Monday Random Thoughts

- Sorry I missed last weeks random thoughts.

- Even if I am taking a break I still like to share random thoughts.

- Because I still have thoughts even when not playing.

- Like when I play something else that has a feature I like.

- I always say, I am sure blizzard could do this better.

- They usually do a bang up job of adding ideas others have used.

- Sometimes they even make them better.

- Two weeks ago I did 10 bosses in normal HFC and 9 in heroic BRF and guess how many tier pieces I got?

- None.

- It is luck like that which keeps me from wanting to play.

- You can only take bad luck for so long before it beats you into submission.

- Can't believe I am still doing BRF to try and get heroic pieces.

- It shows how bad things have been for me in the gear department.

- It sucks on a level I can not even convey.

- It is partly why I am tired with the game.

- Did 11 bosses on HFC this week.

- Guess how many tier pieces I won?

- None of course.

- I am just so tired of losing.

- You would think the addition of flight would make me excited about the game.

- And it does really, I am glad it is coming tomorrow.

- But it is too late.

- I want to fly around and just do the pet battle trainers.

- I want to fly around and do the archeology digs.

- I want to bounce from rare to rare faster with flight.

- I just want the freedom to go where I want, when I want and stop and go as I please.

- Perhaps if flight were added sooner, like on release as it should have been, I would not be taking a break.

- But when all I have is raiding and raiding has not been good to me this expansion in terms of progression or drops, I had nothing.

- So break time it is.

- In the last two weeks I've logged in to raid and that is it.

- Have not even logged into alts to do gold missions.

- That is how blah I am against playing right now.

- Stockpiling gold for next expansion was what was keeping me active and that even bores me now.

- And honestly, if I were not the raid leader and felt as if I had a responsibility to log on to form the raids I would have quit the game.

- Adding flying is awesome.

- But it came to late.

- Hopefully after my break I might decided to come back.

- But really all that depends on is luck.

- Because I don't know how much longer I can raid when even most peoples alts out gear me by 15 item levels.

- It isn't so much about the gear, I still pull my weight pulling over 50 and 60K on many fights single target which is well above and beyond the content we are doing, it is just about the advancement.

- You need to feel as if you are progressing on a personal level to be worth it to keep playing.

- Without gear there is no advancement, which means there is no reason to play.

- You could get "kills" in LFR is killing a boss was all that matters.

- But it is the gear that is the advancement that keeps most playing.

- It is the gear that makes them move from normal to heroic to mythic.

- The slow power creep over time as you get a piece here and there.

- It makes you feel as if you are moving forward and as long as you are moving forward there is reason to keep playing.

- It really is that simple.

- If I just accept the fact that I will never get gear, I am effectively done with the game.

- There needs to be a better way to get gear, so you can feel as if you are constantly advancing even when you do not win things for months on end.

- Or at least I need to feel as if killing all those bosses has some benefit for me.

- Too much work and effort for no advancement just doesn't cut it.

- This why I miss valor gear so much.

- Because at least if my main got stuck in a rut I could do a few dungeons on alts and tada, one of my alts could buy a new piece increasing their power.

- That power boost on alts actually kept me interested in playing my main during gear droughts.

- But now I can't do that any more.

- There are a million types of players and perhaps there are some this design for the game is awesome for, I just do not happen to be one of them.

- I have not been playing other MMOs with this time off.

- Nope, did not jump right over to FF14 even if I could have.

- Even if I should have actually.

- I wanted some time off from other people too.

- So I got my single player game face on and went and played a few games I played before.

- Kind of something I knew I would like, I needed that.

- Played FF7 again and was reminded how much I loved that game once more.

- Sure there were part of it I disliked, like snowboarding, fort condor, and submarine battles, but there was so much I loved.

- No game is perfect, there are always good and bad things in it.

- And playing FF7 reminded me that you just add them all up to decide if you like a game or not.

- I could make a list of at least a dozen things I disliked about FF7 and yet I still call it one of the three best RPGs I ever played.

- Goes to show you that something does not need to be all rainbows and sunshine to be great.

- It just needs to have the good outweigh the bad.

- Another game I played was FF type-0.

- And I quickly remembered why I hate that game.

- Not just dislike, I hate it, I wanted a refund, it was false advertising, this is not a FF game.

- Also played FF8 again, currently playing that one as I write this actually.

- Just started a new save last night.

- Quickly remembered how annoying it was to play.

- On a grand scale of things FF8 is where WoW is to me at the moment.

- I love the franchise, there is some good and bad in it, but I am basically playing it because it is part of a bigger picture that I enjoy.

- It has some parts I really like, some parts I really dislike, but over all it is okay.

- Okay at best really.

- But I do love the card game in it, so that keeps me going.

- Right now I am hoping with all hope that Legion does not turn into a FF type-0 where even if I like the franchise I can not play it.

- WoW needs another FF7 expansion where the good outweighs the bad.

- Wrath was warcrafts FF7.

- Some bad but mostly good.

- If flying, valor and reforging were never removed, I am sure even Warlords might have been saved in my mind.

- Although some more content to do at 100 would have been nice too.

- But with those three things, the good would have outweighed the bad, and really, that is all that matters.

- For a game to be good the good needs to outweigh the bad.

- Still taking some time off so do not plan to post much.

- But you never know when I will have the big to write.

- I mostly post to write because I like to write.

- Heck, that is how and way this blog first started.

- Just as a place to write.

- Might post a few posts I had written up weeks or months or even years ago.

- So they might be dated, who knows.

- Had one I wrote on the day Legion was announced about poor Rogues.

- Really dated now being we know more information, but I might post it just the same.

- Or maybe I will be drawn back in by flight and have some other things to write about.

- Who knows, anything can happen.

- Have a great day.

A Day in The Life of the Raid Design Team: Hellfire Citadel

Lead Raid Designer:
    Okay folks it is time for us to design the new raid for 6.2 and I want to hear some ideas.  We have a couple of guests today with us sitting in to see how we develop a raid.  They are the winners of the selfie picture content.  So welcome Bob and Mary.  Lets show them the best we got so they can see how much work and effort is put into designing encounters.
Entire Design Team:
    (Blank stares)

Lead Raid Designer:
    Lets start with going over the ideas we came up with to start from last week when they come in.

(Bob and Mary are shown in and seated)

Bob:
    Good morning.

Designer 1:
    Good morning folks, so you want to hear about some of the ideas we have already come up with.

Bob:
    Sure, tell us what you have come up with so far.

Designer 1:
    Well there's a void zone and avoid fight; a void zone, stack up and avoid fight; a void zone and adds fight; a void zone, avoid and adds fight; a void zone, avoid, stack up and adds fight; an adds, avoid, stack up and adds fight; an adds, void zone, adds, adds, avoid and adds fight; an adds, adds, adds, void zone and adds fight; an adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, spread out, adds, adds, adds and adds fight; and a push back, adds, target switch, adds, debuff, adds, split group, adds, kiting, adds, stack up, adds, spread out, adds, void zone and, of course, some adds who summon more adds fight.

Mary:
    Are there any fights without adds in them?

Designer 2:
    Well, there's an adds, void zone, stack up and adds fight. That doesn't have MUCH adds in it.

Mary:
    I don't want ANY adds.

Bob:
    What about the void zone, avoid, adds and stack up fight?

Mary:
    It's got adds in it!

Bob:
    Not as many adds as the adds, void zone, stack up and adds fight.

Mary:
    Look, I wouldn't mind the void zone, avoid, adds and stack up fight, without the adds.

Designer 1:
    Uuuuuuggggh!

Mary:
    What d'you mean, uugggh! I don't like adds. Maybe a fight or two, but not that many adds, not is nearly every fight.

Entire Design Team:
    (singing) adds, adds, adds, adds, adds ... adds, adds, adds, adds ... lovely adds, wonderful adds ...


Designer 1:
    Shut up. Shut up! Shut up! You can't have a void zone, avoid, adds and stack up fight without the adds, trust me, we know what is good for you.

Mary:
    Why can't I have fights without the adds?

Designer 2:
    Because then it wouldn't be a void zone, avoid, adds and stack up fight, would it?

Mary:
    But I don't like adds!

Bob:
    Don't make a fuss, Mary. I love it adds, heck I want even more adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds ...

Entire Design Team:
    (singing) adds, adds, adds, adds ...

Bob:
    ... stack up, adds, adds and adds fights for the win.

Designer 1:
    Stack up is played out, we are not doing much of that this time.

Bob:
    So you'll add in more adds instead?

Designer 1:
    You mean an adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, and adds fight?

Entire Design Team:
    (still singing) adds, adds, adds, adds ... (etc.)

Bob:
    Yes.

Designer 2:
    We will make that the first fight, great idea, one fight down folks thanks to Bob.

Entire Design Team:
    (still singing) adds, adds, adds, adds ... (etc.)

Designer 1:
    Arrggh!

Entire Design Team:
    ... lovely adds, wonderful adds.

Designer 1:
    Shut up! Shut up!

(The Entire Design Team shuts up momentarily. Chris Metzen enters the room dressed in a Thrall cosplay oulfit.)

