Todays post is a guest post over at Elfi's World. She was going out of town and was asking for some guest posts to post on her blog while being away. How could I say no? So I sat down and pondered what would be suitable to write on another persons blog. I ended up writing about an idea I had about how seriously we take WoW, and how serious is ok? Some people are ashamed that they play as much WoW as they do, but no one seems to be ashamed that they spend that much time with any other hobby. We deserve to be proud about how serious we take our hobby too! And then again, as with everything else some people go and take it too seriously. It's a fine balance.
You can check it out here.
Thanks for having me Elfi :)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Perfect Pull
One thing I really had to re-practice when Cataclysm was released was the fine art of a good pull. All through Wrath there was very little need to think twice about the way you decided to deal with a group of mobs because A: You'd probably keep aggro on them anyway and B: You could tank 15 mobs without dying. Alot of this changed in Cataclysm and I quickly noticed that I had really been slacking in terms of keeping my pulling-skills (if I ever had any) up to date. I remember actually having to use cc, los and other complicated tank skills back in BC, but that was such a long time ago. My first shots at marking and tanking around cc didn't go too well. Fortunately I did my mistakes in normals which rarely ended in distaster. Still, it made me notice that the fine arts of a perfect pull really is a school of knowledge in itself. There are so many things to factor in to make a pull a good one. There are still a couple of pulls I dread and very rarely get right, most notably the final pack of mobs under a lightning grid in Vortex Pinnacle. The one where you have to pull three casters out of the grid and collect them all, hoping your dpsers haven't already barged and/or forgotten all about your cc marks? Allthough I rarely wipe there, it's still a blow to my pride when I see mobs running around everywhere untanked. Here are a couple of things to think about when going about doing a good pull.
Identify yourself
How you will deal with a pull depends alot on what kind of tanking class you are. Some classes have great aoe threat (paladin/dk), some have less good (warrior/druid). Some tanks have great ranged threat (paladin/dk), some have less good (warrior/druid). Some have a great setup of cooldowns for survivability (paladin/warrior), some have less good (druid/dk). Some have good cooldowns for threat (paladin, druid), some have less good (dk/warrior). If you feel like your aoe threat is an issue, you might want to cc just to make the group more manageable to you, not just to the healer. If you feel like you can survive a big pull by popping the right cooldowns you might avoid cc where other tanks would prefer some.
Identify your party
Make sure you know which kind of cc your party is capable of. If you're unlucky you've ended up in a group with a warrior, dk and priest dps, which gives very limited cc possibilities. Fortunately this doesn't happen often, most groups have at least some sort of cc at hand. At first you won't know if your cc actually knows how to cc, so it is possible that although you have classes that can cc, you don't have players who can cc. Still, the first step of a good pull is to recognize what your party can and will do when you do your first attack. This doesn't just include cc, this also includes charging head-first warriors or druids, trigger happy hunters or aoe-happy dpsers overall. Knowing whether you will get help from your party or have to struggle against them will do alot to how you would want to do a pull. If you can't hope for cc, you won't have to mark. If you can hope someone else will deal with a certain mob (silencing, ccing, killing solo) you might change the way you mark. Another factor that makes a big difference is the amount of dps your group has, or how good your healers is. The better the healers and dpsers are, the less likely you will actually have to think much about your pull at all. Just as in Wrath, you can worry less about cc and just barge in head first. If your party dps is low or your healer badly geared/skilled, you will need to think alot more before a pull. Some of these things aren't things you know before you've already done a couple of pulls unfortunately. Therefore it is generally good to use the first couple of pulls to test your group. Try setting up marks and see if people care to follow them. Try to put up less marks and see if your healer can still keep up. This will determine how you deal with the rest of the pulls of the instance.
Identify your mob group
The next steps to good pulls are more situation to situation based. The first of which is identifying the group of mobs you're about to pull. Depending on the quality of your group, you must now decide how much cc you will need and how to go about doing the pull in itself. Are there many casters? Are some mobs more dangerous/annoying than others? In some cases, like with the VP-healers, you will want to cc at least one because keeping two healers up is a real nuisance unless your dps is awesome. They heal themselves and eachother for nearly full health, which means that even if you have no trouble surviving the fight, neither do they, making the fight take ages (this has happened to me a couple of times). Some mobs do tons of aoe damage, while others might cc your healer which could end in tragedy (unless you have dpsers who can and do remove that).
Identify positioning and surroundings
Look around you, in what way can you use your surroundings to ease up on the pull? There are a couple of things to decide on. Do you want to tank them where they are or pull them back to a new location? Do you want to tank them by mob X or mob Y? This too depends alot on your party and the group of mobs, but also on what kind of tank class you are. Warriors and druids that generally have more trouble with ranged mobs, usually prefer to line of sight multiple casters to have them gather in a manageable group (unless they can all be ccd).
Identify the first strike
Once you've decided if and what mobs you want to cc, you need to decide how to do the actual pull. Do you want the cc to make the pull or do you want to do the first attack yourself? It is important to note that it is not always the best idea to use your initial attack on the mob that is supposed to die first. There are plenty of reasons to why you would want to use your initial attack on a mob other than your skull marked target. Although it might sound like this would make your tanking more troublesome, it is actually to make your tanking less troublesome that you want to use this tactic. Say for example that you have a group of mobs that are spread out. You want to barge in where the most mobs are standing and start doing your aoe threat, but also keep aggro on the mob that isn't standing in the group. Your initial attack could be on that lonely mob, making sure that he doesn't immediately run towards the healer when you tank the rest of the mobs (because he will be out of range for your aoe threat). One example is the pack of casters just after Corla in BRD. Another example is yet again the last pack of mobs in VP (before the stary things by the boss). If you don't have cc for all the casters you might want to use your initial attack on one caster and then attack the other, so to keep aggro on both.
