I just read a post, that lead me to two other posts, and they were all very excellent and insightful.
I was not planning on writing again today, but I can't let these posts sit still.
The posts that I will link to are all about why World of Warcraft is successful and why it will be hard to create a killer for the game.
They mention the awesome community both in game (your guild and friends list) and out (all those bloggers and WOWwiki and wowhead etc.).
They mention equipment accessibility: that you can play on a Mac and a Pc and that those computers just don't have to be top of the line to get into the game.
They even mention that Blizzard may just have an unfair advantage because they've been making kick-ass games for over a decade.
Whatever you think is the reason for WoWs success, I think you'll find these articles interesting and informative.
Banana Shoulders.
Leafshine.
Big Bear Butt Blogger.
Please do enjoy.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Ulduar Info
Wow Europe has a new page that gives some background information on the new Ulduar raid zone and also some hints as to what's going to be happening there.
One thing that I find VERY interesting is the vehicular raiding -- using vehicles to take on an entire army just to get into the next section.
I know I'm not a big raider, but the raid content seems kinda fun and I would really like to get in on it at some point.
So, I welcome 3.1 -- bring it.
One thing that I find VERY interesting is the vehicular raiding -- using vehicles to take on an entire army just to get into the next section.
I know I'm not a big raider, but the raid content seems kinda fun and I would really like to get in on it at some point.
So, I welcome 3.1 -- bring it.
Getting There
So my guild and I have instituted 2 weekly instance days, Friday and Monday. We are planning on some progression. Woot.
I am very excited by this possibility. It means that we can plan on instance runs every week that get our people leveled and geared -- then those of us who are somewhat geared can ramble on into our heroics of choice and get the gear and badges we need.
We have also started to recruit more, but I think this will be hard. I really like the people in my guild, it is like a little family and, so far, relatively drama free. But the thing is, we ALL move fairly slowly. Here it is 4 months into the expansion and we are just now really starting serious heroics runs. That's pretty slow for alot of people. So while I think the core group of our guild -- which is really only 5-7 people -- will stick it out, it will be hard for us to recruit and then keep people who really want to progress. We need to figure out some way to recruit the right kind of people.
Now, just how do we go about that? Honestly, I am not sure. I think it's important to be honest with people about where we are, how many players we really have and what we intend to do. We just got a new tank the other day, who seems to be as geared as I am (I believe he was a server transfer) and right now he seems content to run PUG heroics. But if it were me, that would get old, and it has (for me). It is my fond wish that he holds on long enough for us to be able to field 2 5-man heroics teams and then start to really build that into a nice 10-man raid team.
I know that we have good players. Our core group is pretty solid, and they all want to do their part. One of our pally tanks just respecced to Ret because he wanted to hang our with our core people and not have to pull together his own groups. And that's great. One of our other tanks has set that toon aside and leveled her 70 shadow priest nearly to 80 at this point as well.
What really makes me happy is knowing that a guild I enjoy socially may actually be able to pull off getting some progression done. In the past it's always been the social guilds that have never been able to get organized and the raiding guilds that have never been all that much fun.
I am very excited by this possibility. It means that we can plan on instance runs every week that get our people leveled and geared -- then those of us who are somewhat geared can ramble on into our heroics of choice and get the gear and badges we need.
We have also started to recruit more, but I think this will be hard. I really like the people in my guild, it is like a little family and, so far, relatively drama free. But the thing is, we ALL move fairly slowly. Here it is 4 months into the expansion and we are just now really starting serious heroics runs. That's pretty slow for alot of people. So while I think the core group of our guild -- which is really only 5-7 people -- will stick it out, it will be hard for us to recruit and then keep people who really want to progress. We need to figure out some way to recruit the right kind of people.
Now, just how do we go about that? Honestly, I am not sure. I think it's important to be honest with people about where we are, how many players we really have and what we intend to do. We just got a new tank the other day, who seems to be as geared as I am (I believe he was a server transfer) and right now he seems content to run PUG heroics. But if it were me, that would get old, and it has (for me). It is my fond wish that he holds on long enough for us to be able to field 2 5-man heroics teams and then start to really build that into a nice 10-man raid team.
I know that we have good players. Our core group is pretty solid, and they all want to do their part. One of our pally tanks just respecced to Ret because he wanted to hang our with our core people and not have to pull together his own groups. And that's great. One of our other tanks has set that toon aside and leveled her 70 shadow priest nearly to 80 at this point as well.
