are they can’t really think of much they want to do either, so they are less likely to log on. I’ve also noticed the number of accounts for sale on Ebay has gone up and the prices have come down. The rights and wrongs of selling on Ebay are for another post, but that the numbers have increased tells you its more than just me that gets bored at times.

I believe it’s simpler if you are part of a progressive raiding guild, you know exactly what you are going to do. It may be the same as the past couple of days or even weeks, but you know that boss is going down – and let’s make it tonight! In short you have a goal and you play to achieve it. After that goal you have the next boss and therefore the next goal. A raiding guild will lay out their goals when they say “we are 10/12 (whatever raid instance)” – everyone knows what the goals are.

Being a non-raider I have to define my own goals and while that’s easier in some ways (I don’t need to enlist the help of 24 other competent players)  it’s harder in others – I will need to conjure up the imagination of what to do all by myself. Every so often I get to the point of not being able to think of anything I really want to do. I know its only temporary but it’s still a bitch to get past at the time.  It’s a good time to do something else, take a break from the main (even WoW. What??? Heresy!) and come back with a refreshed outlook later on.

I noticed that some other blogs have a RSS feed which lists what their characters have been up to recently e.g. Killed Festergut for the 4th time etc. I considered this for my rogue and then came to the conclusion if we were going by the last couple of weeks there wouldn’t be a lot to say.  ‘Hung around Dalaran for a while and then logged off’ isn’t exactly the stuff of legends.

Part of the cause has to be the new Cataclysm expansion, which if past experience with expansions is anything to go by we will be lucky to see before the end of the year. But suddenly the current content looks tired and dull and instead we wait with bated breath for new material and judging by what I have read it looks damned good! The information coming out is very positive and I’m really looking forward to it. If you want some details they can be found along with a major amount of spoilers here. But what’s to do to keep us playing while we await the new goodies? Sure we can churn through the dungeons and go for badges but it does feel like a grind after a while, and I’m hardly the best at grinding;)

This is where stamina comes in, it’s not for the character – it’s for the player. Its finding the ability to look through what is currently available in WoW, identify things you have wanted to do and then take pleasure in doing them. There are all sorts of things I have kept meaning to do but never got round to with my rogue. Most of it is probably in the original Azeroth and Kalimdor. I spent my time rushing through levels 1-58 and as soon as I could I was off to Outland and then Northrend. I also missed most of the dungeons from the ‘old material’. Cataclysm will have several changes to existing content and its highly likely that Achievements I can gain now will not be available post-expansion, so while I don’t have to rush through them its worth doing them while I can.  There are some factions I’d like to have a higher opinion of me and some places still to explore and I really need to do something with fishing!

Perhaps I’ll generate enough for a RSS feed yet!

Whiny Post Day – JM2C

Troll Racials are Overpowered came up with the Whiny Post Day. Whine? Moi? Oh, all right… if you insist….

I’m fairly new to this blogging thing and I feel I have  long way to go before I can compare myself with some of the established blogs. I’ve been reading various blogs and nearly always I can find something in them which I think is good and I’m left wondering why I hadn’t thought of that. There is however only one blog I read regularly just for the pain factor. To read a blog that pisses me off so much it drives me nuts. It’s like picking a scab off a wound or bursting a spot, I know I should leave it well alone but I keep going back to it. The culprit is JM2C brought to us by the Oracle of all things, ‘Markco’. Now this is a Big Blog, its got a massive following and the content in general is very good. OK, so where is the whine?

My whine is how it is presented. I don’t think I have ever seen such an exercise in vanity, egotism and general epeen stroking. This was the one that pushed me over the edge. Despite the title the author comes across as someone who believes that you are second best, but perhaps if you work really hard you will one day almost be as good as him.

“It’s as if for Markco gold is not the goal. Excellence is the goal.” That is how I approach my life and the wow community has seen how that level of motivation can turn a crap site with 1 follower (Thunderion) into the juggernaut (to use Bigjimm’s verbage) it is today.