Pulling is a huge part of the tank role. Most tanks absolutely hate it if they don't get to do the pull themselves, because it really makes alot of difference to how easy or difficult a tanking situation will become. As you notice there are loads of things to think about. Unless you see this as a fun challenge, at least to some extent, tanking probably isn't for you. Fortunately (?), cc is becoming less and less needed even in heroics now that people are getting better and better gear. Personally I feel like there are few things as rewarding as a succefully executed pull. On the other hand there are few things as frustrating as a utterly failed pull (which doesn't have to be just the tanks fault). Don't let this scare you off however, you quickly learn exactly how to deal with an instance and every pull in it, with only minor adjustments to accomodate your group setup. Eventhough tanking always is a challenge, many parts of it quickly becomes routine. How to deal with groups for a good pull is one of those things.
Identify yourself
How you will deal with a pull depends alot on what kind of tanking class you are. Some classes have great aoe threat (paladin/dk), some have less good (warrior/druid). Some tanks have great ranged threat (paladin/dk), some have less good (warrior/druid). Some have a great setup of cooldowns for survivability (paladin/warrior), some have less good (druid/dk). Some have good cooldowns for threat (paladin, druid), some have less good (dk/warrior). If you feel like your aoe threat is an issue, you might want to cc just to make the group more manageable to you, not just to the healer. If you feel like you can survive a big pull by popping the right cooldowns you might avoid cc where other tanks would prefer some.
Identify your party
Make sure you know which kind of cc your party is capable of. If you're unlucky you've ended up in a group with a warrior, dk and priest dps, which gives very limited cc possibilities. Fortunately this doesn't happen often, most groups have at least some sort of cc at hand. At first you won't know if your cc actually knows how to cc, so it is possible that although you have classes that can cc, you don't have players who can cc. Still, the first step of a good pull is to recognize what your party can and will do when you do your first attack. This doesn't just include cc, this also includes charging head-first warriors or druids, trigger happy hunters or aoe-happy dpsers overall. Knowing whether you will get help from your party or have to struggle against them will do alot to how you would want to do a pull. If you can't hope for cc, you won't have to mark. If you can hope someone else will deal with a certain mob (silencing, ccing, killing solo) you might change the way you mark. Another factor that makes a big difference is the amount of dps your group has, or how good your healers is. The better the healers and dpsers are, the less likely you will actually have to think much about your pull at all. Just as in Wrath, you can worry less about cc and just barge in head first. If your party dps is low or your healer badly geared/skilled, you will need to think alot more before a pull. Some of these things aren't things you know before you've already done a couple of pulls unfortunately. Therefore it is generally good to use the first couple of pulls to test your group. Try setting up marks and see if people care to follow them. Try to put up less marks and see if your healer can still keep up. This will determine how you deal with the rest of the pulls of the instance.
Identify your mob group
The next steps to good pulls are more situation to situation based. The first of which is identifying the group of mobs you're about to pull. Depending on the quality of your group, you must now decide how much cc you will need and how to go about doing the pull in itself. Are there many casters? Are some mobs more dangerous/annoying than others? In some cases, like with the VP-healers, you will want to cc at least one because keeping two healers up is a real nuisance unless your dps is awesome. They heal themselves and eachother for nearly full health, which means that even if you have no trouble surviving the fight, neither do they, making the fight take ages (this has happened to me a couple of times). Some mobs do tons of aoe damage, while others might cc your healer which could end in tragedy (unless you have dpsers who can and do remove that).
Identify positioning and surroundings
Look around you, in what way can you use your surroundings to ease up on the pull? There are a couple of things to decide on. Do you want to tank them where they are or pull them back to a new location? Do you want to tank them by mob X or mob Y? This too depends alot on your party and the group of mobs, but also on what kind of tank class you are. Warriors and druids that generally have more trouble with ranged mobs, usually prefer to line of sight multiple casters to have them gather in a manageable group (unless they can all be ccd).
Identify the first strike
Once you've decided if and what mobs you want to cc, you need to decide how to do the actual pull. Do you want the cc to make the pull or do you want to do the first attack yourself? It is important to note that it is not always the best idea to use your initial attack on the mob that is supposed to die first. There are plenty of reasons to why you would want to use your initial attack on a mob other than your skull marked target. Although it might sound like this would make your tanking more troublesome, it is actually to make your tanking less troublesome that you want to use this tactic. Say for example that you have a group of mobs that are spread out. You want to barge in where the most mobs are standing and start doing your aoe threat, but also keep aggro on the mob that isn't standing in the group. Your initial attack could be on that lonely mob, making sure that he doesn't immediately run towards the healer when you tank the rest of the mobs (because he will be out of range for your aoe threat). One example is the pack of casters just after Corla in BRD. Another example is yet again the last pack of mobs in VP (before the stary things by the boss). If you don't have cc for all the casters you might want to use your initial attack on one caster and then attack the other, so to keep aggro on both.
Pulling is a huge part of the tank role. Most tanks absolutely hate it if they don't get to do the pull themselves, because it really makes alot of difference to how easy or difficult a tanking situation will become. As you notice there are loads of things to think about. Unless you see this as a fun challenge, at least to some extent, tanking probably isn't for you. Fortunately (?), cc is becoming less and less needed even in heroics now that people are getting better and better gear. Personally I feel like there are few things as rewarding as a succefully executed pull. On the other hand there are few things as frustrating as a utterly failed pull (which doesn't have to be just the tanks fault). Don't let this scare you off however, you quickly learn exactly how to deal with an instance and every pull in it, with only minor adjustments to accomodate your group setup. Eventhough tanking always is a challenge, many parts of it quickly becomes routine. How to deal with groups for a good pull is one of those things.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Good Old Games
I have a vague memory of once reading an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto in some game magazine were he said something along the lines of "I don't mind people emulating SNES games much, actually I'm just happy the games get played at all". Then again I could've just been dreaming that up. On the other hand, I don't think it is all off. In the case of old console games the reality is often that no matter how much you'd love to pay honest money for it, the games are just dead difficult to find. In some cases the game doesn't even exist in your language, and the only way for you to experience it is to go to a digital fan-subbed version of the game, or learn the language (usually japanese). The second alternative still means you have to find an actual copy of the game. In the case of oldies but goldies like Final Fantasy, Dragonquest and just about any good game for a console older than Playstation, this can be really difficult. Also, none of those money actually goes to the developer anymore since they all only exist in the second hand business.