What really makes me happy is knowing that a guild I enjoy socially may actually be able to pull off getting some progression done. In the past it's always been the social guilds that have never been able to get organized and the raiding guilds that have never been all that much fun.
Monday, February 16, 2009
How to Figure Out If You're Ready
There are always questions being thrown around forums and in comments sections of blogs about whether or not you are ready for an instance.
For some things, like tanking heroics and raids there are some hard and fast rules. You MUST have 535 defense in order to be uncrittable for heroics and 540 for raids. MUST. But then there are some not so easy to answer questions like, "Is my stamina high enough to tank heroic Utgarde Pinnacle?" Everyone seems to have a different answer to this, based mostly on how hard they think a given instance is.
If you ask me, I don't have any real true answers for you either -- other than what my GM told me. "Give it a try, if you fail then oh well, it's just a game."
He also mentioned to me that there were sites out there that help to rate your gear and you'll get an idea of where you should be instancing and where you should be getting your gear. Imba is one, but I'm not sure it's the best. So far, my favorite is WoW Heroes.
It's got me rated as yellow for Naxx 10, which I believe means I could tank it, but that it wouldn't be EASY. And that Eye of Eternity 10 I am just not ready for at all. Which I would totally agree with.
Now I would not say that this site -- or any others like it are the end all be all. You have to understand that they are built on certain parameters which you may or may not agree with (most I think do) and the numbers are based on your current Armory set. Which, hopefully you know is itself based on what you were wearing when you logged out of the game (with some updating exceptions).
So go on out there check out Wow Heroes, and read around on forums and such to find out just what's going on.
For some things, like tanking heroics and raids there are some hard and fast rules. You MUST have 535 defense in order to be uncrittable for heroics and 540 for raids. MUST. But then there are some not so easy to answer questions like, "Is my stamina high enough to tank heroic Utgarde Pinnacle?" Everyone seems to have a different answer to this, based mostly on how hard they think a given instance is.
If you ask me, I don't have any real true answers for you either -- other than what my GM told me. "Give it a try, if you fail then oh well, it's just a game."
He also mentioned to me that there were sites out there that help to rate your gear and you'll get an idea of where you should be instancing and where you should be getting your gear. Imba is one, but I'm not sure it's the best. So far, my favorite is WoW Heroes.
It's got me rated as yellow for Naxx 10, which I believe means I could tank it, but that it wouldn't be EASY. And that Eye of Eternity 10 I am just not ready for at all. Which I would totally agree with.
Now I would not say that this site -- or any others like it are the end all be all. You have to understand that they are built on certain parameters which you may or may not agree with (most I think do) and the numbers are based on your current Armory set. Which, hopefully you know is itself based on what you were wearing when you logged out of the game (with some updating exceptions).
So go on out there check out Wow Heroes, and read around on forums and such to find out just what's going on.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Comments on Dual Specs
Ok so I am really excited about dual specing. I would really like the ability to tank an instance OR heal it depending on what is needed, and I REALLY hate the idea of paying for respecs as they stand now.
I must say I think that one part of Blizzard's plan regarding dual specs is sorely lacking.
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
This, to me, is bogus. Come on -- one of the greatest thing about having 2 specs is that you can switch in-between -- you can have a dps spec for leveling and another for instancing. Why oh why is it so hard to find healers? In my opinion it's that they don't want the hassle of trying to down mobs while soloing on a healing spec. This is true at max level, which this rule is fine for, but is incredibly true when it comes to leveling! Especially now that we have 10 newish and still somewhat fresh levels that people are putting mains and alts through, they want to do instance runs and its incredibly hard to find healers because they are all speced into dps roles. I think this rule needs to be changed. No ifs, ands or buts.
Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
This sounds good at first blush. Alright, I'm willing to pay for this service, it doesn't need to be free for all. But wait a second. How much will I have to shell out? There has already been a troll post on the WoW forums about some crazy 5k gold shell out, to which a Blizzard employee never did say whether or not it was true. If it is indeed something around 5k I am against that. While I know that is not hard to get money of any kind in Wrath, unless it's higher than say 10k gold, I still think that 5k will make it hard for a lot of players to be able to get this going. It took me about 2 weeks of focused saving of gold in order to come up with the 5k I needed to get my epic flying training (just never got around to it in TBC). While that isn't game killing, it does tend to crimp my "fun gaming" time. 1k gold might be alright, but I just don't want to see this being some crazy huge gold sink. No thank you.