Chris Metzen:
    No fight is complete unless it has Trall to save the day, even if it is full of adds, void zones, adds, avoid, adds, massive explosions, adds ...

Entire Design Team:
    (Singing) adds, adds, adds, adds ...

Chris Metzen:
    (As he leaves) My nipples explode with excitement...

(Cut to an historian)

Historian:
    Another great blizzard victory was built at the blizzard headquarters at Irvine California. Once again the blizzard's strategy was the same. They did exactly what they wanted to do, damn the community and damn Mary and her reluctance to enjoy the content being fed to her and they assembled a raid so single focused in mechanics that nearly every single fight had the same exact mechanic of adds in it.  After it was released they assembled to celebrate their great victory in raid development at a local watering hole.  They celebrated their creation of a raid that consisted of adds, more adds. adds that had their own adds and began to sing the blizzard raid design team theme song for 6.2 of adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, adds ...

Entire Design Team:
    (singing) adds, adds, adds, adds, adds, lovely adds, wonderful adds. Lovely adds, wonderful adds ...

Lady Luck Hates Me

Did you ever get the feeling that luck in the game isn't really all that luck based?  Almost as if blizzard has some program going on in the background that dictates luck and it really isn't all a function of the random number generator.

It probably all boils down to being lucky or unlucky but sometimes it feels as if it is you against the world.  This week was one of those weeks, once again, were it felt like that.  Being I had not raided on my hunter much in the past few weeks I managed to save up a few coins for this weeks run.

I rolled on two trinket bosses and every tier boss we beat as well as one other boss, kind of by accident, and won nothing.  I've learned to expect that.  But luck did shine on me, in a sense.  The hunter tier token dropped off of two bosses.  We never see the warrior, hunter, shaman, monk tier tokens.  They are things of myth, they do not really exist, or so I was lead to believe.

So here I was all ready with my /roll on the first one and I get a 94.  I am excited, I might actually get a tier piece.  A 94 is a solid roll.  The two shaman, two warriors, one monk and three other hunters of course were all rolling as well.  I watch the rolls go by, a few 60s, an 80, but nothing even close until the last person rolls, the monk, with a 95.  Son of a...

Such is the story of my life, we move along and the second tier trinket from the warrior, hunter, shaman, monk tier drops. Seeing one boss drop one is a miracle of all miracles but seeing two different bosses drop a tier piece I can roll on in one night is unheard of.  That piece never drops.

I feel that after my 94, and loss that followed, that I wasted the only good roll I will see for a while.  I hit /roll anyway and see a 90 pop up.  Awesome, two good rolls in one night, this must be a banner day for me.  The only other thing that dropped that I could have rolled on was a trinket with a gem slot off the second boss, which would have been really nice, but I rolled like crap on that one.

Being I am writing this post I am sure you can guess what happened on that tier piece.  Yeap, someone rolled a 91.  Once again I was beat by one.  It has become the story of my life.  Even when I have a good roll, I lose.  Even if I see something drop I can use, I lose.  While it is true RNG is RNG sometimes you can't help but think they system has something against you.

There is a new player in the raid, the girlfriend of one of the regulars.  She has quickly become a very good player and is really working hard to get better and it is noticeable from week to week.  She is getting much faster at responding to mechanics, she is getting better at her numbers.  Heck it is rare to see someone with as little experience as she has (only 3rd week raiding) even approach 70% potential this quickly nevertheless getting to, and over, the 80% potential marker on some fights on the logs from last night.

So why do I bring her up?  Something her boyfriend said on voice chat and a tin foil hat theory he has. 

See, she has luck, luck beyond luck.  I mean insanely sick luck.  She goes to solo old stuff, the 1% mounts drop stuff, and she wins the darn mounts her first or second time in.  She has received all the mounts, and multiples of each, from the big four rares on T2.  She has won a piece off the world boss every single week since it came out.  She has managed to snag 18 medallions of the legion.  When she uses a coin she is rocking an over 50% win rate, even if it is not always something she needs.  When she gets a tier piece, it is always either warforged or with a gem slot when she clicks on it.  When the mythic dungeon week was around she got the best in slot trinket from the box, and during the dungeons every drop she got was a 705 piece.  She is already rocking a 708 item level, basically 15 item levels higher than me, and she has only been playing 3 months.  Three freaking months, do you believe that?

So his theory is this, because she is new to the game, the game is giving her a lot of stuff.  It is letting her win often, it is trying to get her hooked.  Just like the slot machines in las vegas, where you put in 20 bucks and it lets you win 40, but then sooner or later, after you have had a taste and are hooked, it stops letting you win and starts draining your money.

He says because I have been constantly subbed for such a long time and have remained active and I am always soloing old raids, there is no incentive for the game to give me anything to try and hook me.  I am already hooked.  So I am looking down the long road to getting things because they think I do not need to get things to keep me playing whereas she is still new so they are still feeding her all the lucky drops and luck with coin rolls and such.  But once the system feels she is hooked enough, she will be in for the same hell I am.  Okay, maybe not as bad, but not as good of luck as she has been having.

I must admit, it does make a little bit of sense.  Thinking of it as something that would want to get you hooked so the easiest way to do that is to give you a taste of what it can be like when you win stuff.  And quite honestly if I were coding the game I would do that exact thing, when someone was still new I would give them a luck buff, if you will, that is not is seen by anyone to try and get them hooked.  It is actually pretty damn smart coding if it is true.

So perhaps the RNG is not really all that random but completely and 100% by design.  The people it feels it needs to hook have more luck, the people it thinks are already hooked have less.

Or maybe random is just random and his theory means nothing.  But it does make one wonder.  When I am treated as if I pissed in lady luck's cheerios and she is treated as if she is best friends with lady luck, maybe there is a new player luck buff.

Do you think that is possible?

Patch 6.2.2 Coming Sept. 1st... or Not?

Let me start this by saying I am confident that the 6.2.2 patch will be coming September 1st because blizzard has been overly cautious lately with so many of their "broken promises" complaints, and other public relation screw ups, this expansion.  I believe they would not have announced a set date unless they were pretty damn sure that is when it would be ready.  The last thing they need is more bad press.

It seems that I am not the only one that thinks that way either.  Lore, one of the more liked of the community managers, seems to believe the same based on a recent post that warned us that it is possible it might not be on September 1st.

He, like myself, (I believe) is most likely sure it will be on September 1st, but he felt it necessary to protect the company he works for from more bad press and mentioned that unforeseen circumstances could happen that might delay it and for us not to take the date as set in stone.

The sad part is he should not have needed to say that, but he did.

I agree with what Lore posted, I agree that what he posted needed to be said, even more so now than ever before.  Any time there is any sort of release like this there is always a chance that unforeseen circumstances can pop up and cause the patch to be late.  That is just he way things are and we, the players, all know that.  We have always known that.  We have always excepted that and accepted the fact that maybe it might be delayed because it has happened before, rarely, but it is not unheard of.

I honestly believe that before this expansion, and the public relations nightmare it has become, they would have never needed Lore to come out and say that.  If something popped up that delayed it they would have just made a post saying the patch was delayed a week.  There would be some grumbling of course, and a few people calling for their heads on a pike, as always, but most of the community would have been willing to accept that "shit happens", which quite honestly, is the complete and total truth, shit does indeed happen sometimes.

So what has changed?  Why did Lore feel the need to state something that everyone should know without the need of it being said?

Blizzards handling of issues this entire expansion and its communication with its player base has been dismal at best, and calling is dismal is being polite.  There have been so many "promises" that were broken, so many hopes built up that were let down, so many ideas spoken about that went no where, and so much double talk and back tracking from representatives of the company that the player base just does not have it in them any more to just accept that something happened that would delay the patch.  Even if they do know that it can happen in the back of their head, they can not, will not, (and perhaps should not) believe anything any representative of blizzard says any more.

The people have learned not to trust the company any longer and rightfully so.  Blizzard, in a whole, has done nothing to inspire belief in what their representatives say.  In fact it is quite the opposite.  The player bases trust level is probably at the lowest it has ever been in the company.

So please, do not worry about the September 1st release date, it will most likely be fine.  And please, do give Lore a break for warning people that shit can indeed happen.  He is just telling us what we all should already know.  The only difference is, that now, if he did not say that, people would all jump on blizzard saying they "lied" and all Lore was doing is protecting the company he works for from having to deal with that possibility, no matter how slim.

As I said, its sad that he even needed to say that, but he did.  And he needed to say it because before this point, so far this expansion, all blizzards representatives have done is burn all the bridges of trust the player base had with them that had been built up over the last 10 years.  That trust is gone, wasted, thrown away for no other reason than bad communication or misleading communication.  So now, even the little things like this, the possibility that a patch could be delayed, which in the past went by unsaid because everyone understood that, need to be said. 

I see people on the forums jumping on Lore for saying what he said and I can only scratch my head.  People, you wanted honesty?  He is giving you honesty.  Sure, what he said should not need to be said, but he was right for saying it.  Get off the poor guys back.  The only thing he is guilty of is being honest with the player base with that statement.  I know the player bases is not used to the representatives being honest with us so they forgot what honestly looks like, but Lore does not deserve crap for warning us of something we all should have been smart enough to know on our own.