This hasn't stopped from me from buying games for which I don't have the means of playing. I own a complete copy of Zelda A Link to the Past (although my mom threw away the map *sad face*), eventhough I don't own a SNES. I own a copy of Tales of Phantasia, eventhough I barely speak japanese and don't own a japanese SNES either.
I don't even want to think about all the games I would've never been able to experience if there wasn't the opportunity to play them emulated or downloaded. Do you know how difficult it is to find a copy of Final Fantasy 6? I'd completely love to have one though. Fortunately SquareEnix have re-released new versions of the old Final Fantasy games for Playstation. I only wish more games would get this love.
This isn't limited to console games. There are tons of good computer games out there that are difficult to get a hold of as well. But the problem isn't limited to supply only (although that is a big factor). In most cases the games are difficult to play just because they are so old. Unlike with old console games, few people still have a PC with windows 95 standing around just so they can play Diablo, Fallout and Baldurs Gate without trouble. In many cases, emulating a computer game isn't even an option. Even if there are a couple of emulators aimed at emulating computer games, such as SCUMM for DOS, these often have alot of problems that aren't easily surmountable. Even if you get the game to work properly, you might not get the sound to, or the controls, or a bunch of other things. Since computer games are built to work with several devices instead of just in one console machine, they are so much more sensitive to change. Or rather, like mentioned, finding a setting that corresponds to the ones the game was designed for is so much more difficult with computer games.
For a long time, this really bothered me. How I would've loved it if there was some way to just buy old games, without having to spend all those hours sifting through the "used games" boxes in various game stores, just to buy a game that doesn't even work on my computer anylonger. Fortunately, it seems I haven't been the only one who's thought that there is a market for old computer games. A couple of months ago, Love stumbled across a page called Good Old Games, gog.com. They've taken it under their wing to not only sell good old games, but versions of good old games that have been converted to work with new computers and sold to a reasonable price! Not only do you get the game, you get everything that was ever in the original game box, such as a digital booklet and any other extra material. How about Psychonauts, Planescape Torment or Neverwinter Nights for 9.99 (dollar) or Myst for 5.99? It's available across the world, and once you've bought a game you can download and install it to an unlimited amount of computers. In many ways it works like Steam in that you get an account, buy a game and always have access to it through your gog-account. I'm not sure in what way the original developers get their share of the cookie, but I can only imagine that there are some license fees that need to be paid before you can do this kind of thing. I know this sounds like a bad commercial, but I really feel like this is an awesome thing. Many of these games are great and don't deserve to be lost and forgotten just because we don't have the means to play them anylonger. If there is some game that you love and always wish you owned, or some game you actually did own but have lost somewhere under your bed since - now is your chance to own it, and most importantly re-experience it, again.
This hasn't stopped from me from buying games for which I don't have the means of playing. I own a complete copy of Zelda A Link to the Past (although my mom threw away the map *sad face*), eventhough I don't own a SNES. I own a copy of Tales of Phantasia, eventhough I barely speak japanese and don't own a japanese SNES either.
I don't even want to think about all the games I would've never been able to experience if there wasn't the opportunity to play them emulated or downloaded. Do you know how difficult it is to find a copy of Final Fantasy 6? I'd completely love to have one though. Fortunately SquareEnix have re-released new versions of the old Final Fantasy games for Playstation. I only wish more games would get this love.
This isn't limited to console games. There are tons of good computer games out there that are difficult to get a hold of as well. But the problem isn't limited to supply only (although that is a big factor). In most cases the games are difficult to play just because they are so old. Unlike with old console games, few people still have a PC with windows 95 standing around just so they can play Diablo, Fallout and Baldurs Gate without trouble. In many cases, emulating a computer game isn't even an option. Even if there are a couple of emulators aimed at emulating computer games, such as SCUMM for DOS, these often have alot of problems that aren't easily surmountable. Even if you get the game to work properly, you might not get the sound to, or the controls, or a bunch of other things. Since computer games are built to work with several devices instead of just in one console machine, they are so much more sensitive to change. Or rather, like mentioned, finding a setting that corresponds to the ones the game was designed for is so much more difficult with computer games.
For a long time, this really bothered me. How I would've loved it if there was some way to just buy old games, without having to spend all those hours sifting through the "used games" boxes in various game stores, just to buy a game that doesn't even work on my computer anylonger. Fortunately, it seems I haven't been the only one who's thought that there is a market for old computer games. A couple of months ago, Love stumbled across a page called Good Old Games, gog.com. They've taken it under their wing to not only sell good old games, but versions of good old games that have been converted to work with new computers and sold to a reasonable price! Not only do you get the game, you get everything that was ever in the original game box, such as a digital booklet and any other extra material. How about Psychonauts, Planescape Torment or Neverwinter Nights for 9.99 (dollar) or Myst for 5.99? It's available across the world, and once you've bought a game you can download and install it to an unlimited amount of computers. In many ways it works like Steam in that you get an account, buy a game and always have access to it through your gog-account. I'm not sure in what way the original developers get their share of the cookie, but I can only imagine that there are some license fees that need to be paid before you can do this kind of thing. I know this sounds like a bad commercial, but I really feel like this is an awesome thing. Many of these games are great and don't deserve to be lost and forgotten just because we don't have the means to play them anylonger. If there is some game that you love and always wish you owned, or some game you actually did own but have lost somewhere under your bed since - now is your chance to own it, and most importantly re-experience it, again.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Committing to class designs (or not)
Some time ago I was fistfighting discussing something with Love about a post I had written. I don't remember exactly which post it was, but I remember something he said. He said that as far as Blizzard had come with their game now, they had a moral obligation to their players to make a worthwhile game. Because they had basically made it impossible for any other mmorpg to get a piece of the cake, their cake had to be pretty damn awesome. No matter if you agree with him or not (I didn't back then, because no one is forcing us to play WoW. Right?) I found his line of reasoning interesting and thought more about it. And even more importantly, I realized I had heard it before, but in a slightly different discussion.
