What I am Not Excited For

I while back I made a post about things that are going to be in mists that I am excited for.  Now it is time for the other side of the coin, what I am not excited for.

The Black Market Auction House:
From my standpoint there is absolutely no up side to this.

People get things by buying them instead of working for them or lucking into them.  Mind you, I am no fan what so ever of the luck system, but if I had to run something for three years to get a mount and that mount is still in game and still attainable the way I got it I believe people should need to get it the way I did.  Maybe they will get lucky and get it on one run or maybe they will have to run forever to get it, but at least they earned it.

Before anyone says I only think that because I want to be special for having it I should point out that I have mounts, armor and weapons that are no longer attainable in game and I have no problem with them being attainable.  There is no way to get them, so adding a way for newer players to get a piece of the past does not bother me.

It is just that I believe if something is still attainable in game you should have to get it in game.  I don't think anything that is in game now should ever be offered there.  You should need to get it the way it is intended to be attained.

Then there is the other way around.  I've been farming the drake that drops from UP for many years.  Probably been soloing it since ulduarish time in wrath when I was first capable of soloing it.  While I have not done it every day I would say I have easily run it 300+ times and never seen that drake drop.  When I get bored or am looking for something to do or have a little time to kill before a raid, I run UP and hope for the best.

When I get it, there is one less thing for me to do in game.  As much as I hate the random number generator for not letting me win it, I like that it gives me something to do having not won it.  Having something like that to do adds a little fun to the game.

I will be tempted, heck, I will buy it if it pops up on the black market auction house.  I have the gold and I need the item, so I will buy it.  I do not have the self control to pass it up.  If I see it I will get it and it will take something away from the game from me.

I will lose my little something to do whenever I have that free time.  I will not have that excitement of finally seeing it drop when it does.  It will take away something from the game.  I think having little things like that to pass the time is a good thing and selling the items we do those things for removes the need for doing them.  In a way, selling stuff on the black market auction house is removing content from the game.  As in, if I buy it, I no longer need to run UP.  It removed that content from the game for me.

Then we have the elephant in the room.  Gold sellers and the buyers that love them.  Something like the black market auction house will mean there will be more gold sellers in the game.  It means there will be more gold buyers in the game as well.  The thing most people miss is that this will not only effect the black market auction house it will effect the entire balance of the game.

People will buy gold to get that expensive mount or raid gear on the market and then buy more so they can get that new craftable belt or power level a profession and they will buy more and more and the prices on everything will go up in the process because people have become more comfortable buying gold.

Not to even mention what the added gold sellers to the game will do.  More people getting hacked is only the tip of the iceberg.   They will also be around gathering meaning more competition for what can sometimes be pretty competitive to begin with.

Nothing good comes to the game from gold sellers being around and having a part of the game that requires people that want stuff, including heroic raid gear, that costs a lot of gold you are giving the gold sellers a damn good reason to be around.  It was blizzards way of putting up a sign that says gold sellers welcome here.  I don't like it, not at all.

No Valor for Gear:
I want to know who the genius that thought this one up was so I can send him a nice thank you bomb.  Just kidding of course but really what is the logic behind this one?

I don't know about others but for myself I use the valor gear to at least semi gear up alts so should I need them I can just bring them into the mix and they are not completely out geared.

Take my priest for example.  I used her at the beginning of the expansion and felt her healing was weak and switched to my shaman which it was a lot easier healing T11 and T12 with.  So my priest, after just a few runs in T11 sat on the shelf for a long time.  She did however stay geared up.  By running randoms I was able to keep up with buying valor gear and when T13 came I did not need to play catch up, she was already geared and ready to roll day one having not even raided since those first few steps into T11.

How about my rogue which was oddly enough my second 85 this expansion.  He had never raided, ever.  I think I took him on one of the weekly raids back at 80, maybe two.  He was my crafter for my hunter.  As a leather worker his entire life was lived just to make gear for my hunter.  However, since I could get gear with valor I was still able to keep him geared, even if only minimal as he did not even run dungeons much.  When T13 came out and I was capable of getting in there to start the legendary quest line it was not like playing a game of catch up, he was appropriately geared for DS even having never raided before in his life thanks to valor gear.

Or my warlock, the character I really hate playing this expansion and my only class that I do not have at least one of with a 390 item level or better.  Thanks to valor BoEs and justice BoEs I was able to give him a nice little jump start.  The same way I gave every character a jump start when they first hit max.  I like that my characters can help each other like that and without having gear for valor that means no gear BoEs for valor either to give myself a jump start.

Speaking of BoEs that is a whole topic of its own when it comes to the valor and justice gear.  Are you aware how many people make the bulk of their gold selling them?  I never really have but there are many people that make their gold that way and that is probably the easiest way for people that are horrible at making gold to make gold and being they apparently want people to all have a ton of gold, see above, taking away an easy way to make gold is not a good thing.

I know of many people that have a whole slew of alts but only one main.  They gear up their main and run their alts to sell the valor BoEs for big money in those early weeks.  I feel bad for them but it also works both ways.  What about someone that has the extra gold and wants to gear up a little faster, they no longer have those people selling that they can buy from.

Removing valor gear is changing something, a lot of things really, that we have all become used to and accustom to.  I do not like the idea of just upgrading gear with valor.  It is a horrible idea.

What are we going to do when we upgraded everything?  Is all that valor now useless?  At least now you can buy some valor BoEs with that useless valor and make something.  From the various servers I play on the current valor gear sells from 800g to 4000g even still all depending on server economy.   I am not sure about you but I would prefer 800g to useless valor points any day.  Gear for valor just makes sense and having one or two of those pieces be BoE make even more sense.  I am not looking forward to upgrading gear with valor and that is all we can do with it. 

Mind you, I am not saying I dislike the idea of upgrading armor and weapons, I actually love that idea.  I am just saying that removing gear for valor and replacing it with the upgrade system is a horrible idea.  They could make valor gear you can buy and upgrade gear.  But that would make too much sense and it would make valor more useful for a longer time.  Why would they ever do anything as stupid as making something useful for a longer time.

Cross Server Zones:
Oh my god I don't even know where to start.