Well, really that's all I have to say about this right now. I think all the other details given are pretty neat and cool. Scribes will be happy to have something truly indispensable for customers, and it's something that can be done without a scribe's assistance in a city, so that's cool by me.
All in all, sounds good, I just hope that it's not too expensive to set up and that they make it available to at least level .... 60s or something.
Cheers.
I must say I think that one part of Blizzard's plan regarding dual specs is sorely lacking.
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
This, to me, is bogus. Come on -- one of the greatest thing about having 2 specs is that you can switch in-between -- you can have a dps spec for leveling and another for instancing. Why oh why is it so hard to find healers? In my opinion it's that they don't want the hassle of trying to down mobs while soloing on a healing spec. This is true at max level, which this rule is fine for, but is incredibly true when it comes to leveling! Especially now that we have 10 newish and still somewhat fresh levels that people are putting mains and alts through, they want to do instance runs and its incredibly hard to find healers because they are all speced into dps roles. I think this rule needs to be changed. No ifs, ands or buts.
Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
This sounds good at first blush. Alright, I'm willing to pay for this service, it doesn't need to be free for all. But wait a second. How much will I have to shell out? There has already been a troll post on the WoW forums about some crazy 5k gold shell out, to which a Blizzard employee never did say whether or not it was true. If it is indeed something around 5k I am against that. While I know that is not hard to get money of any kind in Wrath, unless it's higher than say 10k gold, I still think that 5k will make it hard for a lot of players to be able to get this going. It took me about 2 weeks of focused saving of gold in order to come up with the 5k I needed to get my epic flying training (just never got around to it in TBC). While that isn't game killing, it does tend to crimp my "fun gaming" time. 1k gold might be alright, but I just don't want to see this being some crazy huge gold sink. No thank you.
Well, really that's all I have to say about this right now. I think all the other details given are pretty neat and cool. Scribes will be happy to have something truly indispensable for customers, and it's something that can be done without a scribe's assistance in a city, so that's cool by me.
All in all, sounds good, I just hope that it's not too expensive to set up and that they make it available to at least level .... 60s or something.
Cheers.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Open Letter to DPS
Dear DPS,
I am a tank, I get hit hard and I do it so that you can continue to kick the crap out of whatever is hitting me. I thank you for hitting it harder and faster than anyone else can.
I do wish, however, that you could all learn the basics of your role. For melee dps there is a great list on DPS Plate that you should read, but I want to focus on macros. Gimme a sec, I'll get to the good stuff.
When I am hitting something and I am focusing its attention on me -- there is a purpose to this. The purpose is to allow you to melt the face of THAT mob. The one that I am hitting. Not the one next to the one that I am hitting.
More often than not, when in a group (mostly PUGs), when pulling more than one mob, I find that I need to keep on eye on what the dps are doing because they are not hitting that which I am. How often is it that a hunter will be targeted on a mob only to pull them off me? Way too often. And why does this happen? No, it is not because I'm not uber enough -- or that hunter is too uber. It is because that hunter (sorry I'm picking on hunters) has targeted a mob mistakenly. You heard me. You are dpsing down something that you should not. Yet.
You should only and always be targeted on what I, the tank, have targeted. Now, some people mark every single mob and have a set and established kill order -- and that can work great, but, as we all know, things are not always working as intended. Things get out of hand -- pats are added, someone dies or there is a runaway with low health -- yeah go ahead and one shot that sonofa .... but what I'm talking about is MOSTLY dps just being sloppy.
What I'm about to show you can make EVERYONE's lives easier -- even yours, you dps machine.
First let me give credit where it is due -- these both came from BRK, a hunter blogger. The original article is here, at WOWInsider.
Ok so macro one. This is the simplest really doesn't need to be put on your hotkeys. Its something that you'll use every time you engage a new tank. You are using this macro to make your tank your "focus."
Are you ready? Here it is:
/focus target
That's it. That's the full extent of your macro.
What this means is that even though you manually target something else, you can always come back easily and re-target your tank. Because that's what this is meant to do. You click on your tank, hit this macro and that character is saved.
Why would you want to target your tank? Well that's where this next little gem comes in.
/assist focus
That's it -- that's all for the second macro. Pretty easy huh? Hotkey this one -- you will use it alot. What this does is automatically set your target to be the same as the target of the tank (if the tank is your focus -- which they would be if you used the previous macro in the beginning of your instance run). So if you fire off that Frostfire blast -- it will hit the same thing that the tank is hitting.