When Cataclysm was launched, and as the months passed and people started to get the hang of their new classes, and how Blizzard had decided they should work for the upcoming years (?), I read an increasing number of blog posts starting out along the lines of "I didn't choose this class to do X" or more often "I chose this class to do X and now I can't". Since I mostly read healing blogs, it was mostly along the lines of "I chose a druid because I liked to spam hots, and now I can't" or "I chose a paladin because I liked to spam the tank and now I can't". Whether these bloggers are right about the fact that their class has been completely changed is less of a point. My question is rather - do Blizzard have the right to do whatever they want with our classes?
On my discussion with Love I argued that Blizzard had the right to throw all the servers into Mount Doom if they felt like it. Legally they own everything about the game. The name you've chosen, all those years you've spent on that character and just about everything else about it is theirs. They can delete your character or suspend your account or treat it in any other way as they feel like without you having much to say about it (which they do now and then). The only thing Blizzard have to do, is provide some kind of game for the money you've paid them. They can't take a full months payment and then shut all the servers down without having to pay you back (I think). Needless to say, legally the abovementioned question is easily answered. It's yes. They can do whatever they like with our characters.
But that's not interesting. Of course I mean it in a more moral or philosophical way. Is it ok for a game developer to "promise" something about a class and then completely change it? One recent example is now with hunter pets, who are becoming less and less important. Whether you think those changes are good or bad, I can not help but ask if Blizzard aren't really fundamentally changing something about hunters, and if that is ok? Another example is Oestrus struggle to get to keep her character name, a struggle I've had plenty of friends lose as well. Is it ok for a game developer to treat something we've put so much effort and time into recklessly?
Going back to the sad druids and paladins (I haven't read about any upset priests or shamans yet actually). If druids have been about managing hots since the dawn of WoW, would it be ok for Blizzard to completely change that? I know they haven't, just for arguments sake. Fact is they did change the healing classes, alot. Some more than others, paladins probably the most. This isn't really a matter about what you think is fun or not, but rather if you've spent years with a class, is it really ok for the allmighty game designer to change it enough so that you don't recognize your class any longer? If Blizzard say our class is about X, and we choose that class for that reason, we've poured ourselves into that class for that reason, is it ok for Blizzard to remove that element from the class? Is it ok for them to nullify what could be years of commitment?
Maybe I chose to level a disc priest and play it for all this time because I thought shielding was the awesomest thing in the game. Would it be ok for Blizzard to declare that shields are no longer part of their designer plan for discipline healing and to be removed from the game? That discipline priests would get a completely new way of healing? And if I don't like it, I will have to look elsewhere. Blizzard will try to accomodate the will of the majority of the players. They want us to enjoy the game so they wouldn't do anything to upset us. But in a game as big as WoW, a minority would still include millions of people. And even if they want to accomodate their players to some extent, should game designers have to draw the line at some point? Maybe I'm really asking if Blizzard has an obligation to commit to their designer choices? To work a little harder to find a solution that works with the grand idea of the class, rather than an easy solution that solves the problem fast but doesn't suit the class.
There are many examples where we can see that Blizzard are doing exactly this. They refuse to change the way totems work (or remove them completely as some shamans have suggested), because they are a fundamental way about shaman healing. Now that they are implementing a raid cooldown for shamans it is unsurprisingly a totem. I'm not saying a bad game mechanic should stick around just because it has always been there, and eventhough I personally think totems is a great example of when Blizzard stick with an idea through thick and thin they could still need a little tweaking. They could've just removed them or have them work in a completely untotemish way, which is what they seem to do with many classes today. When do we draw the line between simplicity and individuality (something I've written about before with slightly different takes). Other examples include rage and shield blocking as an avoidance stat.
As much as Blizzard have shaped our lives, we've really shaped Blizzard as well. We've poured faith and money into their hearts and pockets, does it really just extend to a month to month basis? Haven't we accepted already that WoW isn't something you just pick up and play? To many of us WoW is or has been a serious commitment with which we have spent more hours than we want to count. Chances are that if you're reading this post, WoW is a integrated part of your day to day life. I populated the world, I shaped it with my commitment. WoW has outgrown being just a provided service for money. To me, Azeroth and most importantly the character I play is as much mine as it is Blizzards. It shouldn't be treated in a reckless manner.
When Cataclysm was launched, and as the months passed and people started to get the hang of their new classes, and how Blizzard had decided they should work for the upcoming years (?), I read an increasing number of blog posts starting out along the lines of "I didn't choose this class to do X" or more often "I chose this class to do X and now I can't". Since I mostly read healing blogs, it was mostly along the lines of "I chose a druid because I liked to spam hots, and now I can't" or "I chose a paladin because I liked to spam the tank and now I can't". Whether these bloggers are right about the fact that their class has been completely changed is less of a point. My question is rather - do Blizzard have the right to do whatever they want with our classes?
On my discussion with Love I argued that Blizzard had the right to throw all the servers into Mount Doom if they felt like it. Legally they own everything about the game. The name you've chosen, all those years you've spent on that character and just about everything else about it is theirs. They can delete your character or suspend your account or treat it in any other way as they feel like without you having much to say about it (which they do now and then). The only thing Blizzard have to do, is provide some kind of game for the money you've paid them. They can't take a full months payment and then shut all the servers down without having to pay you back (I think). Needless to say, legally the abovementioned question is easily answered. It's yes. They can do whatever they like with our characters.
But that's not interesting. Of course I mean it in a more moral or philosophical way. Is it ok for a game developer to "promise" something about a class and then completely change it? One recent example is now with hunter pets, who are becoming less and less important. Whether you think those changes are good or bad, I can not help but ask if Blizzard aren't really fundamentally changing something about hunters, and if that is ok? Another example is Oestrus struggle to get to keep her character name, a struggle I've had plenty of friends lose as well. Is it ok for a game developer to treat something we've put so much effort and time into recklessly?
Going back to the sad druids and paladins (I haven't read about any upset priests or shamans yet actually). If druids have been about managing hots since the dawn of WoW, would it be ok for Blizzard to completely change that? I know they haven't, just for arguments sake. Fact is they did change the healing classes, alot. Some more than others, paladins probably the most. This isn't really a matter about what you think is fun or not, but rather if you've spent years with a class, is it really ok for the allmighty game designer to change it enough so that you don't recognize your class any longer? If Blizzard say our class is about X, and we choose that class for that reason, we've poured ourselves into that class for that reason, is it ok for Blizzard to remove that element from the class? Is it ok for them to nullify what could be years of commitment?