Lets start with basic and simple.  What if someone likes playing on a small or medium server?  Cross server zones basically means you are forcing them into a high population server.  On my main server if I go to level an alt I can be fairly sure that I can quest without anyone else in the zone and even if there is someone else their might be one or two.  On another one of my servers where I recently leveled another character every zone I stepped into was filled with people all over the place.

I like both of them.  Some days I want an area all to myself and others I like to see life around.  And I am just one person and like both ways.  I am sure there are others like me in that aspect and I am sure there are many that like it quiet all the time.  Some people choose to be on low population realms because they do not want people around all the time.  A cross server zone takes away that option and forces them into a high population realm basically.  So much for giving people choice huh?

This also makes for the trifecta in messing with the economy.  Add a black market auction house to screw with gold, take away BoE valor items to screw with gold, and make gathering a multi server thing instead of a single server thing to screw with gold.

Way to go blizzard, you hit the trifecta in screwing with the economy.

Lets take the small server for example.  You have one guy that does laps in winterspring for icecap and sells them 50 gold a stack.  He does an hours worth of picking and can usually farm around 10 stacks and all is well for him.  He is happy with the money he makes and the server is happy with the price because it sells at that price easily.  A good supply and demand balance has been reached on that server.  Enter cross realm zones and he goes to farm and now has 100s of people there, many of them competing for those same herbs.

He can no longer get 10 stacks in an hour, he can only muster up one and a half with that type of competition going on.  If he is intent on making 500g for his hours work that means he will need to sell those for just a bit more than the 50g a stack he usually did.  In this case a little bit more means roughly 375g a stack.  There is no market for 375g a stack.  So it does not sell, and he does not farm them at all any more.

It could work the other way as well on a higher population server, with a cross server that means there is an increased spawn rate, if the game is designed the way they say it is at least, and on a higher population server where they sell for 13g a stack and there are always many people there it will now sell for 6g a stack because there are more people there and more farming causing faster respawns.

For the low pop server with few people farming, they will lose out on materials for their server and the price will go up in the process.  For a high pop server that normally had a fair deal of people there it will now have more and there will be more in the mix because of the higher spawn rate meaning the prices will go down.  Crossing realms chances the balance.

Lets not even think about the balance of the players, lets think about the balance of the bots.  Lets say a server has someone running a bot on it, they just have that one bot to deal with.  But if you are using the cross server zones then if 10 servers are there together and 5 of them had bots now that one area has 5 bots.  For the bot runners that is awesome.  Five bots mean faster respawn rates, again if it really works as they say it does, and that also means you, the human player now has to contend with 5 bots beating you to the node instead of just one.

Gee thanks blizzard for making me have to compete with 5 bots now instead of 1 when I go farming.  That was so nice of you to think about me like that.

Lets not forget about questing.  Some people like the low population servers because they can just do their thing.  The one mob they need to kill will be there because no one is there to kill it.  On high population servers you often find yourself and a few others going for the same quest mob or mobs and if they are not nice enough to group with you guess what?  You are stuck waiting for respawns.  There are some quest mobs in some areas that are barely enough for one person to finish the quest and have a dismal respawn rate.  Welcome to the full world where there are now 10 people looking for the mobs that there were not even enough for just you.

That makes me think about us poor hunters.  The only class in the game that needs to hunt for an ability, as in a spirit beast.  How do you think a warrior would like if he had to hunt for his charge and other people could kill it before he got it, or a priest would like to hunt for their greater heal that others wanted to kill to grief them?  If a BM hunter wants a spirit beast which is the best for them in most situations they need to hunt for it.

For someone like myself, with 7 max level hunters and having have never even seen a spirit beast even if I am always looking for them this is already frustrating.  What is worse was the fact the first spirit beast I ever saw in my life I had to kill for frostbitten.  No thank you blizzard, I do not want even more competition for something I should not need to compete for to begin with.  Do not cross server zone any zone that has rare spawns that a hunter needs.

Or how about any zone an achievement hunter needs to get things in?  Frostbitten and bloody rare are hard enough as it is when you are one of few looking for it.  How do you think it is going to be if 100s are looking for it?

And how do they plan to handle spawns?  What if terror spinner had spawned on server B 20 minutes ago and server B is the server you throw me on when it was due to spawn on my server in a few minutes?  Lets say I go back over and over looking for it and always get unlucky and thrown into a server where it spawned 20 minutes ago.  I might never find it.  Now I need to fight the random spawn thing and fight the system that could very well put me on a server it is impossible for me to get it on every single time.

Word to the wise.  If you want frostbitten or bloody rare, get it now.  It will be damn near impossible and require a lot more than time investment and luck come mists.  It will involve double luck.  You need to be lucky enough to be in the right place and lucky enough to get thrown on the right server they decide to make for the cross server zones.  Nothing good can come from this.

Don't Have Group, Won't Travel:
Blizzards official stance on this is that they are removing it because they want people to get out in the world more.

I am almost speechless, good thing I am typing this and there is no need to talk.  I have never heard a more erroneous statement in my entire life from them or more proof that no one at blizzard plays the game.  How does removing something that gets people out in the world more often get them out in the world more often?

I just can not grasp that concept.  I can just imagine the brain storming on this one in the offices.

Clueless Designer 1: We need to find some ways for people to get out in the world more.
Clueless Designer 2: How about we remove have group will travel?
Clueless Head Designer: Don't people use that to get out in the world more in pvp, raiding, and helping others quest?
Clueless Designer 2: Yes, but if we remove it they will have to fly there so they will be out in the world more.
Clueless Head Designer:  Do you think that will work?
Clueless Designer 1:  It has to, people will be forced to go out if they can not summon people.
Clueless Head Designer:  Okay, lets remove it.

It was probably something as simple as that and they removed it and once again completely forgot who their player base was.  They forgot that the reason people do not go out is because they are lazy and have group helps cure lazy in some cases.  They forgot that have group made it easier to get people around so people used it to get around more often.  They forgot that instead of needing two people that where not lazy to go to a summoning stone you only needed one person which effectively made it twice as easy to get a group together to get out.

It also made it easier to get people to help you if you needed help.  Lets say you where leveling and at the amphitheater and needed help.  You would say, could anyone help me for 5 minutes and while most would love to help you it would take them 20 minutes or more to get there if they where not already local and then they would need to head back to what they where doing before hand taking more time so they do not help.