Now, all I need to do is give myself a reminder to repost my flying post on September 1st.

I'm Tired of Being Let Down

It is my own fault, I'll admit that.  I saw an 8 hour downtime scheduled for yesterday and figured maybe we would be getting flying.  I figured wrong.

It made me happy thinking flying was coming because it would allow me to do the things I waned to do but I didn't want to run around and do now because it would take so much more time to do so, like get all the pet battles on T2 done daily and finish off the pristine artifact digs.  Stuff like that is something I was looking forward to doing when flying came.  Stuff I wanted to do, but not stuff that was worth fighting my way through mobs every day to do.

There is a huge difference between fun and annoying and flying is the key.  Doing that stuff and fighting your way back and forth to everything is annoying, flying around and hitting the pet battles and dig sites only is fun.  At least for me and I was really looking forward to doing just that yesterday but I was let down.

I made a fun, and hopefully humorous, post yesterday to welcome flight and when I saw that there were no posts anywhere saying flight was added as the day went on I was saddened with the realization I was wrong, flying was not being added, we had a 8 hour downtime for nothing.  I felt let down once again by blizzard because something that we should have had months ago, check that, at launch of the expansion, was still not added to the game.

I did not even log on last night, reset day or not, I did not care.  For all I know they could have added flying and no one made any posts about it.  I never logged on to even check for myself.  But I find it unlikely that flight would be added and no one said anything, so I am glad I did not log in last night.  If I did, I would have just felt let down.

From back in beta when we wrote post after post about there being no content at level 100 and blizzard still released the game with nothing to do, we were let down.

When we filed bug reports on beta that the garrisons kept crashing, with so many fewer people, but they assured us it would be fine when it went live, because apparently if it crashes with 100,000 people doing it than it will surely be fine when 10,000,000 try right?  And we were let down.

For all the people that excitedly looked forward to bladespire and karabor after it was announced they would be our main cities, even if I happen to agree with their removal as we spend all our time in our garrisons anyway, and ended up seeing them removed.  They were let down.

The scaling of raids were so dreadful, and people mentioned it over and over.  10 man normal felt  closer to the hardest heroic boss than it did a normal fight when you compared it to the exact same fight with 30 people on normal.  But what did they do, nothing, or tiny bits that are still not enough and to late after it was released.  And we were let down.

The people who looked forward to ashran and had to wait for 2 or 4 or 6 or more hours in queue to get into one.  They were let down.

They released a content patch that was almost completely content free with 6.1 and expected us to accept that there was a lot of new content added to the game, when in truth everything in 6.1 was either a fix, something that should be been included at launch or something that should have been held back so it could piggy back on a real content release.  And we were let down.

There is the customer service, that I admit is stellar at times, that seems to be getting worse over all.  Even more so when I put in a ticket about a problem and the response I received said "that sounds like a problem, you should out in a ticket" as the reply to my ticket.  And I felt let down.

There are the voices that speak for the game telling us we are getting flight, then we are not, then we will see, then it will come in 6.1, then we will see, then we are not getting flight all, then we are getting it in 6.2.1, then 6.2.1 passes by and 6.2.2 is on PTR and it is still not here.  Back and forth and back and forth they lead us with never really telling us anything.  With these mixed messages and false or misleading statements made to the public most people have lost all trust in anything they tell us.  And we were let down.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that this expansion has just been filled with one let down after another.

I am tired of being let down, I am tired of feeling as if blizzard does not care any more, I am tired of being lied to or mislead over and over.

I don't know why it is that I am still stupid enough to believe things will get better but I do, or I hope.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can not wait to turn the page on this expansion and be done with it, because to me all this expansion will ever be remembered as is one giant let down.  Legion can not come soon enough if you ask me.  Lets hope that isn't an even bigger let down because I am really tired of being let down.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I actually got to raid this week on my hunter.

- Sadly we only got 8 down this week thanks to missing a few key people.

- But at least I got to raid some.

- I am always happy to be raiding on my main, even more so now that I get so little chance in to do so.

- I will need to think of extending soon, we can only manage 10 in the time we raid, so it is either get faster, or extend.

- I think extending is the right answer.

- I had won a BRF heroic tier piece the other day and this was my first chance to test it in a real raid.

- Amazing how upgrading just one piece makes such a difference.

- More so how amazing it is being it is a piece from the old raid that made the difference.

- I would have loved to see what I could do with all 4 being heroic if adding one was so noticeable of a difference.

- Anyone else think the power creep from one difficulty to the other is way to high?

- That replacing a normal piece with a heroic piece should not have been as noticeable as it was.

- One piece, huge difference, means way to much difference in stats between difficulties if you ask me.

- Won a 705 neck piece that has critical strike and multistrike, woohoo.

- It has to be an upgrade right?

- Nope, my 691 piece with critical strike and multistrike and a gem slot is still better.

- Sorry, you know blizzard did something wrong with their scaling when a 705 piece still falls short of a 691 piece just because of a gem slot.

- I guess that is part of the reason my item level is still so dreadful.

- Even when I get something that looks like a clear upgrade for me, it is not.

- Oh well, I'll keep it in my bags so at least my bag item level went up even if mine did not.

- I am pretty sure that when you sign up for a pug it shows the item level in your bag, not the item level you are wearing.

- At least I think that is how it works.

- I think I am a magnet for weird comments, or out of nowhere comments.

- Was flying down to DS to do my standard mount run and zoomed past someone else flying down.

- They whispered me saying "I have 310 flight, how did you just blow by me."

- I said, I cut corners tight so it only appears I was going faster when in fact I passed you because I am actually taking a shorter route.

- It was an honest answer and it was true.

- I did not have any additional speed boosts, just chose my route better.

- I cut corners as tight as possible which means I appear to be moving faster than someone key turning and traveling in the middle of the road.

- In LFR this week I had two of "those" questions, one was the standard "what are you doing here" comments I get from time to time.

- People see someone with high numbers and automatically assume they have no reason to go there.

- I do it because I need tomes as I know I am not always going to be raiding on my hunter.

- But I responded, "For practice" to him, which is what I usually say when someone asks me that question.

- It should not seem that odd.

- I had one member of my guild that did the LFR sometimes 10 or more times in one week.

- He would do it over and over again to practice his timing so he could become a better player.

- And trust me, it showed, he was amazing.

- I can't wait for him to come back, miss having quality talent like that.

- The other comment was just a weird one, and now I can chalk this one up as the second time someone has whispered me this.

- "Can I have your babies?"

- Yeap, that is the whisper someone sent.

- Funny part is that is now the second time someone whispered that to me.

- I did not respond, but I did laugh.

- I think it is my transmog that gets some weird attention sometimes.

- Either that or I am a weirdo magnet.

- Still does not even close to the comments I have received over the years on my female tauren.

- Some I would rather not even repeat but lets just say they are in the realm of "I want to milk you baby".

- Some people really need to get out more if they think whispering stuff like that to someone they think is female is acceptable conduct.

- I read a post where some guy was complaining because he had been soloing a raid for three weeks and the mount has still not dropped.

- Do you believe that, he has been doing it a whole three weeks and it has not dropped.

- The horror of it all.

- How can you live like that, it must be unbearable.

- Do people really think that you should get 1% drops after doing something 3 times, or even 15 times if you did it on 5 characters for those three weeks?

- I've had many in the 200s.

- I had one in the 800s.

- And I could guess that my attempts at the stone core mount have to be well over 1000 by now.

- I was doing it 5 times a day back in cata, yes I was soloing it from the week of release, and I did it so many times over all my characters during the expansion, plus all the attempts in the years that past.

- And I never saw it drop, not even in one of those pugs.

- So to say it is over 1000 times is probably very realistic.

- Sure I got the vortex pinnacle one after only 17 tries, but that is the exception, not the rule.

- If he is complaining enough to make a thread after 3 weeks I should be ready to jump off the top of the empire state building using his time schedule.

- It makes me wonder if people really just want stuff handed to them with no work for it.

- I love my onyxia mount, even if I never ride it, because I had been soloing it since wrath to get it.

- I love it because of the work I put into getting it.

- It was the journey to get it that was the fun, not the actual getting it.

- In a strange sort of way I was sad when I got it.

- I had been doing it every week on at least 4 or 5 characters for so long.

- It was like losing a friend having no reason to go there any more.

- A couple of weeks ago I went there to kill her just for the hell of it.

- I missed her, is that weird?

- Not saying I don't want things to drop because I do.

- But it is one of those catch 22s.

- If it does not drop, I have something to do.

- If it does drop, I have the excitement of getting it.

- So there is good to come from it either way I guess.

- But I still say I hate RNG.

- I would rather there be an internal counter or something so that once you have done it 100 times it automatically drops.

- That would be cool.

- And at 100 times, even more so for a raid, you earned it.

- Because for a raid that means 2 years worth of trying, if you did it every single week.

- So yes, I would say you earned it.

- A lot more than some guy that has been trying for a whole three weeks.