Maybe I chose to level a disc priest and play it for all this time because I thought shielding was the awesomest thing in the game. Would it be ok for Blizzard to declare that shields are no longer part of their designer plan for discipline healing and to be removed from the game? That discipline priests would get a completely new way of healing? And if I don't like it, I will have to look elsewhere. Blizzard will try to accomodate the will of the majority of the players. They want us to enjoy the game so they wouldn't do anything to upset us. But in a game as big as WoW, a minority would still include millions of people. And even if they want to accomodate their players to some extent, should game designers have to draw the line at some point? Maybe I'm really asking if Blizzard has an obligation to commit to their designer choices? To work a little harder to find a solution that works with the grand idea of the class, rather than an easy solution that solves the problem fast but doesn't suit the class.
There are many examples where we can see that Blizzard are doing exactly this. They refuse to change the way totems work (or remove them completely as some shamans have suggested), because they are a fundamental way about shaman healing. Now that they are implementing a raid cooldown for shamans it is unsurprisingly a totem. I'm not saying a bad game mechanic should stick around just because it has always been there, and eventhough I personally think totems is a great example of when Blizzard stick with an idea through thick and thin they could still need a little tweaking. They could've just removed them or have them work in a completely untotemish way, which is what they seem to do with many classes today. When do we draw the line between simplicity and individuality (something I've written about before with slightly different takes). Other examples include rage and shield blocking as an avoidance stat.
As much as Blizzard have shaped our lives, we've really shaped Blizzard as well. We've poured faith and money into their hearts and pockets, does it really just extend to a month to month basis? Haven't we accepted already that WoW isn't something you just pick up and play? To many of us WoW is or has been a serious commitment with which we have spent more hours than we want to count. Chances are that if you're reading this post, WoW is a integrated part of your day to day life. I populated the world, I shaped it with my commitment. WoW has outgrown being just a provided service for money. To me, Azeroth and most importantly the character I play is as much mine as it is Blizzards. It shouldn't be treated in a reckless manner.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Spilling the Beans or Where I Bitch and Moan
I don't talk much about any drama that I encounter in WoW, besides in my random pugs. That doesn't mean I am happily blessed without it, actually there is plenty of drama going on now and then, mostly in my guild of course, this wonderful place where people can clash their minds into what nearly ends up in fistfights. The only reason I haven't mentioned much about it is because I feel like it's somewhat private. Don't hang out your dirty laundry and all that. Although I am completely convinced that all guilds with an active member base bigger than 10 people has drama now and then, I just haven't felt like I wanted to vent my particular drama. I am also biased (it's inevitable) and probably wouldn't tell it the proper way.
I wrote this post mainly to get a load off my chest. This was back in end of January. It has taken me this long to post it because I wanted the situation at hand to have cooled down somewhat, and because it somewhere, somehow still feels wrong to post it. Yet, with all the things that I read around the bloggosphere, with guilds breaking up left and right I feel like this could actually be relevant. To show, perhaps, that your guild is not alone. I've always found great comfort in other bloggers posts like this - "Ah nice, I'm not the only one with guild wide issues". Maybe even to be a little educational. Be careful kids. This is what can happen when grown ups turn into kindergarten children. Like I said, this is written from my point of view so it will naturally be biased. I do not write this post to point at anyone and say "that guy did it wrong". We all did it wrong, some way or the other. Rather it fascinates me how easily things can go out of hand when we're dealing with eachother over the internet and misunderstandings might be even easier to get into than elsewhere. Read it, see what you think about it and try to avoid these kind of situations in your own guild.
This will be a rant of epic proportions, mixed with alot of nerdrage and frustration, so be warned.
As you may or may not know, I switched guilds about half a year ago. My old guild was great, we just didn't completely agree on raid commitment. I decided to join a guild that advertised themselves as a relatively serious 25 man guild, that had a "3 strikes and you're out"-rule. Basically, if you didn't perform to demands, you would be replaced. At this point of my raiding career, this suited me perfectly. I wanted to raid with people who were as interested, and had as much time to dedicate to it, as I did. My entrance to the guild went overall smoothly. I got along really well with nearly all in the guild and felt I had found just the right guild for me.
But soon, a small issue turned up. It started already soon after I had joined and blew up completely about a month ago [three months ago when posting this]. We had a healer, a holydin, who was treated specially by everyone in the guild for some reason. She had been in the guild for a very long time, and was seen as somewhat of the "veteran-healer" of the guild. She, along with a few other "old" healers were showing us newbies how things were going to be run. Most things went really well, because both she and every other healer in the guild were really skilled. But one incident in particular immediately made me flinch. I had just joined the guild and we were doing Valithria. Her being holydin and all I thought it would be a no brainer that she was taking one of the portals. But no, she didn't want to. And she didn't have to. I was completely flabbergasted. Valithria never was the toughest boss in the bunch, but if you have a best option, why go with the second best? Why do the fight in a more troublesome way when there was an easier way to go about it? Holydins and resto shamans were without any discussion the best healers for the portals on that fight. What really confused me was that I thought I had joined a serious raid guild. And it had behaved like one all the way, up until this particular moment. They actually tell disc and holy priests (omglol) to do the portals instead of her. I hope you understand the craziness. Eventhough the fight isn't the most difficult fight, we still had loads of wipes in heroic mode due to slow healing, something I felt could've been easily remedied by having the best healer do the appropriate job. You might ask "well if you managed the fight anyway, what does it matter?", and this is how everyone else in the guild reasoned about it too. Yes, we did manage the fight eventually, but to me it was a matter of principles. Everyone had to chip in and at least try do what had to be done for the best of the raid, no one was excused because they "didn't feel like it". Except her. That is what annoyed me. Special treatment should be for everyone, not just one player.