With have group they say, sure, have group me, you get there, you kill the mobs, you hearth back and go back to what you where doing.  No one wants to waste 20 minutes flying to help someone unless they where bored to begin with but most people, decent ones, if they are not doing anything pressing would help a guild mate for 5 minutes if they could instantly get there.  Gone are the days of using have group to get someone somewhere to help you.

How about doing PvP defenses when horde is trying a two phased attack in multiple cities?  Have group is king.  My guild is not a PvP guild and most do not even like PvPing but with have group we go out to defend because it is only a matter of saying, have group me there and then suddenly we have 16 people that were sitting around doing nothing out in the world doing something.  All thanks to have group.

I can not even begin to tell you the number of times we kept inviting everyone that popped online and have grouping them to us and doing some world PvP.  We used it for tram fights.  We used it for attacks.  We used it for defenses.  We used it for molten front skirmishes.  We used it for open world fights that originally started as a two on one and ended up a 10 on 10.  All this from a guild that does not even have one guild rated battleground win because none of us PvP.  All thanks to have group.

Once we even took out a double attack in stormwind and darnasses at the same time thanks to have group and some good timing.  It was all thanks to one mistake in timing from the horde and some good use of have group and my small group of guild mates, 16 in total, wiped two 40 man raid groups at once.

We saw them coming in stormwind so we assembled in the kings chamber waiting when we got an inside tip that the group attacking stormwind was only a distraction it was mostly the PvE players and people that already had the other achievement, the serious PvPers and ones that wanted the achievements were going somewhere else.  So all of us that had alt mages popped on to our mages, ported them to another city and went back to wait being we did not know what the other target was yet.

We destroyed them in stormwind really quick, with outside help from others around there of course, and while we where finishing we saw they where going to darnassas.  I had my mage in the building, I switched characters, hit have group, and the full PvP group walked right into all of us ready for them.  They never saw it coming, we took them by surprise completely.  We took out the entire group in roughly 90 seconds, it was pure slaughter and probably the most exiting PvP moment of my game play life.  It was amazing, it was exciting, it was great fun and it was all thanks to have group.  Of our group of 16 people only 2 were PvPers.  The other 14 would have never even joined in on the fun if it had not been for have group.

It is the moments like that people remember.  Things like that make people love the game.  It is the feeling you get from doing stuff like that which makes you want to do it more and play it more.  It even inspired a couple of those players to get a little more involved in PvP.  Have group did what it was supposed to do.  It got people out more, it got them to do new things, it got them to have fun, it got them to experience something that could be addictive, something called fun, something the game needs more of.  So it only make sense you would want to remove something like that right?  Well, to blizzard it does.

I can list example after example of how have group has made people get out in the world more than they have in a while but apparently it seems my experiences are unique.  I seem to be the only person in the entire game of over 10 million people that got out more because of have group because blizzard has all the numbers and they say that no one goes out any more.  They are saying that nothing like I described has ever happened for anyone but me.  Blizzard is all knowing.

Removing have group is not horrible.  We never had it before and we did just fine so we will live just fine without it.  The thing is, to say you are removing it to get people out in the world more is the worst lie ever.  It got people out in the world more.  It did exactly that.

I would love to know the real reason they are removing it and not the lie they tried to feed us.  Blizzard must think everyone that plays the game is a fan boy that will listen to everything they say as if it were gospel.  Sorry blizzard, some of us know better and we know it was not removed to get people out in the world more because people where getting out in the world more with it.

If anything all it did was save time and as I have said a million times before, I am all for saving time.  I would rather spend 20 minutes playing instead of 20 minutes traveling to play.  It seems blizzard really wants us to spend that 20 minutes traveling because removing have group has made us do just that.  Instead of being out in the world playing we will be out in the world traveling.  Thanks... no.

So how is removing have group supposed to get me out more when it got me out more to being with?   As I said, proof that no one that makes these decisions plays the game because apparently they have no clue how the player base uses have group.

Well, that is all I have for now.  I do have another header I wanted to address but I am not posting that on purpose because I feel it needs a topic all its own.  I also feel it is something that is high priority to me and people like me that like to grind stuff and farm stuff and look for more involved game play.  So that is left out, but the above things, those are things I believe everyone could agree with.  Or at least I think everyone would to some extent.  They are things I am not looking forward to at all.

All Raid Fights Should Be Like FL+4 or Yogg +0

Blizzard seems intent on making it so that everyone in the game can raid and they are doing various things to make sure it happens.  Lets forget for a moment that everything that have done has been horrible and try to focus on how it can be better.  While the fact remains that I completely disagree with the concept that everyone can be a raider I do believe that there is a way to effectively implement that as a possibility and still keep things fun for everyone.

Instead of the game having three levels of difficulty they can use the ulduar activated modes to create difficulty.  It doesn't even need to be anything really elaborate even.  It could be something as simple as the concepts they used to create levels of difficulty in uldaur on a few fights.  A simple design, done to perfection.

Lets take a fight like flame leviathan as an example and I do not mean a vehicle fight, I mean building a fight based on activating something, or deactivating something for various levels of difficulty.

For sake of this argument I am going to make a brand new fight and describe how it would work in all levels of raiding.  Gone will be the days of looking for raid difficulty, normal difficulty and heroic difficulty.  Everything would need to be activated.

The fight will take place in a brewery, we will be fighting a panda that has been infused with the corrupting sha forces.

The basic version of the fight would be a tank and span basically.  If nothing is activated it will be super easy, the one that is meant for everyone.

If you break the window out before the fight, you will have to deal with weather while fighting. His HP will go up +50% and his damage done will go up +25%.

If you shatter the beer barrels before the fight, you will have to deal with beer spills on the ground that need to be avoided.  His HP will go up +50% and his damage done will go up +25%.

If you talk to the NPC outside of the fight, they will not stop the flow of adds from entering the battle.  Add will now continue to come throughout the fight, for each add active he, and the adds active, would gain +2% attack speed and a stacking buff that reduces damage he, and the adds, take by +2% for each add active.

If you insult his mother when you activate him, one person will be strangulated for 20 seconds at all times.  While it can not target the current tank, it could very well target a healer and that could make for an extremely interesting 20 seconds or the second tank that was supposed to taunt in 2 seconds meaning you could very well need to make some interesting strategies on the fly.