Seriously, Get A Fucking Grip! How can anyone type that about themself and not think, maybe they are overdoing the ego thing, just a tad here??? Want some recognition and a link from the ‘Juggernaut’? Just send an obsequious post and pose as part of the sycophantic circle and maybe, just maybe, if you have been really good you will be rewarded with recognition. Now, Assume the position……

Don’t forget kiddies, you can also buy Markco’s own gold making guide, that’s if you can find it between the host of adverts for other sites selling gold and peddling anything else he can make a cheap buck from. Between those, you have more references to “Me” than can possibly be healthy and get the impression our host loves every fucking last one of them!

Again, let me state the site has great content in the on subject gold making posts,  but why is it surrounded and packaged with such a heap of crap. What it screams to me is a site about the cost of everything while knowing the value of nothing.
Here endeth my rant/whine and hopefuly normal service will resume shortly.

Of Side Projects and Taking the Plunge with Finesse

Until I started seriously thinking about writing a blog, I hadn’t really read many others. I just thought everyone played WoW along the same lines as me. Just doing whatever they felt like, be it raiding, creating an army of alts or going for gold cap. They would play for whatever reason suited them at the time. I started a little research into other WoW blogs and I find there are things going on I know nothing about, because I only really focus on what happens on my server with my guild. Apparently its called World of Warcraft and not Server of Warcraft, I’d kind of forgotten that bit.

The first of these side projects that I came across was Gevlon’s Undergeared. I’ve enjoyed keeping tabs on their progress, but as its primarily a raiding project it didn’t make we want to participate. Next up was Gevlon’s Inglorious Gankers idea. I have been getting the urge to do a bit more pvp so this had some interest. But levelling up another character just to do some pvp? I’m not convinced at when looking out over Desolace at level 30-whatever I’ll have the gumption to keep going. Side projects all come down to two things in my book: Whats’ the point? and Can I be/Will I likely continue being arsed to follow it through? Usually the answer is to the second one is ‘probably not’.

Then I found the worst of the lot. Its called Single Abstract Noun and pretty much evolved here. A blogging community guild on an Eu RP server. My first thoughts were along the lines of ‘what could possibly be worse?  Egos  unlimited in an all-mighty pissing contest in gchat as people just happened to mention their blogs (again) and ‘look how interesting I am’, ‘Yes, I remember when I too had less than a 1000 daily views’, ‘oh no… if you had read my article on you’d see how it should be done….’ etc etc. So I was a bit taken aback to find the Noisy Rogue who strikes me as someone who wouldn’t suffer grandstanding egos giving it a rave review. Worse than that, it actually sounded quite good. Oh Hell, that even sounds like my kind of thing.

As is my want in these situations, I sat on it for a day mulling it over and then decided. What the Hell, I’m in! So I created my first ever character on a RP server (ye Gods, what is going on?),  I promptly chose a Huntard for ease of levelling (its not like I have any resources on this server) and if all else fails I have a pet to talk to as well. A Belf Huntress  (yes, another female character…) called Finesse. Logged on Sunday morning, got a guild invite and lo and behold they are the nicest bunch I’ve played with in years. None of the pretentious egos I feared, gchat is amusing and witty. People know what they doing and the vast majority is at low-level. Much to my surprise, I’m having a good time. Another major plus is I haven’t had to do any of the RP stuff at all and most of the guild seem as bewildered by it as me. I do see (non-guild) characters walking to post boxes and that sort of thing (that one still stuns me, don’t they realise Time is Money, Friend?) .

What the future holds for SAN I really can’t guess. It’s primarily a guild of alts with the mains being on other servers. When Cataclysm comes out I suspect a lot will drift back to their main characters (if they haven’t done so already), but who knows? By the looks of things it will be a blast in the short-term and has potential for the medium term too and that suits me fine for the time being. It really does pay to look beyond a single server or a single playing ethos and a harshly worded note to self about preconceptions possibly standing in my way. File under very pleasantly surprised.