Now I would understand this treatment if the holydin in question was a newbie or completely undergeared. But this was the guilds maintankhealer and probably the best geared healer in the guild to boot. And she was a really good healer! She was inevitably one of the models to which all new healer applicants would conform. I didn't understand it at all. And all I got as an explanation was "she doesn't want to". I accepted it the first time. I was annoyed the second time. After a couple of weeks I just had to vent so I started asking questions. Delicately. I realized that this was something not to be spoken of. And people just brushed it aside. "Ah well, it doesn't matter. This is such an easy fight and if she doesn't feel like it etc etc". It really annoyed me. How will she ever become a good healer if she can pick and choose not to do the things that don't come easy at once? The most annoying thing is that the portals aren't even that difficult. I failed at them every now and them too. Everyone did. Well, if you've read my posts about gaming girls and how they don't dare to believe in themselves you know where I stand in this matter. I tried to tell her that no one is perfect, everyone make mistakes, but no. She refused. And everyone just patted her back and said that it was totally ok. It made me furious to be honest, because they were all doing her a disservice. And in any case, why was it ok for her to behave in this way, and no one else? Could I say "no I don't want to use shields on LK" and get away with it? Could I say "I don't want to spec Pain Supression because I don't want to use it"?
The matter subsided since Cata was launched and well, we didn't do Valithria anymore. Instead we started raiding Cata raids. I let the matter go, but realized that this mentality wasn't going to just go away. And another issue surfaced. Cata raids are, as most of you probably have noticed, alot more difficult than most Wrath raids were. At least the first couple of times before you've got the hang of the fight. Communication, of any level, between healers is a must, in my opinion. And I don't mean you should vent every thought that pops into your head, but telling your fellow healergroup if you're unable to heal your assignment, oom, silenced, using a certain cooldown and the like is necessary. "Oh I got into twilight realm, someone heal the tank!" is information that the other healers might want to have. Join in on discussions and answer questions given to you in chat are also things I enjoy. But this holydin refused to speak. She never used TS, not to utter a word. Apparently her english was bad, but in my guild people come from all over Europe and we all speak bad english, even the native english speakers. And I don't want her to recite Shakespear, I want her to say simple stuff like "Out of range" or "oom" or "Used Lay on Hands" and etcetera. She completely refused. The guild, still on her side but seeing the sense in my demands tried to get her to at least use some sort of chat macros. She agreed to this and I said that that of course would be better than nothing, but completely unfair and most importantly not effective enough. It would force every healer to check the chat for her messages every now and then, when she could just as easily convey the message into our ears. We're doing stuff, we don't have time to read the chat. Before you tell me that I am too elitist, hear me out. I don't mind that people don't want to use vent. I don't mind if people don't want to use flasks or pve gear/spec when raiding either, as long as that is what everyone has agreed upon. But this was during a time when my guild was fighting for server firsts, and people were getting dkp fines for not using enough speed pots during fights. I could just not understand how people could allow for this kind of critical issue to exist, when everything and everyone else had to be perfect. How come she didn't have to use vent, when everyone else had to do everything in their power to make the raid as good as possible? That is what I was trying to wrap my brain around, and I just didn't get a proper answer from anyone. I was frustrated to say the least.
Then things got really out of hands. I am curious about all healing classes. I enjoy healing overall, I read several blogs about all healing classes and I love comparing the classes to get the most out of them. I play them all for this reason as well. It is good to know which class will handle which situation the best. Eventhough I'm not the healing leader, and don't assign people, I still like to know. And so I ask people about things they do in raid. I do this with everyone. I've asked our shamans and druids about skills of theirs, to compare them with my own and figure out how we can use our differences to our advantage. And this particular raid I was asking her. We had wiped alot on Ascendant Council and she was low on healing done. We had a problem and everyone were looking at it from different angles to figure out how to go about fixing it. Some people were looking at whether the dps was too low, whether people didn't move fast enough from shit on the ground. Just about every stone was being turned. I had read about how paladins had some issues with healing at that time so I thought I'd ask her about it. This was not to mock her! It was not to point out I was better than her. On just the fights before she had outperformed me in healing done, and she often did. And healing meters only say so much (actually next to nothing most of the time). But in this particular fight she was lagging behind and I thought that if she had trouble, maybe getting out of range or having to move too much, the rest of us healers should know about it so we could step in. Since she wouldn't tell us over vent, or in chat, I figured the only way to know was to ask. We were trying to improve ourselves, all of us, so we could down the boss. And I knew this was a touchy subject, so how would I go about asking? I really, really tried to make it as nice a question as possible.
"Do you need some help? You're a little low on healing done :)"
and then quickly added
"Because I read paladins were having some issues, so that might be it. Not much you can do about it then :)" (note the smileys)
and after a while she replies
"Then replace me"
I had really tried to ask nicely and that was totally not the answer I wanted. So I told her.
"That's not what I mean. And it's not up to me anyway"
and she says
"Just tell the raid leader to replace me".
And then I became really annoyed. Why couldn't she just discuss the matter at hand? We had a problem, and we had to solve it. She was definitely not the core of the problem, but her not communicating didn't exactly make the fight easier, and when her tank target kept dying, someone had to ask if there was something we could change about our setup, right? Annoyed as I was that communicating with her was impossible I said;
"I just asked you a simple question, there is no need to become such a drama queen about it. I'm not saying you're doing a bad job, I am asking if you have some trouble in this fight".
Apparently she snapped there because she didn't say anything more that fight (which means it was just as normal). Later on the guild forums she had posted an extremely angry post which started with a F*CK OFF! (yes in caps) and some more caps about how people (namely me) shouldn't question her way of healing. How I didn't know anything about pala healing and should just shut up. And I totally agree. I don't know anything about pala healing. That is precisely why I ask her about stuff during raids, so that I understand more about how we can encounter the fight and work together. I have to know which cooldowns you have, which healing you prefer, if you will focus on the tank or on the raid and etcetera. I have to know what everyone else in the raid is doing, this is not about 25 people simultaneously soloing the same boss.