Being difficulty is personally adjusted there will no longer be any need for toggling heroic on and off.  Heck, for that matter there would be no such thing as heroic any more either.  For arguments sake, having all things active would be hard mode and designing them to stack the way they did would make for an amazingly hard hard mode even when starting off with a basic tank and spank boss.

At the base level, with no added options, it would be designed around looking for raid type of difficulty with one major advantage, you can walk into it.  This means that lesser guilds can actually experience progression at their own pace, even in 10 man mode if they wanted to.  It also gives them the advantage of having real loot instead of system assigned loot.  It would also mean that even on the worst servers it can be pugged because now you can walk into a looking for raid difficulty version with 10 people or 25 people.  The 10 man option you can walk into with a looking for raid difficulty would be a huge, beyond huge, advantage to the raiding community and even more so those people that want to start raiding.

The looking for raid difficulty version will be basically mechanic free.  It will only have the most basic of basic things.  None of the activation things will be capable of being activated if you get it as a random, so no one can grief a group of new and unskilled players by talking to someone or activating something but if you walk into it they can be activated.

The fights would be as basic as can be.  Taunt at three rotations for tanks.  Tanks being the only ones that take any major damage if people do what they need to which will make the healers lives easier.  Maybe just a small AoE once in a while to keep things interesting for healers some.  There will be one standard mechanic that new players could use to learn like fire on the ground or stack up for one thing and spread out for another, but that is about it.  It will be kept basic and simple.

When walking into the raid you can do it on that difficulty or add some difficulty to it, depending on how you want to do it.

Add some weather so you need to avoid the tornado and get out of the hurricanes.

Add some flowing beer on the ground that likes to change direction so you have something else to avoid.

Add some adds to handle.

Or basically make it that you will be 9 manning it because someone will always be out of commission for the entire fight.

How about 9 manning it with weather, or having adds and beer spills, or having to 9 man it with beer and adds, or doing the beer spills, weather and adds but not 9 manning it, or maybe even all at once for a seriously hard core fight that it going to take near excellence of execution.

Now that is good raid design.

We could also move back into one of the reasons I know I love ulduar, so many achievements to get.  If anything, there always seems like there is a reason to do it.  More achievements to get.  If anything, this is one of the reasons I am against account wide achievements.  All my characters would have all the achievements and the replayability would drastically fall.  As it is, I always have a new character I am willing to run it with to get achievements.  I am going to miss that feeling come mists.

There could be an achievement for doing it on normal.  One each for with only weather, only adds, only beer or only 1 person less.  One each for any combo of two.  One each for any combo of three.  One for using all four.

One for no one getting hit by weather while it is active, one for no one getting hit by beer while active, one for no one getting hit by either while both are active.  One for never having more than 5 adds up at the same time, or one for letting 20 adds come out before killing any of them.

How about one of those annoying random number generator achievements where you have to beat the boss after everyone has been gripped at least once.  There would also be a return to the days of wrath when there were 10 man and 25 man achievements.  No longer would one achievement cover both, you could now go for the achievement on 10 and on 25 again making one raid have more options of more things to do.

A raid design like this would include more people in the raiding world.  It would give people more achievements to get and more reason to run it on both 10 and 25 to hunt them all down.  It would mean that all guilds of all skill levels could have some sort of progression.  It would make the raid last longer as there would be so much more to do in it and most of all it would revive the pug society on many of the small servers that don't see pugs any more at all.

There is no downside to developing raids like this.  It is better for the game and it gives everyone more to do and more to experience and enjoy.

Having activated modes like that means it would be easier to develop for looking for raid too.

Think of something like the blood boss with activated modes.  Nothing activated would be like a looking for raid difficulty, one blood released, can't be killed, no matter what it hits the boss and the blood would never be purple.  This would solve the two main issues I've ever seen in LFR with this boss.  Purple and healers that do not know how to handle it and the problem that no one ever switches to bloods anyway, which if you have bad healers could mean a wipe even in looking for raid.

Now lets play with some activated modes.  We made the base mode easier.  One thing activated would mean +20% health and two bloods released, one can be killed.  Two things activated would mean another +20% health and three bloods released, one can be killed.  Three things activated would mean another +20% health and four bloods released, one can be killed and last but not least, four things activated would mean another +20% health and five bloods released, but you can kill two of them, or can you?

I just made the base version easier and the heroic version harder without changing the fight in any real way.  It also means it can be super easily pugged even by the lesser skilled players and without even the need for voice communication for people that have never done the fight before.  The hard core players get a chance to go even more hard core and the new and inexperienced get to play along as well.  Plus think of all the achievements we could piggy back on to them.  So much more could be done with the game if there was an activated mode for difficulty and we could all adjust it ourselves.

I don't see why blizzard would not design everything like this.  It is just better design.  Give people options on how they raid instead of just trying to throw everyone together.  We are not all the same and things should not be designed to deal with everyone being thrown together as if they were.  Any system that lets the people decide their own difficulty is a good design and one blizzard should incorporate into raiding.

As always, in my opinion at least.

Monday Random Thoughts

- For today's random thoughts I am going back to basics.

- I'm going to complain, going to be grumpy.

- I want to complain about the fact that mists has not been announced yet.

- It will most likely be released two months after announcement.

- Come on blizzard, we want it sooner, not later.

- I love the idea being thrown around about raids not being in the initial release to get it out faster.

- Maybe that is because I'll be raid ready 2 days after release, at the worst, and I know the rest of my guild won't.

- No raids on release means I don't get antsy waiting for everyone to play catch up.

- I want to complain about how female worgen look in dresses.

- They should not be allowed to be any cloth classes.

- Men look even worse, but at least you can laugh at them.

- The females just look scary bad.

- I want to complain about random group make up.

- Is there such a thing as a random dungeon horde side without at least three blood elves.

- There are so many of them I am surprised I do not see them on alliance side too.

- Just like worgen should not be allowed to be any cloth class blood elves should not be allowed to be any plate class.

- How can that tiny frame even hold that plate up without crumbling into a puddle of goo on the ground?

- It just does not look right.

- I want to complain about people in randoms.