Getting in touch with my femine side

I’ve always played male characters. Never really thought about it in any depth, I suspect it’s on the grounds that I am male and therefore so are my characters. I don’t think all males should only ever play males. I just didn’t think about playing a female character. I know a number of males who play female characters, but I don’t think I know any females who play male characters – they seem to almost exclusively play female characters. Of course its possible some people out there I assume to be male are in fact female and my theory goes up in flames. Regardless, I’m sure a psychologist could read all sorts of interesting things into the whole scenario.

Recently, I server transferred my Death Knight and faction changed from Alliance to Horde at the same time. When you Faction change you get to choose the new race and a new appearance.  The human DK with the crew cut hair and square jaw turned into a Blood Elf female. I’ve no idea why. But I suddenly decided I was going to have a female character.

I think she looks pretty good for a character ( I can’t really say the same for my Undead Rogue – at best he looks functional and mean). Perhaps this will be a new trait for me, freeing off my inner-male repression and instead contemplating on my characters’ respective hairstyles and whether they should have earrings or not? But then again…. maybe not. Looking at the basic female templates on the Horde side, I can understand why someone would play a Blood Elf or a Troll. But as for Taurens and Undead, I just don’t see it. As for Orcs, is there really any difference between the sexes? The only reason anyone plays an orc is for racial bonuses or simply because they want one of the ugliest characters in the game without sinking to the depths of being a gnome.

I’d love to have a proper rationale behind the urge to suddenly play a female – this seemed like  excellent reasoning to me. I just never thought of it. Perhaps that’s why my first character grinded so much solo – he was just too damned ugly to be grouped with.

The Name Game

Playing a character has various challenges, but one of the hardest of all is right at the start. You’ve picked your faction, decided on class and sex, you have even gone through the appearance options – now all you need is a name. For me, a virtual brick wall appears at this point and I always struggle to scale it. I want my character’s name to be indicative of both me as a player and the character. I want it to be moderately clever and inventive, not too clichéd and also something that 60 levels and hours and hours of questing later I won’t regret. I know it’s not quite the weighty decision it used to be due to now being able to pay for a name change, but doesn’t stop me from being desperate to get it right from the start.

I have spent hours looking at the screen thinking about what to call a character and then when the moment of inspiration for the final step in giving birth to my latest creation arrives – Bam!

Someone else has had the same thought (only sooner) and I’m back to the drawing board.

Rightly or wrongly, I judge a player almost immediately by their name. I therefore expect others are likely to judge me in the same manner. In short I don’t want a name that makes me look like a twat! Gevlon at Greedy Goblin spotted this. I was appalled by it, but not exactly surprised. What were these people thinking????

The reason that naming characters has been in my mind recently is not the birth of a new alt, but instead I server transferred my Death Knight to Nordrassil to team up with the rest of my characters.  The DK used to be human and is now a Blood Elf, a little commitment to the Horde side methinks. I decided not to go for any variations on BelfDK – no doubt they would all have been taken anyway. So what to call her?

Ultimately I am a creature of habit. My characters’ names usually come from either long finished RPG games or from books I like. My first ever character was named Arleff, originally he was a warrior type in a 1st edition Earthdawn campaign. My long-standing shadowpriest called Tarsis was originally a Salubri Lore Keeper in a Dark Ages Vampire campaign. More recently I have simply blagged names from Joe Abercrombie novels. Blackdow is a particularly nasty piece of work from the North and he’s pretty useful in a fight. A real neutral-evil temperament and perfectly suited for my pvp hunter (currently languishing at lvl 70).

Up until now my RPGs have been pretty much male orientated and too often in books the female characters are a bit more feminine than I see some half-undead creature with a large 2H Sword that’s back to take revenge upon her old master who used her as a pawn sacrifice. Nope, not too many of them in  books that I know of.  Vitari is an Inquisitor’s muscle in some of Joe’s books and I reckoned she was more like my DK than anything else, you can get the briefest of introductions here, but for a proper perspective you really need to read the books. I think the name suits her and we’ll leave it at that. A friend of mine often names her characters  after fruit or vegetables. This includes the soul-eating, demon-summoning, casting shadow spells from the very depths of hell warlock called Pomegranate – you can’t fault the originality!