- Funny part is, if that were the case were you got it after you killed something 100 times I would have most of the mounts I seek already.

- Even more so since this expansion when nearly all my characters can solo some of the stuff and I do things more than before.

- Sometimes even when I have good luck it is bad luck.

- Opened T2 on my warrior finally, and yes I still a few 100s that have not yet.

- Remember how I said clicking on the baleful pieces it seems I never get one that has the right stats I want on it?

- First one I click on my warrior has the perfect stats on it.

- Even better, it upgrades to 675.

- For my warrior nearly every single piece I have a 675 would be an upgrade.

- But this one piece I already have a 700 in that spot, and that 700 already has good stats for me.

- And that is one of only 3 pieces where 675 would have not been an upgrade.

- So I had good luck, finally got the right stats, and got it upgraded, and it is still useless.

- Sigh

- I can't win with my luck sometimes and even when I do, I still lose.

- And people wonder why I am grumpy.

- Have a great day.

Where Would You Want Your Class Hall?

We already know of a few of the places where class halls are going to be.  Places like the lights hope chapel for paladins and the dalaran sewers for rogues but for most classes we have heard nothing about where their class hall is thus far.  So lets play a game of where would you place your favorite classes class hall.  Remember it needs to be a neutral place, based on the design they are using so that both sides use the same hall.

I personally like the choices of the lights hope chapel for paladins and the sewers for rogues.  I think they both fit extremely well.  But for some classes I really can't see where they could go, at least if only considering places that already exist.  So we might need to make up some new areas.

Druids would be a simple one for me in my opinion.  They already have their own zone as it stands and will be getting more love in the legion expansion.  But that zone, Moonglade, really seems to be the best place to set their class hall.  First off they have an ability that brings them directly there, which would be an amazing boon, and some might say quite unfair for them, but no other class has such a perfect place mostly unused that could house a class hall so easily.  If druids class hall is not in Moonglade, blizzard is doing it wrong.  The place was built to be the druid class hall back in vanilla before class halls were even a dream in some developers mind.

My main is a hunter so I have been thinking where the hunter hall could be.  If they mentioned it already I did not notice it, so I will instead let my mind run wild and see where we should have our class hall.

There is no place that already exists in game that really jumps out immediately in my mind.  There is nothing in game in terms of a building that just screams hunter like the lights hope chapel screams paladin.  Add that to the fact that hunters as a whole usually feel more like the class least likely to create a fraternity of their class.  Maybe a group of big game hunters talking about their hunts while swilling beer in a lodge could fit but in game most hunters are not the big game hunter type.  That is in Nessingwarys wheelhouse.  The hunters we play in game, at least to me, come off as loners, us with out pets, taking on the world one hunt at a time.  We are the planning and stalking types that kill for the betterment of us as individuals when required to do so or our society as a whole, not the jump out behind a bush to kill a deer type of game hunter.

Being the slow pace and intense planning involved in a good hunt, as we do them, I would not expect the place that we would call our class hall to be hidden.  It would probably be some sort of building that people would pass by and think nothing of it.  It would blend in, it would seem inconspicuous, not drawing any attention to itself, just like we as hunters do when we are out in the wild.  We blend, we do not stand out.  Leave the flashy lights to the paladins.

I could perhaps picture a farm, a large farm out in the middle of nowhere.  We would need space for our pets because we don't go anywhere without them.  Even when we are doing a lone hunt our pets are never far behind waiting for the moment to pounce should we ever call for the need of them.  Our pets, our companions, are important to a hunter so a hunters hall needs to not only have a place for the hunters to mix and mingle, but a place for our pets to run free for a bit and, I guess, mingle as well with the other hunters pets as I am sure they have stories they wish to share as well.

So being there is no place in game that stands out as a place I would like to see as a hunters hall I will have to make something up.  My first idea was in southern westfall because there is a lot of green area for our pets to roam, some mountains around it so it would be an area that would make for a perfect point of defense if need be, and most of that area is currently unused for the most part.  Some minor quests, very few, all low level mobs that would not be missed if they disappeared, and nothing other of conciquence otherwise.

I could see some carving out of the mountains, some free ranged space for our pets out in front, and it is in an isolated place.  So it seems like a good idea to me.  The only thing I would have a concern with is that it is one zone removed from strormwind which means it is really close to alliance territory.

I then started to think of any other area that would fit for hunters in the vein of what I already have in mind.  A place where we could be most secluded and have room for our pets.   Another place that seems like it could fit were we could put a hunters and their pets is in Feralas.  There are a few areas there, if cleaned out some, that could make a reasonable place for hunters to have their hall.  The ruins of feathermoon seem to be one of the top options in my opinion.  Losing the couple of quests that are there would mean nothing really in the long run.

Want might even better would be if somehow we could raise and then shroud the island to the south of it that went underwater in cataclysm.  Isle of dread, if I remember correctly, is what it used to be called, where we would go to farm the chimaerok meat.  The zone had a few quests objectives back in the day but nothing the average player would have ever ventured there for and as it was an elite area even before it suck, it is a place many even knew it was there.  It was forgotten before it was even lost.  For a place of seclusion there would be no place better.  It was surrounded completely by mountains and lush green lands from one end to the other.

That would be my ideal place to put the hunters hall.  Sure, it is kind of out in the middle of no where, but it is a place were we can be alone, we can have our pets run free, and it has some history, even if long lost, of being a elite hunting ground, which, after all, it what we are, hunters.

I am sure there are better places out there and I am sure that blizzard would never raise a sunken island for us hunters to call home even if I think it would be rather cool, so it most assuredly will be elsewhere.  But where?

Where do you think would be a good place for your class hall?  Or if you already know where your class hall is, would you prefer it being elsewhere, and if so, where.

The Leader of Your Class?

I am not sure what the purpose of the new class halls in legion will be.  I am not sure if it will be fun.  I am not sure if it will be useful.  It is way to early to even form an opinion one way or the other honestly and I would not want to hazard any guesses with making an opinion with the little bit of information we have.  But there is one thing I do know.  I am not the leader of my class, and neither are you.

I had no problem with the story of warlords putting me in the position of being the leader of the war effort on Draenor, even if there were millions of other people on Draenor.  The reason for that is because when I was in my garrison I was alone, everyone there refereed to me and treated me as their leader. 

Even if I invited other people to my garrison it was with me as the leader of the group.  If they came for a garrison invasion, I was the leader and it was my garrison that was under attack.  If they came for a garrison raid boss, I was the leader and it was my garrison that was under attack.  If they came to my garrison to use the pet battle, my enchanters hut, the the weekly vendor whatever it may be, it was cool, because they were coming to my garrison and I was the leader.  So I could except the role play that I was the single lead commander of the war efforts.

Class halls however are a horse of a different color.  It will be filled with dozens, perhaps even hundreds on a packed server near release, of people that are the same class as I am.  Yet the role play blizzard wants us to play is that we are the leader of our class?  Wouldn't that be a little hard if there are also a hundred other people there all claiming to be the leader as well?

I do not get it.  Sure I will be wielding an artifact of extraordinary power.  Sure I will go though trials and tribulations while empowering it to get stronger and stronger.  But to say I am the class leader because I have that artifact when I look around and see those dozens or perhaps even hundreds of other people that are the same class as I am and wielding the same exact weapon as I do, even if skinned differently, it takes away from the feeling.

I do not need to "wait to see how it feels" as some people might suggest.  I know how I would feel because I know that none of those other hunters walking around are the leader of my class and I know that I am not the leader of my class.  I also know that even if I tried to "play" leader it will be hard to feel like the leader of my class when standing with so many other people that have the exact same weapon I do, even with a different skin.  I can't consider myself their leader because I have this powerful and rare weapon that makes me the leader because it is not rare at all when everyone has one.

Nope, sorry, I will not be able to feel that.  Not with everyone else around me.  It was a different world in my garrison, it was easy enough to feel as if I were the commander of all the war efforts on Draenor because there were no other people running around and on the few occasions there were, they were there because I invited them, as their leader (of the group at least).  But with the class hall and everyone coming and going as they please, it would not feel right to pretend you are the leader of your class.

I can not pass any judgement on class halls and I will not even try to format an early guess on if they will be cool or not, because I don't know enough yet.  They could be awesome, they could suck.  It is way too early in the information release process to know.  We do not know enough about them to even guess what they might be like.  But we do know one thing, we know we are supposed to be the leader, and that, I will pass judgement on.

I don't think I should be the leader of my class, I don't think you should be the leader of your class, I do not believe random hunter in guild number 682 on my server should be the leader of my class and I sure as hell do not believe that someones alt that they never log into after they hit max level should be the leader of my class.

I hope blizzard ditches this storyline were we are the leader of our class hall.  It just does not fit like being the leader of our garrison did.  Unless blizzard has found a way to make everyone else in the game listen to everything I say, then I am not their leader.  If I am going to be sharing space with these people, and I do not lead them, I do not want the story to play it off as if I am their leader, because it would not feel as if I were.  The leader of a small pack of underlings, sure, but not the leader of my class.