- Not like you might think either.

- While I am sick and tired of people pulling 3K DPS in heroics that isn't all it.

- In just 329 gear when you start them you can do 6K if you suck.

- So if you do 3K that means you worse than suck?

- I did a whole slew of randoms this weekend, each one had at least 1 person under 5K.

- We wiped more than a few times.

- We worked as a team and still made it through all of them.

- That is what I want to complain about.

- How can a group with a half geared healer, a baggie tank (which means he was the only geared player there) and three DPS that seemingly just hit 85 manage the heroics, even grim bartol twice, yet some other groups can't.

- I say blame the good players for that one, not the bad players.

- The good players that rag on the bad players that is.

- They are the ones that make the randoms horrible.

- We wiped, I explained what went wrong, we tried again, it took a little longer, some of the fight I did not even know could last that long, but we managed it.

- It felt good.

- I was on a fresh 85 myself, so it was not like I could make up for the others lacking.

- However, I would like to complain a little about the dps now.

- Fresh 85, nothing gemmed, nothing enchanted, still pulling 12K-14K with the 15% random buff.

- I honestly want to know, how is it possible to do 3K.

- I bet a boomkin in agility gear can do more than 3K.

- I bet the healer can do more than 3K.

- Eh, at least we finished the runs and a few new people learned the fights.

- I do want to complain about one more thing in randoms however.

- Why does everyone wait until you wipe before they say they did not know the fight?

- Say you do not know the fight before it starts and I will happily explain it, give you tips for your class, and understand if we wipe because at least you are trying.

- Don't say nothing and wait for three wipes before you say you do not know the fight and guess what?

- I agree with the group if they want to kick you.

- You just wasted our time, if you just said something we could have explained it and downed it the first time.

- I know why they do not say anything however.

- They are afraid one of the others might be one of the so called good players that will rag on them for not knowing the fights.

- It is one of those caught between a rock and a hard place things for them.

- I want to complain about why they left any difficulty in the original heroics after the game started.

- Corla is still a killer for most groups with all new people.

- They love to give out gear to get people caught up to the current raid tier, so why are you punishing people with the older heroics still?

- They should have all been nerfed to the point the 3K DPS and people that do not know how to beam dance could do them the moment the zuls came out.

- There is no need for them to be any problem any more.

- But as they are, they are still quite the adventure.

- Glad to say I did not drop one group, or even get tempted to start a kick.

- Also glad to say we finished them all.

- Even one GB run with two of the DPS doing 3K each.

- No, I am not kidding.

- I want to complain that we where not given a filler raid.

- A one boss thing, like an OS style thing where we can do it normal or with three different increasing difficulties would have been nice.

- I think something, about 1 month ago, to tide us over would have been nice.

- That is just me, because I like to raid, but I understand that raiders are a very small percentage of the population.

- Which brings me to wanting to complain about blizzard trying to push everyone to raid.

- Stop doing that blizzard.

- There is a reason less than 5% of the player base raids.

- Because most do not want to.

- If they wanted to they would get better at the game.

- Making raiding easier for them is not a good solution.

- These people are not raiders because of more reasons than they are not good at their roles.

- They are not raiders because they do not want to learn tactics.

- They are not raiders because they don't like working as a team.

- They are not raiders because raiding is something that is set up at a certain time and they can not make that type of commitment to a game.

- They are not raiders because they do not want to waste gold on gems.

- They are not raiders because they do not want to waste gold on enchants.

- They are not raiders because they do not want to waste gold on food.

- They are not raiders because they do not want to waste money on flasks and potions.

- They are not raiders because they can't follow orders.

- They are not raiders for a million different reasons.

- Making it easier will not change any of those other facts that prove they are not raiders.

- Making it easier will not make them raiders.

- Unless you plan to do away with gems, enchants, food, flask, potions, tactics, teamwork, reforging, rotations to get the most out of their class, and all those other things, they will never be raiders.

- Stop trying to push them.

- If they wanted to become raiders, they would.

- It is not like it is hard to become a raider for someone that wants to.

- They just do not want to.

- So they should not be rounded up and pushed into it.

- Remove the looking for raid so you can stop giving non raiders the idea they are raiders.

- Like the one hunter I saw with all near BiS gear doing 12K.

- I wanted to cry being a hunter myself.

- Goes to show you that just because you let him into a raid, you did not make him a raider.

- In that gear 30K would be bad, 12K, there is no word for it.

- 25K would be the suck mark, less than half that is way more than suck.

- This is the type of raider you are developing by making people think they can raid blizzard.

- Stop doing us raiders any favors blizzard.

- We do not want these people thinking they are raiders.

- Less than 5% of the player base raids because less than 5% of the player base wants to.

- Be happy with that and stop trying to force people to do things they are not capable of doing.

- I want to complain about the fun toys in game.

- A fun effect can last anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes and it has a 30 minute to 5 hour cooldown?

- Chill with the long cooldowns for fun items, let them be fun and let us use them.  Nothing should have a long cooldown if it is a fun item.

- 30 minutes max for those things that have long initial effects.

- 5 minutes or so for those things that have short effects.

- Make the fun items fun I say.

- I would like to complain that come mists we will see our opponents in arena before it starts.

- Don't get me wrong, my 40% win rate proves I am not great at arena, but part of the fun is not knowing who your opponent is.

- I like trying to assign strategy as soon as the gates open.

- It makes it feel like the team that adjusts the fastest and best gets the leg up.

- I think that is how arena should be.

- Maybe seeing who we will fight before the gates open will help people like me.

- I say screw people like me.

- If I want to get better at arena I need to learn to get better.

- I do not want the game making it easier for me, I want to get better.

- It is this way of thinking that blizzard is destroying the game one little piece at a time.

- Let me lose at arena until I learn to adjust to the team I am facing on the fly.

- Now that is fun, that shows skill, the people that can do that deserve to win.

- I want to complain about the black market auction house.

- I hate the idea that I ran kara for years to get the mount and now some jerk that buys gold from a gold seller can get it from the auction house.

- I play the game as intended and have fun doing it and it takes me a year and a day to get it, but it sure felt worth it.

- Someone else breaks the ToS, buys gold, and you sell it to him without him ever even stepping foot into kara.