It all exploded into a heated argument between me and some other guildies (in which she didn't take part) on how important communication really was. The interesting thing is that this fight had huge implications for the guild as a whole. We suddenly decided to split into two 10-man groups, where she happened to be in one and I in the other. That was trouble initially because we didn't really have people for two 10-man groups. And also suddenly the whole "we have to become server first" was blown away. Instead the very same people who had argued for it initially were now arguing that we shouldn't become too elitist. And I was standing there totally confused. The guild had set up a goal, everyone had worked for it, people had been punished for not doing their best. Punishing people for not using enough pots during a fight was never up for argument (although the people involved weren't happy about it). I find an area in which we can improve and suddenly the goal disappears. It was never there. And I am the elitist bitch because I questioned the wrong person. It reminds me of Communist China in the 50s. Tell people to do something, encourage them to do something, and when they finally do it, punish them. Yeah I warned you about the ranting.
How do you like them dramas?
Towards the end of december we had enough players at max level to do 25 mans again, and the holydin suddenly went "away" (that is what they said, she and her boyfriend who was the guild main tank and tank role leader). Nearly three months has passed and not a word from them. Because of... me. Somehow I managed to get the main tank, an officer of the guild, and one of the main healers in the guild to take a three month break, just because of my question. They both returned to the guild this week, and maybe the officers of the guild knew they'd return some day all along. But any questions on the matter have been answered with "no idea". I never really understood what happened. Clearly I had stepped on the toes of an esteemed member of the guild, who signed for every raid and usually did a very good job. But Cataclysm had set up new demands and communication was definitely one of them. Your track record can't protect you from having to adapt to these new demands. Months and years of service mustn't blind people to the fact that everyone have to be included in the guild rules or no one will take them seriously. Imagine doing a Cataclysm boss without vent? I dare you.
I wrote this post mainly to get a load off my chest. This was back in end of January. It has taken me this long to post it because I wanted the situation at hand to have cooled down somewhat, and because it somewhere, somehow still feels wrong to post it. Yet, with all the things that I read around the bloggosphere, with guilds breaking up left and right I feel like this could actually be relevant. To show, perhaps, that your guild is not alone. I've always found great comfort in other bloggers posts like this - "Ah nice, I'm not the only one with guild wide issues". Maybe even to be a little educational. Be careful kids. This is what can happen when grown ups turn into kindergarten children. Like I said, this is written from my point of view so it will naturally be biased. I do not write this post to point at anyone and say "that guy did it wrong". We all did it wrong, some way or the other. Rather it fascinates me how easily things can go out of hand when we're dealing with eachother over the internet and misunderstandings might be even easier to get into than elsewhere. Read it, see what you think about it and try to avoid these kind of situations in your own guild.
This will be a rant of epic proportions, mixed with alot of nerdrage and frustration, so be warned.
As you may or may not know, I switched guilds about half a year ago. My old guild was great, we just didn't completely agree on raid commitment. I decided to join a guild that advertised themselves as a relatively serious 25 man guild, that had a "3 strikes and you're out"-rule. Basically, if you didn't perform to demands, you would be replaced. At this point of my raiding career, this suited me perfectly. I wanted to raid with people who were as interested, and had as much time to dedicate to it, as I did. My entrance to the guild went overall smoothly. I got along really well with nearly all in the guild and felt I had found just the right guild for me.
But soon, a small issue turned up. It started already soon after I had joined and blew up completely about a month ago [three months ago when posting this]. We had a healer, a holydin, who was treated specially by everyone in the guild for some reason. She had been in the guild for a very long time, and was seen as somewhat of the "veteran-healer" of the guild. She, along with a few other "old" healers were showing us newbies how things were going to be run. Most things went really well, because both she and every other healer in the guild were really skilled. But one incident in particular immediately made me flinch. I had just joined the guild and we were doing Valithria. Her being holydin and all I thought it would be a no brainer that she was taking one of the portals. But no, she didn't want to. And she didn't have to. I was completely flabbergasted. Valithria never was the toughest boss in the bunch, but if you have a best option, why go with the second best? Why do the fight in a more troublesome way when there was an easier way to go about it? Holydins and resto shamans were without any discussion the best healers for the portals on that fight. What really confused me was that I thought I had joined a serious raid guild. And it had behaved like one all the way, up until this particular moment. They actually tell disc and holy priests (omglol) to do the portals instead of her. I hope you understand the craziness. Eventhough the fight isn't the most difficult fight, we still had loads of wipes in heroic mode due to slow healing, something I felt could've been easily remedied by having the best healer do the appropriate job. You might ask "well if you managed the fight anyway, what does it matter?", and this is how everyone else in the guild reasoned about it too. Yes, we did manage the fight eventually, but to me it was a matter of principles. Everyone had to chip in and at least try do what had to be done for the best of the raid, no one was excused because they "didn't feel like it". Except her. That is what annoyed me. Special treatment should be for everyone, not just one player.
Now I would understand this treatment if the holydin in question was a newbie or completely undergeared. But this was the guilds maintankhealer and probably the best geared healer in the guild to boot. And she was a really good healer! She was inevitably one of the models to which all new healer applicants would conform. I didn't understand it at all. And all I got as an explanation was "she doesn't want to". I accepted it the first time. I was annoyed the second time. After a couple of weeks I just had to vent so I started asking questions. Delicately. I realized that this was something not to be spoken of. And people just brushed it aside. "Ah well, it doesn't matter. This is such an easy fight and if she doesn't feel like it etc etc". It really annoyed me. How will she ever become a good healer if she can pick and choose not to do the things that don't come easy at once? The most annoying thing is that the portals aren't even that difficult. I failed at them every now and them too. Everyone did. Well, if you've read my posts about gaming girls and how they don't dare to believe in themselves you know where I stand in this matter. I tried to tell her that no one is perfect, everyone make mistakes, but no. She refused. And everyone just patted her back and said that it was totally ok. It made me furious to be honest, because they were all doing her a disservice. And in any case, why was it ok for her to behave in this way, and no one else? Could I say "no I don't want to use shields on LK" and get away with it? Could I say "I don't want to spec Pain Supression because I don't want to use it"?