I believe that all class halls should have a leader.  I believe it should be a neutral NPC so both horde and alliance can speak with them.  I believe they should treat us as a high ranking assistant, maybe a right hand man if you will or a teacher showing the new people of our class the ropes.  They will send us on our tasks with quests, they will let us assign duties to the underlings assigned to us in the form of our followers, but over all they will be the leader of our class.  Now that, my friends, sounds about right and how it should be if you ask me.

That NPC should be the leader of the class hall.  Not me, not you, not random hunter in guild 682.  That just does not feel right.   It is still really early in development and I hope it can be changed, but I really think if blizzard insists on telling every player of every class that they are the most important, skilled and qualified to lead their entire class and everyone that practices it, and then puts them in a room with dozens if not hundreds of other people they told the same thing, it will just be a failure, at least in the sense of how it feels.  Because how can you say we are that great and then we see all those others that are basically all told the same exact thing we were?  It works in a private space to make one person the be all end all, but not in public space, which the class halls will be.

Blizzard, I am keeping an open mind on class halls and not passing judgement on them.  But please, pretty please with a cherry on top, ditch this idea where I, and everyone else in the entire game, is the leader of their class.  It doesn't work story wise.  If you want it to work, it needs to be in a solo phased area like the garrison.  But in a shared area, we are all equals and should be treated as such, let an NPC be our class leader.  That is the only opinion I have about class halls at the moment, the opinion that no player should be the leader of their class.

Honor System (v3) Raises Excitement and Concerns

As a reminder I will start by saying that everything here is based on a tiny bit of information we have from the announcement of legion and everything is subject to change, and some of it most likely will.  However, this post is about my first impressions after the announcement so those impressions are made based on the little bit of information supplied to us.

Quite some time ago a question was asked, it wondered why we play PvP in heroes of the storm and do not play PvP in warcraft.  I jumped on this topic as I really wanted to answer it.  I have tried to dabble in PvP many times over the years and I either got bored quickly, lost the crew I was playing with, or run into a string of discouragements that caused me to stop playing again.  So I had opinions, like everyone else, on why I do not PvP in one but I do in the other.

Seeing the announcement for the new honor system v3 actually made me a little excited in a few ways because I could see that a few of the things I mentioned in that post were being addressed but it also made me want for more information as I had some concerns with the announcement as the information we were given was so little.

Excitement: No More PvP Gear

Some people are screaming about this on the forums, and rightfully so.  If I had to PvP to get the bulk of my PvE gear right now I would not be a happy camper either.  However, as I am a PvEer the idea that they are removing PvP gear completely is very exciting to me.

No longer will I ever find myself caught behind that wall.  The one where I did not start to PvP from the get go so everyone I run into has full conquest gear now and here I am having just saved enough up for my PvP trinket and that is the only piece of PvP gear I have. Can you say dead elf?

Trust me, as someone that is not a regular PvPer the most discouraging thing in the world is to step into a 3v3 and find your entire team dead in less than 20 seconds because all of you were wearing PvE gear.  Yes, there is absolutely a skill factor involved as I am not a very good PvPer, but knowing that gear different was there was always a mental road block for me and many others I tried to get to go with me.  The line "but I have no PvP gear" was all I ever heard when asking people if they wanted to do some PvP.  How many beating am I willing to take until I get lucky enough to win a few here and there so I can get some gear?  That was the uphill battle every PvEer that wanted to join the fight had to ask themselves and most of the time it came down to just saying screw it, I won't PvP.

The removal of PvP gear with PvP stats entirely is something I look at with great excitement.  Sure there will still be people better geared than I, but at least I know I have the potential to catch up in gear now and gear means a lot less in PvP too whereas before there was no way in hell I would have gotten the best PvP gear without getting a million butt whooping and trust me, no one really wants to see a beaten and bruised purple elf butt.  It is not a pretty sight.

Concern: Talents

I like the new idea that you level your PvP level with v3.  As you level it gives you certain power boosts in PvP, increasing your abilities capability, your defensive capability and giving you new skills that can be used in only a PvP setting.

So if I like the idea why exactly is this a concern of mine?  Pretty simple actually.  They are adding PvP only abilities and that means the return of some abilities we lost (cool) and maybe the removal of some abilities we have now so they could become PvP only perks (not cool).

That is why this is a concern of mine.  I am a hunter and I love being a hunter.  I love having the toolbox I have.  Masters call, counter shot, ice trap, freezing trap, disengage, deterrence, concussive shot, distracting shot, and the list goes on and on, not to mention all the different things we can talent into like binding shot for example.  All awesome abilities that could be removed to become PvP only abilities and I am worried about that.

I am afraid I will lose some of these things so they can become PvP only abilities. I consider concussive shot to be at the top of the list of things they might remove to add to PvP only, followed closely by masters call.  I do not want to lose these abilities in PvE.  I use them and I use them often.  They have their purpose.  Sure they might be more suitable for the PvP environment, sure I might get even more use out of them in PvP, but I am concerned I might lose them just so they have talents to give us in our v3 tree.  I don't want to lose any of them.  I would cry and there is no crying in warcraft.  Unless your are Jaina of course, than you have to cry at least once per raid tier.

Excitement: No More PvP Gear (Part 2)

My luck is legend, or lack of luck if you will.  So much so that if they ever put an item in game for me it would probably be a book that rogues pickpocket called "The Unluckiest Elf on Azeroth".  It is so bad it is actually comical.

With that said, I am excited because with no more PvP gear that means that the gear you can get from doing PvP will be PvE gear, hopefully raid quality PvE gear.  Okay, okay, so I now have two chances to not get gear, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, so maybe with two different chances to get gear I might actually get some gear.

I am absolutely excited about the prospect that I could PvP to get another shot at gear.  Surely the gearing system from the PvP angle will not be as good as it used to be without conquest points and all, but it is a something right?  It just might be the motivation I needed to get into PvP, if the rewards are above what I am currently raiding that is, and if I get into PvP I will get better at it.  In theory anyway, and I would like to get better.

Concern: Talents (Part 2)

We do not know how match making will work when it comes to talents.  I am hopeful that if I do a random battleground as a level 1 PvPer that there are only level 1-5 PvPers there but you never know with blizzard.  In my opinion PvP levels should be used like character levels are.  You group people at the same level character so group people at the same PvP level.

If that turns out to be the case than that would be pretty cool.  But it is a concern of mine that it will not be handled correctly.  Being gear is not the huge obstacle that it used to be talents could easily take their place as what could keep lesser skilled people like myself from playing.

Before, as a lesser skilled player, I could get lucky against someone in all conquest gear.  Yes, it has been known to happen.  I could pull off a win here or there if the stars lined up right, or if I were fighting a retribution paladin.  But with skills I am worried that if I were a level 1 and ran into a level 50 I would get crushed.

Being the gear difference would be a 7% difference at most (using the guesstimate given by blizzard, again, subject to change) which means that PvP becomes more of a skill based game, which I love.  I always said PvP should be about skill, not what gear you wear.  So being it is a completely skill based game, someone that has a higher PvP level will have more skills to use against me.  So add their more skill playing their class to more skills available to them to use against me and more powerful nature of said skills thanks to skill levels and there is no getting lucky again like I used to from time to time.  They will completely WTF own me.

If blizzard handles the grouping correctly this is a non issue, if they don't this is a huge issue, and it is a major concern of mine because quite honestly I do not trust them to handle the grouping correctly.  I hope they will, I just do not trust they will.

Excitement & Concern:  World PvP

World PvP has always been my favorite part of PvP.  It was rare but it was also huge, spontaneous, and usually down right exciting at times.  Some of my favorite PvP moments would be world PvP moments.

I know they mentioned something about scaling and such in instanced content, but how will that work in world content.  If I am a level 50 will I be able to use all my PvP abilities in the world?  Even against a level 1?  There has always been a stronger or weaker person in world PvP, whomever has the most gear usually dictated that and maybe it will change to whomever has to highest PvP level now.  It is par for the course and there is nothing wrong with that is a world PvP setting.

But with less reliance on gear for PvP power and more on skills as their power base, will world PvP be more imbalanced than it currently is due to the skills higher level PvP players have?  Will it be better?  Will it be worse?

I have no clue, I can not even guess.  It is why it has both excited me and concerns me.  It could bring world PvP back, at least a little bit, which I find exciting and it could make it horrible if the skills someone has mean too much, which concerns me.

Even on characters that never stepped into one single instanced PvP environment I have always joined in whenever there was world PvP going on.  I love it and would love to see it more.  It makes the game feel alive.  But if I have to PvP to get the skills on character I never PvP on or I will get super owned by the people with skills, it is a concern, and could very well keep me from getting involved in a world battle situation.

End Note:

The announcement of the new honor system v3 has made me both excited to hear more and concerned with some of the things they already mentioned.  As someone that is not a PvP player, the fact that I have any excitement whatsoever about it is a positive step in the right direction for blizzard in my opinion.  Can't wait to see how this one takes off.  But be warned, if they try to take concussive shot from me I might be forced to make a post with a lot of curse words in it because homey don't play that.

What do you think about the little we know so far with honor system v3?