- I know it might sounds like special snowflake syndrome but the fact remains true that if that person wanted it, they should have ran kara like everyone else before them did.

- I don't think anything that can still be attained in game should be for sale there.

- I can even understand selling things that you can no longer get in game but anything you can get in game you should be told to go get it.

- Instead they are telling people, don't play the game as intended, buy gold and get it instead.

- Are you going to give a title out to all the people that buy stuff on the market?

- ToS breaker.

- Lets face it, most of the people that buy stuff from there will buy it with ill gotten funds.

- Don't worry, blizzard won't ban you, they want you to buy gold.

- That is why they are adding a place for people to use all that gold they buy.

- So for me it comes down to deciding if I want to join the dark side.

- Do I keep running UP for the 5th year, or just buy some gold and get the mount?

- I have never supported gold buying, but if blizzard is going to, I might as well too.

- Go out and buy some gold to get ready for mists.

- Just make sure you have an authenticator before you do so you do not get hacked.

- And never use the same password for a gold selling site (or any site really) that you do for your e-mail or battle.net account.

- Hey, just because blizzard want you buying gold doesn't mean they want you getting hacked.

- Do the above two things and you will drop your chances of being hacked by 99.9%, guaranteed.

- So make blizzard happy and go buy some gold.

- Or go old school like me and just earn it.

- Like I earned my kara mount.

- Have a great day.

Are you Good or is it Easy?

We all hear people saying that the game is getting easier.  I've even often complained about how fast leveling is and that it is too easy now and doesn't teach anything.  The fact is, while things have been made a little easier and a lot faster they are not always as easy as we all make them out to be.

As proof I could offer one thing, what your eyes can see, so open your eyes.  

Look at the fact that it has been said that around 50% of the player base does not even have a max level character.  Look at the fact that, even with the now 25% nerf, a fair deal less than 10% of the total number of players have even completed DS on normal.  Look at the people in your random dungeon that can not even pull 8K DPS at an item level of 380+.  We like to call all these players bad players but the simple fact is they are not bad players, or at least not as bad as we make them out to be, they are just not as experienced as we are.

While I will still argue that leveling has been made way to fast it is not as fast as I make it out to be.  I've leveled a hunter in 1 day 18 hours and could have done it in less if I had not messed around doing nothing a couple of times.  I did it without any refer a friend for triple experience either and no rested, being I basically did it straight away and had no time to build up any substantial rested.  Just heirlooms and guild bonus.

The thing is, that was my 6th level 85 hunter.  I've been playing hunters since I started playing the game.  I love hunters and I love being a hunter.  I know the class better than any other class in the game.  With that type of experience in the class and having done all the quest what seems like a million times I knew what to do, where to go, how to do it and more importantly, the fastest way to get it done.

For someone new to the game, even if they pick it up really fast, they have no prayer of doing it that fast.  They will not know which quests to hold on to because they can piggy back them with another one that comes a short time later so they speed up their leveling.  They will not know what areas are best to quest in with good, tight hubs.  And more importantly, they will not know where everything is and how to get there, that alone will eat up a fair amount of their time while leveling.  So it will take them longer, much longer.

So that begs the question, is leveling that fast because I am good at it or because it is easy?

It is that fast because I am good at it.  Yes, it is easier then it had been, but add the fact that I am good at it to the fact it was made a little easier and that is why I am flying through it fast.  Some people can still take 20 days played to get to level cap because it is their first time.  They don't know where everything is and they have to find their way and experience everything for the first time whereas for me it is old hat.  I know where everything is already.  Heck, just finding a certain vendor somewhere could waste a new players time to the tune of an hour or two.  I remember my first time in stormwind and getting lost there for at least three hours while I tried to find where everything was.

It is fast for me because I am good at leveling, not because it is really that easy.

Now let us take a look at the dungeons.  When cataclysm was first released and people entered the dungeons we could all tell who the raiders were and who the non raiders were instantly.  The first time that guy pulled you in when doing blackrock caverns the raiders switched to the chains and then ran out, the non raiders kept attacking the boss and died instantly because they did not run out.

That is just one example of is it easy or are we just good.  Raiders, people that are not raiders but have game experience, anyone that read it before hand, they all knew what to do because they had all seen it before.  They did not know how to do it right because it was easy.  They knew how to do it right because they knew it.

Corla and her beams were, and still are, a random killer.  Any players with some experience even not knowing the fight might get caught off guard by it and mess it up the first or second time but once they had it they had it whereas others still just could not get it.  Does that mean it was easy?  Nope, it just means the people that have raided before understood how mechanics like that worked so they picked up on it instantly and the players that were new or never raided just could not understand it because they have never seen anything like that before.

I could go on and on with fights and their little mechanics, the ones where you would see people rage in the random, "it is so easy, just step in and out", but the thing most people don't seem to grasp is it is really not as easy as it seems to me and you.  The only reason it is easy for us is because we are good.  We already know how to handle things like that so it is easy for us.  Just because it is easy for us does not mean it is easy.

So dungeons are not easier than they used to be, they are actually harder.  The issue is that raiders and regular players have the been there done that feeling to everything so they adapt quickly, it is because they are good, not because the fight is easy.

Raiding is the absolute perfect example of good vs easy.

Look at tier 11 raiding.  It was awesome on so many levels but it proved that it was not for everyone.  It was the perfect example of good vs easy.  It is why nearly every server in the game experienced the massive pug lull in the game during this point, it was not actually easy, it was a lot to handle for people that where not raiders with experience.  For some people it was easy, the raiders with experience, but it was not really easy, it was because they had a fair deal of game experience and they where good at doing those things because they had done them all before.

Elemental monstrosity is the perfect example and in my opinion the most pug unfriendly fight in this entire expansion, right ahead of omnitron defense system, because of the amount of things going on for that fight.  There were basically five bosses with five different sets of abilities.  You needed to stand near someone when you had one buff, run into something when you had another debuff, switch targets, interrupt, kite, pick up one buff for this and another for that, you name it and this fight had it.