The matter subsided since Cata was launched and well, we didn't do Valithria anymore. Instead we started raiding Cata raids. I let the matter go, but realized that this mentality wasn't going to just go away. And another issue surfaced. Cata raids are, as most of you probably have noticed, alot more difficult than most Wrath raids were. At least the first couple of times before you've got the hang of the fight. Communication, of any level, between healers is a must, in my opinion. And I don't mean you should vent every thought that pops into your head, but telling your fellow healergroup if you're unable to heal your assignment, oom, silenced, using a certain cooldown and the like is necessary. "Oh I got into twilight realm, someone heal the tank!" is information that the other healers might want to have. Join in on discussions and answer questions given to you in chat are also things I enjoy. But this holydin refused to speak. She never used TS, not to utter a word. Apparently her english was bad, but in my guild people come from all over Europe and we all speak bad english, even the native english speakers. And I don't want her to recite Shakespear, I want her to say simple stuff like "Out of range" or "oom" or "Used Lay on Hands" and etcetera. She completely refused. The guild, still on her side but seeing the sense in my demands tried to get her to at least use some sort of chat macros. She agreed to this and I said that that of course would be better than nothing, but completely unfair and most importantly not effective enough. It would force every healer to check the chat for her messages every now and then, when she could just as easily convey the message into our ears. We're doing stuff, we don't have time to read the chat. Before you tell me that I am too elitist, hear me out. I don't mind that people don't want to use vent. I don't mind if people don't want to use flasks or pve gear/spec when raiding either, as long as that is what everyone has agreed upon. But this was during a time when my guild was fighting for server firsts, and people were getting dkp fines for not using enough speed pots during fights. I could just not understand how people could allow for this kind of critical issue to exist, when everything and everyone else had to be perfect. How come she didn't have to use vent, when everyone else had to do everything in their power to make the raid as good as possible? That is what I was trying to wrap my brain around, and I just didn't get a proper answer from anyone. I was frustrated to say the least.
Then things got really out of hands. I am curious about all healing classes. I enjoy healing overall, I read several blogs about all healing classes and I love comparing the classes to get the most out of them. I play them all for this reason as well. It is good to know which class will handle which situation the best. Eventhough I'm not the healing leader, and don't assign people, I still like to know. And so I ask people about things they do in raid. I do this with everyone. I've asked our shamans and druids about skills of theirs, to compare them with my own and figure out how we can use our differences to our advantage. And this particular raid I was asking her. We had wiped alot on Ascendant Council and she was low on healing done. We had a problem and everyone were looking at it from different angles to figure out how to go about fixing it. Some people were looking at whether the dps was too low, whether people didn't move fast enough from shit on the ground. Just about every stone was being turned. I had read about how paladins had some issues with healing at that time so I thought I'd ask her about it. This was not to mock her! It was not to point out I was better than her. On just the fights before she had outperformed me in healing done, and she often did. And healing meters only say so much (actually next to nothing most of the time). But in this particular fight she was lagging behind and I thought that if she had trouble, maybe getting out of range or having to move too much, the rest of us healers should know about it so we could step in. Since she wouldn't tell us over vent, or in chat, I figured the only way to know was to ask. We were trying to improve ourselves, all of us, so we could down the boss. And I knew this was a touchy subject, so how would I go about asking? I really, really tried to make it as nice a question as possible.
"Do you need some help? You're a little low on healing done :)"
and then quickly added
"Because I read paladins were having some issues, so that might be it. Not much you can do about it then :)" (note the smileys)
and after a while she replies
"Then replace me"
I had really tried to ask nicely and that was totally not the answer I wanted. So I told her.
"That's not what I mean. And it's not up to me anyway"
and she says
"Just tell the raid leader to replace me".
And then I became really annoyed. Why couldn't she just discuss the matter at hand? We had a problem, and we had to solve it. She was definitely not the core of the problem, but her not communicating didn't exactly make the fight easier, and when her tank target kept dying, someone had to ask if there was something we could change about our setup, right? Annoyed as I was that communicating with her was impossible I said;
"I just asked you a simple question, there is no need to become such a drama queen about it. I'm not saying you're doing a bad job, I am asking if you have some trouble in this fight".
Apparently she snapped there because she didn't say anything more that fight (which means it was just as normal). Later on the guild forums she had posted an extremely angry post which started with a F*CK OFF! (yes in caps) and some more caps about how people (namely me) shouldn't question her way of healing. How I didn't know anything about pala healing and should just shut up. And I totally agree. I don't know anything about pala healing. That is precisely why I ask her about stuff during raids, so that I understand more about how we can encounter the fight and work together. I have to know which cooldowns you have, which healing you prefer, if you will focus on the tank or on the raid and etcetera. I have to know what everyone else in the raid is doing, this is not about 25 people simultaneously soloing the same boss.
It all exploded into a heated argument between me and some other guildies (in which she didn't take part) on how important communication really was. The interesting thing is that this fight had huge implications for the guild as a whole. We suddenly decided to split into two 10-man groups, where she happened to be in one and I in the other. That was trouble initially because we didn't really have people for two 10-man groups. And also suddenly the whole "we have to become server first" was blown away. Instead the very same people who had argued for it initially were now arguing that we shouldn't become too elitist. And I was standing there totally confused. The guild had set up a goal, everyone had worked for it, people had been punished for not doing their best. Punishing people for not using enough pots during a fight was never up for argument (although the people involved weren't happy about it). I find an area in which we can improve and suddenly the goal disappears. It was never there. And I am the elitist bitch because I questioned the wrong person. It reminds me of Communist China in the 50s. Tell people to do something, encourage them to do something, and when they finally do it, punish them. Yeah I warned you about the ranting.
How do you like them dramas?
Towards the end of december we had enough players at max level to do 25 mans again, and the holydin suddenly went "away" (that is what they said, she and her boyfriend who was the guild main tank and tank role leader). Nearly three months has passed and not a word from them. Because of... me. Somehow I managed to get the main tank, an officer of the guild, and one of the main healers in the guild to take a three month break, just because of my question. They both returned to the guild this week, and maybe the officers of the guild knew they'd return some day all along. But any questions on the matter have been answered with "no idea". I never really understood what happened. Clearly I had stepped on the toes of an esteemed member of the guild, who signed for every raid and usually did a very good job. But Cataclysm had set up new demands and communication was definitely one of them. Your track record can't protect you from having to adapt to these new demands. Months and years of service mustn't blind people to the fact that everyone have to be included in the guild rules or no one will take them seriously. Imagine doing a Cataclysm boss without vent? I dare you.
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