It's Not Easy Being Blue

I think I am getting soft in my old age.  Normally I like to jump on the blues when they make statements that are flat out false but I am starting to realize that perhaps it really is not that they are bad at their job or natural born dimwits but that blizzard keeps making weird changes that make no sense and it becomes hard for every blue to know everything that is going on.

It is more a case of the blue in question should have just said nothing than to try and address a concern.  This is actually bad for the game in my opinion.  When the people that keep us informed would be better not doing so, there are some deeper issue than someone just not keeping up on their job.

I am sure that many blues often are left having to defend the actions of blizzard when they personally disagree with it.  Look at someone like Bashiok who just left the company to go work for NC soft.  I used to always think of him as one of the better blues but the for the last year or so I started to blast him every chance I got. 

The guy went off the deep end, he left the reservation.  He was being rude to the players either straight out or with a snide remark.  He was blatantly disrespectful to the player base and did not even try to hide it.  He went from being one of the people that usually had some useful information and was a boon to the community to someone that you knew anything you read from him would feel as if he was speaking down to us.

After he left the company it occurred to me that perhaps he did not suddenly turn into the obnoxious idiot he had become but it was a slow transition where he was put in the unenviable position of having to defend blizzards decisions when he did not agree with them.  Now I do not know if this is the case, maybe the guy just became king the the jerks naturally, but it is entirely possible it was his working conditions that made him such.

So maybe if I was forced into the position of having to defend the no flying decision over and over when I disagreed with it I could see myself getting rude to people over it too.  I would not want to defend blizzard against people I agreed with.  I would not want to keep telling people they are wrong and this is better for the game when I do not believe that.  I would have to defend a move I did not believe in, defend a move I knew was bad for the game and that would make anyone angry and bitter, really fast too.

So maybe, just maybe I was too hard on Bashiok.  Maybe it wasn't the fact he had become a world class jerk, maybe he was just miserable working there having to defend bad decisions made by blizzard and we, the players, ended up getting abused by him in his responses because of it.

Yesterday I saw two blue remarks that were, in a word, wrong.  Normally I would jump on them for being idiots, today I am feeling a little bad for them instead because of the position that blizzard has put them into.  They throw so much junk at them and then ask them to defend the changes without them actually fully understanding the changes that were made.

I feel bad for the blues, but that does not change the fact that sometimes it might just be a better idea to say nothing than to say the wrong thing.  Lets take a peek at the examples from yesterday where two blues would have been better off not answering the questions at all instead of suffering from a major case of foot in mouth disease.

Our first unsuspecting blue was on a forum post.  Not only did he get one part of his reply wrong but he made two erroneous statements in one reply.  And I feel really bad for the guy.  After a post like the one he made, with two clear errors in it, I am sure he was sitting at his desk thinking "I should have just stayed home today".

Post Title was: Bliz Confirmed:best PvP gear from PvE in xpac

There was really nothing in the post except a link to the video of the interview.  The following was a response from Lore.

Misleading title is misleading.

What Tom said was that someone wearing the absolute best PvE gear in the game might have a 7% advantage over someone who had just hit level 100 -- and thus, had not collected any gear at all. There was nothing about his statement at all that could be taken as "the best gear for PvP comes from PvE." I have no idea how you could have gotten that from what he said, unless you're purposefully trying to stir up trouble.

Our intent -- as it has been for several expansions now, and as it is currently in Warlords -- is for PvP gear to be the best available in PvP. That has not changed in Legion.

Wrong point #1:

Even in his reply Lore said that someone in mythic gear would be better than someone in quest gear by 7% because mythic gear is the best gear you can get.  It stands to be believed that means someone in mythic gear would be some percentage better than someone in LFR gear, or normal gear or even heroic gear.  Even if the mythic geared player is only a slim 1% more powerful than a heroic geared player in PvP than what the guy posted as the title of his post, "Bliz Confirmed:best PvP gear from PvE in xpac" is absolutely 100% factually correct.  So how exactly is that misleading?  Stating facts is misleading?  That is news to me.

I know Lore was trying to settle down the PvP crowd from thinking they needed to PvE to get gear.  But this is one case he really should have just never answered this post.  Because, lets face it, the title of the post was correct, and in him trying to settle it down, he ended up proving what the person said in the title when he said that the best geared PvE character would have a 7% advantage over a fresh character.  Instead of proving the guy was wrong, he proved the guy was right.  I am sure that did not work as intended.

Wrong point #2:

Saying that PvP gear is intended to be best for PvP is correct, saying "that has not changed in legion" is wrong.  Sorry Lore, they are removing PvP gear from the game or so they told the world the other day.  I would think, as you work there, you might have heard of that.  So it would be impossible for that to be the same in legion.  How exactly can PvP gear be the best for PvP when there is no such thing as PvP gear in legion? 

Really should have not answered that post buddy.  You double whammied yourself.

The second case of "you would have been better not answering" came from the Yogcast with Tom Chilton.  The question and answer were as follows.

Q: "Demon Hunters only have two talent trees. Would you ever think of removing trees from other classes?"

A: "I think people would be pretty upset by that. I don't see us doing that. If I could warp back in time, maybe we would have not added some, but now it is too late, we will instead try and make them more distinct.
We are going class-by-class and trying to identify problem areas that have no distinct identity and trying to fix that."

"I don't see us doing that" is what he said.  This is someone really really high up in the food chain, at the top of the food chain and he says "I don't see us doing that"??? (yes three question marks on purpose because... really, did he just say that)

You are aware they are removing the ranged survival spec from the game right?  Sure it is being replaced by another spec with the name of survival but that spec plays a completely different role.  So you are removing a ranged spec from the game.  So how exactly can you say "I don't see us doing that" with a straight face when you are doing exactly that this expansion?  You are removing a spec from the game.

Another shining example of you were better off not saying anything, sorry Tom, but I can clearly see some egg on your face there.

BTW, if you also say "I think people would be pretty upset by that" why are you removing survival?  You acknowledge that people will be really upset by it, you say that you don't see yourself doing it, and yet you are still doing it.  Why?  I think that is a fair question.

Maybe he forgot about the ranged survival spec being removed from the game, maybe Lore forgot about PvP gear being removed from the game.

Maybe being a blue is a lot harder than anyone thinks when you have to keep track of all these changes blizzard makes.

Bottom line is, for all you blues out there, it is better to keep quiet and let the community think you are a moron than open your mouth and prove you are.  It's not easy being blue.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I was thinking about names that specs use and it occurred to me that retribution paladins make no sense, name wise.

- Retribution is sort of like revenge.

- Revenge does not really seem like the way of the light.

- What do you think would be a more suitable name for them?

- Did a fun run of BRF this weekend and actually got a heroic tier piece of maidens.

- Amazing that I can finally get a tier piece, off old content, and it still be a sweet upgrade.

- My luck with gear this expansion has been worse than usual.

- There are a lot of things people dislike about warlords but I think one of the reasons I hate this expansion is my luck seems worse than normal with it.

- I am sure I would be enjoying the expansion a lot more if I didn't always feel like I was playing for nothing.

- Winning gear once in a while, or gear you can use more accurately, is very important to enjoying the game.

- Even more so when gear means so much.

- Upgrading from a normal piece to a heroic piece was huge.

- Anyone else think that the stat inflation from one difficulty to the other is way to large?

- Blizzard gets so infatuated with things being major increases that they forgot the simple basics.

- People would be happy with something even if it had 2 agility and 2 of each secondary stat more than the previous tier.

- And upgrade is an upgrade.

- The huge jump from difficulty to difficulty is why we have such out of control stat inflation.

- Even more so with so many different tiers of raiding.

- They need to make the increase from one tier to the next smaller, much much smaller.

- Kill stat inflation and make play be more about what you do and less about what you wear all at the same time.

- Sounds good to be, but I know most people would hate that.

- Blizzard is right even if I hate to agree with it.

- People like seeing substantial upgrades.

- Me, I just like seeing an upgrade, 1 agility or 19 agility makes no difference to me.

- Better is better.

- Anyone watch the Q & A?

- Not a whole lot of Q's there and the A's were kind of just repeating themselves.

- Is this what blizzard thinks a Q & A is?

- Regurgitating what we already knew does not a Q & A make.

- Even more so when we know so little, how can you only repeat the tiny bits we knew already.

- There was only one Q asked that got an A which I would have wanted to see answered.

- And the A was not even a good answer.

- The beginning parts of getting flying will be added at release and they will see about when they will add it later.

- Excuse me?

- I thought blizzard already went through this.

- Don't they learn anything?

- You can not remove flying, and you can not be iffy about when it is going to come.

- None of this "lets see" bull shit.

- I wanted a definitive answer.

- Something like the achievement for flight will be added on release and flight will be added in 7.1.

- That is an answer, what they said is bull shit.

- Sorry, there is no other words for it.

- Will there be content at 110?

- Will there be daily hubs?

- Will there be valor gear?

- Will there be a reason to run dungeons after the first day of release?

- Will scenarios make a return so people that do not want to wait in queue forever can still have some nice quick fun?

- These are the questions that needed answering.

- These are the questions that were not asked.

- Well, what do you expect from a fluff piece.