Go in there with a group of people that have been raiding for an expansion or two and even if you had to bang your head against the wall for a few wipes you got it done because everyone had experienced every single one of those mechanics before.  Oh yeah, this is like the thing from ToC that when I get it I have to run to the other snake, so I will run into the fire when I get it, now I understand.  Stuff like that.  A good player was only good because they picked it up faster and they only picked it up faster because they knew how to do it already, they learned somewhere else and just had to do it here.  New players can learn it, but new players can also be overwhelmed on a fight like this with a lot of stuff going on a lot faster than someone with experience would.

A pug group of people that never raided before and that fight turned into a nightmare.  Even ODS could very well be a nightmare in a pug because of the target switching and mechanics of two things at once and four things they needed to remember.  For people with raiding experience, it was easy to understand that two different sets of mechanics out of four possible ones where going on at the same time but for someone new, the idea of one set of mechanics is enough to drive them insane never the less remembering four sets of mechanics and having one set active on a mob you are not even targeting.  It could make new players really confused and fast. 

For many guilds ODS was easy, because it was a whole bunch of easy mechanics and stuff we have seen a million times before but for new guilds or people that where new to raiding this could very well be a massive road block in teaching people how to monitor a few things going on at once which is information over load to people that are new to raiding which made this fight extremely hard for them.

I know where everyone is coming from.  I have been there.  I have said that.  I have felt it, the stress, the how can you not know how to do that feeling.  All because I felt it was easy.  It was not easy, it is just that I already knew how to do it before I did it, if you get what I mean.

Things like the poison boss in ZG come to mind as good examples.  First time in there I saw the pattern it puts on the ground and noticed it was always the same.  I never got caught by it.  That is something that someone with experience notices, that is what makes it easy for me and others, we know how things like that work.  Others died from it, others, even if they understood what to do, always found themselves caught because they did not realize it is the same pattern every time.  It was them learning so the next time a fight like that comes up they will be the ones saying, this is easy because they already did it before.

So I present to you my observations and point out that the game is not getting easier, you are just getting better at playing it.

The real issue here is that they keep designing the game to try and be a little harder but there are always new players coming in and those new players will always start at the beginning of the learning curve and as they keep adding more mechanics to make it harder on us, the ones that have been there and done that, they are making it so much harder for the new people to learn when they first start.

The next time you see someone die to something and think, how could you die to that, it is so easy, remember that it is only easy to you because you have done it a million times.  It is not easy to someone that is new.

If anything, I say that the game, from the raiding and dungeon standpoint at least, is harder than it has ever been in the history of the game.  It just does not seem like that to us because we have all been there and done that.

While it is true, to raiders, dragon soul is the easiest raid ever it only feels that way because for us, the raiders, because it didn't offer us anything new.  It was actually correctly designed to let new people come in and raid too.  We might think it is easier but if anything, it is correctly balanced if the game wants to keep luring new people in and turning them into raiders too.  Actually, if anything, it could even use being a little easier when we consider that still less than 10% of the player base has actually killed the last boss with a 25% buff.

The game is not getting easier, you are just getting better at it.

That is what it really comes down to.

Sell it All: Confessions of a Hoarder

Hello, my name is grumpy, and I am a hoarder.

There, I did it, I admitted I have a problem.  But I rationalize it by trying to say at least I have everything I will need if I level another character on that server.

I have enough enchanting materials to level two enchanters from 1-525 instantly.  I have enough herbs to level an alchemist and enough inks to level two scribes.  I have enough ore and bars to make blacksmith leveling a joke.  You get the idea.

But it does not end there.  I have patterns for everything. I have some rare ones that do not drop any more and have ones that still drop all the time.  While I can surely rationalize the ones that do not drop any more are worth keeping why am I keeping the ones that seem to drop all the time.  They are worthless aren't they?

I have so many coilfang armaments, bog lord tendrils, unidentified plant parts and other things I don't think I could use them all if I wanted to.  I have enough relics of ulduar to build on very own version of ulduar.  If there is a quest type item that can stack and is trade-able I have it, in large quantities.

What it all comes down to is that I am out of space because of this. So out of space that I am actually considering making a second guild bank just to hold my various good and that is when it occurred to me.  Where does it stop?

I have to start letting go but where do I start?  Sometimes it can be really hard to just let go but from leveling some alts recently where I sell everything, due to lack of space and need for gold as they are on new servers, it has shown me that letting go can be a good thing.

So I need to make a line for myself and draw it and decide what is worth saving and what is not.

First things first when doing something like this is to have a general knowledge of what I might need in the future and what is required to get it.

For example, those patterns I mentioned.  The ones that are no longer in game are a keeper for sure.  The longer I hold on to them the rarer they become, so they are worth holding on to.  Right?  Or am I rationalizing again?  But the pattens that seem to drop all the time are not worth holding on to so it is time to let them go.  If they can sell on the auction house, sell them, if they can't, vendor them.  Yes, vendor them.  If they are really that easy to get than there is no use wasting space on them any longer.

That is what I need to consider when I decide what to keep.  How much effort would be involved in getting it if I did not have it?  Something like peacebloom, do I really need to hold on to 8 stacks?  I could pop right outside of any major city and fly around for a little bit and get all the peacebloom I will need.  To replace it would be a short bit of time, to sell it would mean a huge amount of space.  Even if I purchased it off the auction house when the time came that I needed it, it is cheap, so holding on to it means I am wasting one valuable space for something I can replace for 5 gold or less.  I make more than that on one quest.  So why keep it?

Is it worth the time to gather it again to free up that space?  I think so.
It is cheaper to buy it when I need it than to clog up a space something with actual value could be filling?  I think so.

My new rule for all gathering items, save a few, will be the one stack rule.  I will keep one stack of everything.  If I have 21 I will sell the twenty and start a new stack with only one.  Anything past that one space in my bank now falls into the sell it all category.

Same should go for gems, enchanting materials, bars, ore, leather, etc.  One stack is enough.  Perhaps I can extend it for some things that I have found take longer to gather like illusion dust or huge emeralds.  If I am going to use more then one space on any crafting item I am going to make sure it is something that takes longer to gather up or costs a lot that is it not worth buying.

If it is something that is easy or cheap to replace... sell it all.

Certain things that I save in case I need them while leveling I never need.  I've leveled a few leatherworkers and never once used any of the dragon scale colors or scorpid scale or turtle scale so if I want to power level another leatherworker I really won't need them will I?  I guess it is time to ditch them all, there are some people that make mogging gear that will surely love me for selling them.  I am just hoarding them anyway and they are taking up way to much space being they do not stack that high.