At the end of the day, all the above is about not pulling aggro off the tank -- because what they are hitting hardest, and therefore aggroing hardest on, is also what you are dpsing on, so there should be no way that you pull aggro off of them. Then, when that one dies, it only takes a split second, most likely faster than tab targeting the next mob, to hit the assist macro and BOOM you are slamming that which your tank is tanking.
I have heard alot about Wrath content and how easy it is, and also how easy it is to AOE tank all of those trash mobs. While this is true, especially when you get to slightly higher end content, when (and I say "when" intentionally) you, as a dpser, pull aggro off the tank and you don't have a Feign Death, or some kind of other aggro wipe, that mob will come at you and if your tank is AFK tanking, or doesn't like you much, it come over to you, not say nice things to you, and not leave you alive to help kill other mobs. You will be dead, and it will definitely be your fault.
So, what have we learned here? Hopefully you've learned one important lesson in HOW to play a dps character (dps what the tank has aggro on) and a few lessons in how to make THAT easier (use those macros or something like them).
Have a good day.
Yours truly,
Tank.
I am a tank, I get hit hard and I do it so that you can continue to kick the crap out of whatever is hitting me. I thank you for hitting it harder and faster than anyone else can.
I do wish, however, that you could all learn the basics of your role. For melee dps there is a great list on DPS Plate that you should read, but I want to focus on macros. Gimme a sec, I'll get to the good stuff.
When I am hitting something and I am focusing its attention on me -- there is a purpose to this. The purpose is to allow you to melt the face of THAT mob. The one that I am hitting. Not the one next to the one that I am hitting.
More often than not, when in a group (mostly PUGs), when pulling more than one mob, I find that I need to keep on eye on what the dps are doing because they are not hitting that which I am. How often is it that a hunter will be targeted on a mob only to pull them off me? Way too often. And why does this happen? No, it is not because I'm not uber enough -- or that hunter is too uber. It is because that hunter (sorry I'm picking on hunters) has targeted a mob mistakenly. You heard me. You are dpsing down something that you should not. Yet.
You should only and always be targeted on what I, the tank, have targeted. Now, some people mark every single mob and have a set and established kill order -- and that can work great, but, as we all know, things are not always working as intended. Things get out of hand -- pats are added, someone dies or there is a runaway with low health -- yeah go ahead and one shot that sonofa .... but what I'm talking about is MOSTLY dps just being sloppy.
What I'm about to show you can make EVERYONE's lives easier -- even yours, you dps machine.
First let me give credit where it is due -- these both came from BRK, a hunter blogger. The original article is here, at WOWInsider.
Ok so macro one. This is the simplest really doesn't need to be put on your hotkeys. Its something that you'll use every time you engage a new tank. You are using this macro to make your tank your "focus."
Are you ready? Here it is:
/focus target
That's it. That's the full extent of your macro.
What this means is that even though you manually target something else, you can always come back easily and re-target your tank. Because that's what this is meant to do. You click on your tank, hit this macro and that character is saved.
Why would you want to target your tank? Well that's where this next little gem comes in.
/assist focus
That's it -- that's all for the second macro. Pretty easy huh? Hotkey this one -- you will use it alot. What this does is automatically set your target to be the same as the target of the tank (if the tank is your focus -- which they would be if you used the previous macro in the beginning of your instance run). So if you fire off that Frostfire blast -- it will hit the same thing that the tank is hitting.
At the end of the day, all the above is about not pulling aggro off the tank -- because what they are hitting hardest, and therefore aggroing hardest on, is also what you are dpsing on, so there should be no way that you pull aggro off of them. Then, when that one dies, it only takes a split second, most likely faster than tab targeting the next mob, to hit the assist macro and BOOM you are slamming that which your tank is tanking.
I have heard alot about Wrath content and how easy it is, and also how easy it is to AOE tank all of those trash mobs. While this is true, especially when you get to slightly higher end content, when (and I say "when" intentionally) you, as a dpser, pull aggro off the tank and you don't have a Feign Death, or some kind of other aggro wipe, that mob will come at you and if your tank is AFK tanking, or doesn't like you much, it come over to you, not say nice things to you, and not leave you alive to help kill other mobs. You will be dead, and it will definitely be your fault.
So, what have we learned here? Hopefully you've learned one important lesson in HOW to play a dps character (dps what the tank has aggro on) and a few lessons in how to make THAT easier (use those macros or something like them).
Have a good day.
Yours truly,
Tank.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