- They should have never even advertised it as a Q & A, it was false advertising.

- You could have walked up to a homeless guy living in a box and asked him about the next warcraft expansion and probably gotten better answers.

- Surely not accurate ones, but better ones.

- Unless they start answering the real questions that matter I don't think I can get too hyped for the expansion.

- Sure I love we will dabble in a bunch of lore I want to see.

- How long have we asked for something regarding the emerald dream / nightmare?

- How long have we asked for more history on races like the val'kyr and others?

- How long have we wanted more information on the titans?

- There is a hell of a lot to get excited by with the story.

- Yeah I am digging that for sure.

- But bottom line for me has always been and will always be game play.

- I do not care where we play the game, I care what we do when we are there.

- I want to know game play answers.

- I like that Mangi is coming back from a story stand point, but if it means nothing to my game play.

- Lets face it, I do not play warcraft for its story, even if I do really like it and follow it, I play it because I like the game play.

- So game play trumps all else.

- I wanted some game play answers.

- We did not need a discussion on why demon hunters can only be elves.

- We did not need a discussion on what dance they do when they are alone in their office.

- No one cares what dance they do.

- Okay, maybe someone does, there are a lot of weird people out there, but I don't.

- Normally I would have been fine with the "wait and see" approach, but so often lately blizzard has let me down.

- Once bitten twice shy.

- I am no longer willing to wait and see.

- I want clear cut answers, absolutes.

- Not "we'll see"

- So far all I have taken, that matters to me, from the new expansion is that the only class I really enjoy playing is being changed in a way that could potentially ruin it.

- I've dealt with fundamental changes like  how pets work, ammo, happiness, as well as buffing and feeding our pets separately among many others.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with a dead zone for many years even after they said it was gone but it wasn't.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with resources changes from mana to focus.

- I adapted even if I resisted and was fine with it.

- I've dealt with skills being added.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with skills being removed.

- I put up a fight sometimes but was fine with it.

- I've dealt with minor rotation changes and major rotation changes.

- I was fine with it.

- But now I have to deal with being switched to a melee class (in part).

- I am not fine with it.

- The reason I was fine with all the other changes was because I was still a ranged physical damage dealer.

- The concept of what my class was did not change.

- I can not accept survival being changed to melee.

- And I don't even like survival to begin with.

- So I can see how people that like it have to be fuming right now.

- I would have no issue with them adding a forth spec for melee.

- I am just not okay with them changing what is already in game.

- Weird I know, but it is how I feel and you can't help how you feel right?

- Still say the next hero class should have been a ranged / healer class.

- I do however really like the idea that demon hunters only have 2 specs, one for damage dealer and one for tank.

- Perhaps if they can change other classes, as they are with hunters, they can balance things easier, in time.

- So perhaps the hunters are the test subjects.

- Why do we always have to be the guinea pig?

- Need to walk around with placards saying "Save the hunters from inhumane testing".

- If they can get away with turning survival into melee this expansion maybe next expansion arms warriors will become ranged.

- There is some logic to the idea that each class only has one spec of each specific role.

- Sure it takes away choice but it would also be easier to balance.

- And blizzard has been in the practice of removing choice from the game systematically for years.

- So it only makes sense they would do something like this.

- I just thought of a fun post, how would I change all the classes so none had two specs to for the same role.

- One warrior and DK melee spec would need to be changed, one healing priest would not longer heal, things like that.

- I could have a lot of fun with a post like that.

- And piss off a bunch of people at the same time.

- Sound fun. lol

- I do wonder if survival is a test run for them trying to do something like that.

- They would have had to know changing what one spec of the most played class in the game would meet some resistance.

- I am torn on the next expansion.

- I am excited for it knowing it is something new and knowing warlords is over.

- But I am scared for the game I love knowing they could actually screw it up worse than they did with warlords.

- (added this to clear up confusion)  Based on an old comment they made in 2011 I do have hope for legion.

- Blizzard had said their teams rotation.

- If they do that means there is hope.

- Because one thing we would have going for us is that the team that is making legion is the team that made wrath and mists I believe.

- So it is their A team, if there is still one.

- And thank god it is not their B team that is responsible for cataclysm and warlords.

- Makes you wonder if those guys are double agents working for blizzard trying to destroy a great franchise.

- With cataclysm and warlords under their belt that is not something someone would want to put on their resume.

- "I helped design 2 expansions for the very successful world of warcraft franchise."...

- ... "Which one lost around 3 million subs and the other lost almost 5 million subs"

- Not exactly a stellar thing to put on your resume.

- I'd think putting you worked at mcdonalds during those years would be more impressive.

- Back to the topic of only elves being able to be demon hunters.

- It makes sense, why would anyone want any other class to be a demon hunter.

- Demon hunters are elves, there are not ifs, ands or buts about that.

- Outside of the fact that seeing a gnome with two glaives that are both larger than he is would be quite humorous, it really does not fit.

- I hope blizzard does stick to their guns on this one and leaves it so only elves can be demon hunters.

- At least for the first expansion.

- Maybe add more later on.

- But really no need to.

- I would want to see troll paladins before I see any other race being a demon hunter.

- I've wanted a troll paladin forever.

- Because?

- Troll paladins would be cool mon.

- You can't always get what you want.

- But sometimes... you get what you need.

- Right now I need some answers about the expansion that will help me with being excited about it.

- Have a great day.

Survival as Melee, Please Blizzard Don't

I've said on this very site at least a dozen times that I think survival should be a melee class.  Despite the title I actually still do believe that.  Survival should have been made as melee.  The issue I have is that should is past tense.  When they were first created if they were melee it would have been fine.  But you can not change them now, it is just not right.

I am not just saying this because I do not think survival should be changed without giving any reason.  While I do always voice my opinion I also always have a reason for my opinion and I am not shy about sharing it agree with me or not.

1) Too Late Blizzard:

Classes change, specs change, it is all part of the game but no class ever in the history of the game has ever had to change what the class actually does.  Except maybe the death knight that used to be able to tank on all three specs and DPS on all three.  But they do not count because no spec was ever fully declared a tank spec or a DPS spec, it was just a hero class that could do whatever it wanted.

Hunters have already been subjected to the largest change any class has had to go through when they changed from mana to focus.  So it is not like the hunter community is not capable to rolling with the punches, we have been doing it for the past 10 years.

A change like this however is much bigger than even changing the resources of the hunter.  No class ever in the history of the game has had to change like this and none should have to.  They have never changed a healing class into a DPS class, a tanking class into a healing class, a DPS class into tank or healer class, a melee class into a ranged class or a ranged class into a melee class.  That is because you just do not do things like that.

If you change something like this with a new class on the beta it would be fine but you can not change something that has been in game for 10+ years.

2) Taking Away Choice:

It might seem odd that I am saying that adding melee to the hunter class is actually taking away choice.  While it is true that they are actually adding the option to play melee at the same time they taking away the players choice.  Sometimes adding an option actually means they are taking away choice.  This is a case of that.

There are many players in the game that roll their class because they do not want to do something.  People that roll a class that can't heal so they can never be asked to heal.  People that roll a class that can't tank so they don't have to be asked to tank.  People that roll a class that can't play at range so they can't be asked to go to ranged.  And last but not least, people that roll a class that can't melee so they can't be asked to go into melee.

While it is true that there are two classes that already have both a melee and ranged specs, but these specs were like this from their first release, people that roll them roll them knowing that.  It is not changing thing so people that roll those classes know what they are in for from the beginning.

Bottom line is that there are a great many people that rolled hunters so they could never be asked to tank, heal, or be in melee.  If that is the reason someone rolled a hunter it is extremely wrong to take that choice away from them, to have their class not be asked to go into melee.

3) Adding is Better Than Taking Away:

I will start this by saying I feel bad for warlocks who lost a key abilities from one of their specs so that they could create an entire new class around that one ability.  It just feels wrong and it should never happen.

If blizzard really wanted to add a melee spec for hunters it should have been added as a forth spec.  Only earlier this week , before the announcement oddly enough, I wrote a post that I never liked survival and that was in part because it always felt like it should be a melee spec.  That is only one elves opinion however, there are a massive amount of people that play hunters out there that love survival.

Change happens, it will always happen, it is part of the game, but changing how a spec works is fine, changing what a spec is, is wrong.  When large changes like this are made they will always be met better if they were additions to the game, such as in a forth spec, than a removal from the game, which is removing ranged survival and replacing it with melee survival.  No one likes losing stuff, everyone likes getting stuff.  Hunter will lose survival, the ranged spec, and that sucks.

4) Balance:

Lets not worry about balance in PvP right now, lets talk about something a lot simpler.  What happens if survival becomes the best raiding spec?

Tens of thousands of hunters game wide will either be stuck trying to learn how to play in melee, and trust me it is a lot of learning because it is a completely different style of game play if someone has never done it before, or they can continue to play a sub par spec because they refuse to be in melee, or they could quit the class completely even if they did not want to do so because they would rather play at ranged.

People who roll hunters do so knowing they are a ranged class with pets.  People that do not like having pets do not roll hunters.  People that like being in melee do not roll hunters.  These are just the basics of the game.