I’d welcome any comments on the best (and worst) names seen across the realms.

Blog update

Sorted some semblance of order in the Blogroll section.
Samuel Tempus at Slice and Dice added my site to his Blogroll yesterday and I hit the dizzy heights of 8 views – my highest daily figure yet! While its safe to say to Fame and Notoriety have not quite arrived, I do seem to be moving in the right direction. Thanks Sam!

The downside of this, is Sam is what I’d classify as a Real Rogue and and also a Real Blogger. He knows what he’s talking about and communicates it well. Leaving me with the feeling if I am going to be in such esteemed company I’d better not be too much of a slacker with the blog.  Oh my – Bloggers peer pressure – whatever next?

Why Non-Raiding?

I thought I’d better explain why I don’t raid.

I used to – and enjoyed it too. In Vanila WoW I raided all the way through Molten Core, Black Wing Lair, Onyxia, Zul Gurub, AQ20 and up to the Twins in AQ40. Everything except AQ40 was farm status. We had one night clears of everything except AQ40.  No matter what your opinions on Raiding or WoW are, there is definitely something to be said for seeing the team work of 40 (for that was the raid team size then) players all pulling together and kiting chains of orcs all the way round the first boss room in BWL or keeping everyone together as they progressed through the whelp room. I remember when we took down Onyxia for the first time, 40 players in the raid and another 20 or so on TS, because we were Sooo close “7%….4%…..1%…..Down!” and the mass cheering from 60+ people. TS went absolutely wild – Definitely good times.

But the good times had a price too. The guild I played in were evolving from a social/friendly guild to a proper raiding guild. Instead of being a feeder guild for the big guilds on the server we became one of the big guilds and most successful. Players would gear up elsewhere and then want to join us – we had progressed somewhat from having 19 online at the one time and it being newsworthy.

I was also finding it personally more difficult to keep up. Raid times meant rushing home from work, eating something quickly (often sitting in front of the PC at the same time), headphones on, and that would be me for the next 3-4 hours. I was putting on weight (not majorly but enough to bother me) and unless your partner plays WoW (and Mrs Rogue has no interest in it all) , raiding can be quite an isolating thing too.  Sitting in front of the PC, headphones on, shut off from the rest of the world and like that for 3-4 hours at a time. That’s not conducive to a healthy relationship.

When TBC hit, raiding was off the agenda for everyone while we levelled to 70. Once we had done that and raiding started again I decided not to raid and instead make some lifestyle changes. Start getting to the gym regularly, spend more time with my family and just vary my interests a bit from work/WoW. Read some great books (see the Joe Abercrombie list at the side if you want a suggestion) and saw some great films. I still played but I wasn’t shut off for hours at a time of having to keep to a definite schedule. I went Horde and am now a true convert (“For the Horde!“) – ahem…. Tried some pvp and found out I could still enjoy WoW despite not raiding. When WotLK came out I was happy levelling my characters and still not raiding.

I have often seen the debate (hasn’t everyone?) about whether Blizzard has made the game ‘too easy’ by making end game content more accessible. I can understand why the real hardcore raiders feel that way – feeling they deserve a reward for time spent in the game. But overall I side with idea the content should be available to everyone. I like the idea of hardmodes for the purists with additional rewards while the more laid back can settle for seeing the content in normal form.

I do hope the LFD tool gets extended to take in raid groups (10 man I think is possible, 25 random characters may be a bit chaotic) as that would truly allow people to see all the content. Such groups will never be as efficient as a fully organised guild run from a competent guild but its better than nothing. The ability to pick and choose such a raid and the timing would suit players like me perfectly.

So that’s the reason behind the non-raiding stance. A boring lack of drama, I just choose other things to do instead.

PS The other big plus of being a casual player, is burn-out is far less frequent too