If survival is ever the best spec for hunters to be you will surely see a lot of people quitting their hunter and leaving it to rot.  The hunter class is a great class, the hunter community is a great community, and people should never be put into the situation where they feel they have to learn a brand new play style this late in the game or quit their class and leave their community behind.

Better players will adjust and do it, but the vast majority of players will just quit playing a hunter or play a sub par spec.  They should never be put into that situation.

5) Clutter:

There are already too many melee classes, there is a new melee hero class being added that will have a lot of people playing it, and now survival is adding even more to that clutter in the melee pool.

Many fights are melee unfriendly.  While I am lucky in my guild were we have a boatload of hunters, mages and locks, many guilds get into trouble on some fights because they have too many melee and there are many melee unfriendly fights.  So why add more clutter to the already cluttered melee scene?

If, as in the above, survival becomes the best spec for hunters than that just adds more melee to the game.  Personally I think the next hero class should have been a healer / ranged class, but being it is going to be melee this is the worst time they should be considering changing one ranged spec into a melee one.  Not like I think any time would be a good one, but that is beside the point, this time is the worst time to do so when you are already adding a melee class you know everyone and their mother is going to want to play.  They are effectively adding two now classes of clutter to an already full zone, the melee zone.

6) Crossbow?

Every type of weapon in the game is getting the artifact treatment.  Beast mastery hunters are getting a gun and marksman hunters are getting a bow so it would only make sense for the survival hunter to get the crossbow.

Oddly enough, this should be a good reason alone to keep survival as a ranged.  They are the only other spec in the game that could use the crossbow and there is at least one of each type of weapon as an artifact, why now have one with a crossbow as well.

The gun fits well with the opening cinematic of the game in vanilla for beast mastery, that works perfectly.  A bow really fits the marksman feel, light, quiet, and deadly.  And the crossbow with its compact power can fit well as the survival toolbox of powerful traps and a powerful weapon.

Add the that, it fits with the fact they are the only spec that can use it and all other weapons are getting the artifact treatment, it just makes sense to let the survival stay at ranged and use it and maybe, just maybe, if they plan on changing survival, do it in another expansion.  Let them stay ranged for this class, let there be a crossbow artifact, and let hunters get another expansion as a pure ranged class.

I know these bullet points might not be the best, and will surely have absolutely zero impact on blizzard and will not change their opinion on changing the survival spec into melee, but maybe if we speak up, they might at least consider it.

Please blizzard, let survival stay ranged and give them a crossbow artifact.  It is the right thing to do.  If you really do desperately want hunters to have a melee spec, add a forth spec.  And I am saying this as someone that does not like survival, so I am sure that the people that do like do not want to see it changed either for a much better reason that the six I gave.  They like that spec and they like that spec being at ranged.  That is the best and biggest reason not to change it.

I Need to Take Cooking Classes

This post isn't so much about warcraft as it is a post about a blog about warcraft, this one.  Over the course of the years I have had a lot of rude replies from people who had a different opinion than I did about some subject or another.

Some of them I would rather not repeat.  Others were the simple "move out of the basement" insults that people often throw around to make themselves feel better about their own personal situations.  Then there is the "you don't understand because you are an elitist" while in the same post I had someone else tell me "you don't understand because you are a scrub".  How I can be both bad and good is interesting, but actually fits perfectly because I have always called myself the average player.

I've had a fair deal of disagreements over the years and usually they end up with a debate where I am too bullheaded to change my mind and the other person is just the same and we agree to disagree.  Sometimes I have been wrong and admitted it, sometimes I was right and did not gloat.  Either way, it is the conversation that always fueled my passion to respond to the people that post here.  For better or worse, this is a tiny little community of its own here in grumpyland.

Bottom line is that anyone who disagrees with your opinion and does not want to exchange intelligent conversation about it is going to come up with some sort of way to make themselves feel better and usually that is done with an insult.  Insults do not need to be true, they just need to be said in a way that the person intends for them to be hurtful to another.  They throw those insults because for some odd reason me stating an opinion that differs from their own is taken as an insult to them and they feel the need to fire back because my post insulted them by disagreeing with their opinion.

As I am the "grumpy" elf I make it a habit of writing posts that play to my character, grumpy, and as such a lot of those topics end up pissing in someones cheerios.  Like the topics with flying that had a lot of anger flowing in some replies.  So people disagreeing with my opinion is not anything out of the ordinary.

But in all my years of writing this blog, and the many years before it writing other things online, never has anyone said something that actually make me laugh that I am sure was intended to insult me.  I was told I need to take cooking classes because they disagreed with my opinion.  Not exactly sure how "you should take a cooking class" is an insult, but it was funny.

Now please tell me I am not the only one that finds that to be funny?

Why I Might Just Love Artifact Weapons

It is still early in development and there is a lot that can change and we do not know all the information about them yet but I can imagine based on what they did say and it makes me think that artifact weapons might be the biggest step in the right direction for warcraft and I really like it.

Now as I said, none of us are really sure how it works.  But if it works like I think they meant it to work I would not be adverse to seeing artifacts for every single gear slot.  Why?  Because artifacts, at least as it seems, completely remove RNG from the game.  I love that.

Excuse me while I step away from the keyboard and do a happy dance for a minute.

~dances the jig because elves do an awesome jig~

I am back and I will try to keep my excitement in check, but the idea that there is something in the game that actively removes RNG from the playing field is beyond exciting to me.  I've had dreams about this, I have written letters to santa asking for the removal of RNG for christmas, I have said here and everywhere over and over that I hate RNG and would love to see it removed.  So yeah, getting a weapon that is not RNG and then just making me have to work to empower it, I can really get down with that.  Its power becomes something I work for, not something I luck into.  That is awesome.

Depending on how it is designed that means that someone that never steps into a raid could have a weapon that is as powerful as someone that is in a world first guild.  Because artifacts, as they explained, get more powerful the more active you are doing anything from questing to raids to PvP that means everyone is on the same level playing field and the person who actually works the hardest earns the more powerful weapon.  You see that... Work... Earn.  That is how gear should have always been from the beginning. No RNG.  This is why I am excited.

Is this the future of warcraft where people have to work for gear?  Where people have to actually earn something?  It brings a tear to my eye.

No more will I hear people say things like "My DPS would be better if I had a decent wepaon" because everyone will have the same weapon.  Now if your weapon is poor, it is your own damn fault for not leveling it up.  You can no longer blame back RNG, you can only blame yourself.  I am so loving the ever living hell out of this.  If someone says that now I an say, "well maybe if you got off your ass and put some work into it you would have a better weapon."

I always hated seeing lazy players and poor players that have better gear because they are lucky.  This would correct one of those problems.  No more good weapons for lazy players.  Poor players could still end up with a good weapon by working hard and maybe, just maybe, by working hard to level their weapon they will become better players.  So this is win win if you ask me.

I do have some concerns about it however.  If it is a huge grind to level up your weapon how is that going to affect alts?  How is that going to affect someone that starts playing 6 months after the expansion came out?  How is that going to affect me if I switch from marksman to BM and now need to level my BM weapon?  This is a pretty big concern of mine personally.

If it is not handled correctly it could be an alt killer.  I do not know how they are planning on making them level but I do have a hope.  I hope that the power level of the weapon is on the character level, not the weapon.  So, for example, I have 6000 experience on my MM weapon and switch to BM that my BM weapon has 6000 experience even if I never used it.  Because lets face it, it is going to suck if you have to level up three different weapons for the three different specs.

For alts I would like to see them add a 200% boost or something, so if you have a character with a higher level weapon that character levels theirs faster, perhaps that might be nice. 

And for late comers like the person who joins the expansion six months after it came out, something like the conquest system is now. Where you can earn more than the set xxx per week if you are late to collecting.  So if you can only gain 1000 weapon experience per week and started 16 weeks late, you can actually gain 16,000 to catch up before you get locked to the 1000 a week like everyone else.  And perhaps a 150% boost to help them catch up as well.

But outside of alts, second specs and late comers, I don't really see many other issues I might have.

A weapon that is as strong as you are willing to wok for it to be?

No "welfare" here, no RNG here, no luck here, just work your ass off and get stronger.  I might just love artifact weapons.

There is only one thing blizzard can do that could really screw this up in epic proportions (which means I expect blizzard to do this).  If they put in mandatory requirements such as "you must do PvP for this", or "you must beat this boss on myhtic for this", or "you must do 250 daily quests for this".  That would completely destroy the awesomeness of an item like that.  Making anything mandatory would ruin it.  Even if it is something super simple, if anything is mandatory, it will completely screw this up.  Some people do not like to PvP, some people to not like to raid and some people do not like to quest.  As long as they keep to what they said, "anything you do" can increase its power, then blizzard might very well have a winner here.  But if they lick anything mandatory to it, they just ruined a great idea.

In truth, if it works the way it seems, I could see myself having a lot of fun with it.  Finally the game makes people work for their gear again instead of relying on RNG for it, or luck for it.  I have no issue with working to get power.... but I do have an issue with RNG, and that is why I might really love this idea.  I can't wait to find out more.