If I do not see myself using it... sell it all.

Some things make sense to keep from time to time like I said.  Illusion dust does seem to be the hardest dust to gather up.  So might as well hold on to it so when a guild mate needs some I can give it to them instead of them having to pay 20g a pop on the auction house.  Another thing I will keep are inks.  Being all inks are always usable even at max level, have to love that design, it makes sense to have a nice stock of them at all times.  Whenever someone needs a glyph you will have the materials ready to go and lets not forget all those new monks that will be needing glyphs.  So it is worth holding on to some of those inks for sure.

But even in those cases when is enough enough?  I have over 500 ink of the sea and even if I want to make sure to have some stock to make glyphs for people in the guild that is a little much.  I could never use that many if I tried unless I wanted to get into the glyph making business on the market and quite honestly I can't be bothered.  Just playing the game makes enough money to buy everything I will ever need, so there is no need for me to go out and make more unless I am bored and looking for something to do. 

So with that in mind, I have two options.  Use the ink to make glyphs or sell the ink straight out.  Keep 100, 5 stacks, that is more than ample for something that might have a somewhat normal use.  It might even be too much to hold on to, but cut me some slack here, at least I am trying.  A hoarder is a hoarder and I am working on it.

Even the harder to get stuff you do not need to keep tons of... sell it all.

Those reputation items, even more so the ones from BC being that seemed to have tons of them.  Things for scryers and aldor to get rep and switch rep can really stack up.  If I am not planning on getting the rep or switching the rep there is really absolutely no need to hold on to them at all.  There are always people looking to grind rep for them or stacking up to switch rep so they can get one of the rarer still attainable feats of strength, hero of shattrath.  So get rid of them and let those people trying for the achievements fill your purse instead of keeping them and filling your bank.

Some of those BC things it might be worth holding one stack of.  Unidentified plant parts, glowcap, bog lord tendril, they are all quest items you can send to a new character to get the quest done instantly, so one stack space for them is no big deal but you can live without it.  All that stuff is really easily attainable and I've noticed even if I had it in my guild bank I still usually get it all myself and don't send it over anyway.  Guess what that means?

All those reputation items, unless you are saving them to get the rep yourself... sell it all.

All those oddball things you are holding on to like preserved holly you need to ask yourself why did you save it?  To sell it.  So why are you still holding on to it?  All us hoarders have tons of stuff like that from holidays that we stocked up on because we thought maybe I can sell this later for some gold.  Guess what, now is later isn't it?  Sell all those oddball holiday things at the half way point.  No need to save them forever.  You will get tons more next time the event comes around.  No need to keep collecting them.  Even as a hoarder, you are only hoarding things like this so you can sell them later.

Now is later as soon as the holiday is 3 months past... sell them all.

It is not easy and quite honestly it is the nature of the RPG player.  Anyone that has any history in playing these type of games is a hoarder in one way or another even if they do not know it.  For some it is worse, like me trying to have massive amounts of everything just in case I need it some day.  Well guess what, I can get it again if I need it some day.  Over 600 arcane dusts and 2000 infinite dusts are better off sold because I can get them again in no time.  If anything, why do I have so many of both, because it was easy for me to gather them.  I never went out of my way to get them, they just magically appeared in my bags so to speak so if I need more later I am sure I can make them magically appear there again.

Anything that you can easily get... sell it all.

Space is limited so decisions need to be made on what to clean out, even for a hoarder like myself.

Next thing I would like to work on is my mains bags but I just can't get rid of that stuff.  All my goodies collected over the years.  Fun stuff, removed stuff, odd stuff, you name it.  I still have an extra copy of the quest item that started the epic hunter bow quest, how could I throw that away?  I still have my scepter from the scepter of the shifting sands quest line along with dr weivals diary, how could I throw those away? 

I saved the letter from the oracle orphan I got four years ago because I thought it was the cutest and saddest thing in the game all at once, how could I throw that way? All those archaeology items so I can make wind chimes and turn myself into amber and have a mirror image of myself and all those other things I will probably never use but how could I just throw them away? 

The item that turns me into a wolvar, the one that turns me into a wisp, the one that turns me into a furbolg, the one that turns me into a vrykyl, the one that turns me into..., oh hell, I love things that turn me into other stuff, they are fun, how could I just throw them away?

I'll admit it, I am a hoarder and I am trying to address it by selling off a lot of stuff, but those goodies.  Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere, I am not ready to give up that side of my hoarder personality just yet.

The other stuff, yeah, I will just sell off of it.  In the end, gold takes up a lot less bag space and I can replace the stuff I plan to sell with a little effort.  Heck, it might even give me something to do in game for those down times when I am bored as opposed to just popping over to my bank character and having everything always.

So that is the bottom line.  If it is something you can easily get again... sell it all.

I am a hoarder, always will be, but I am trying to get better by selling anything that isn't nailed down.

Are Legendary Weapons Going to be the Standard?

Every since we started getting data from the upcoming mists expansion and things are getting datamined we have been seeing legendary pieces of... stuff.  Many speculate that it is possible that these things are designed to be an upgrade system sort of like how they are changing valor from something that buys gear to something that upgrades gear.

The more we see the more it seems like the legendary update system might be right.  It is possible that is what they are going to do being they have new legendary icons for all classes of weapon, except for polearms, bows and crossbows it seems.  More interesting than the lack of a bow, polearm or crossbow legendary icon is the presence of a legendary shield icon.  It has my shield wearing classes drooling.

The question that begs to be asked is, are legendary weapons going to be the standard now?

There have been many additions to make the game more user friendly, and by user friendly I mean allowing everyone to do everything, so is mists going to be the time when everyone can get a legendary weapon too?

While we all might be wagging our tongues talking about, and tapping our fingers typing about, the possibility of legendaries for everyone I am looking at things from another perspective.  Something someone says I seem to have a knack for.

Does blizzard really care about their community any more?

The series of events leading up to the legendary for everyone possibility seems to show that they don't.

They have made the world useless to go into for most which is why people spend their time in home cities.  Staying in home cities means that trade chat is resembling an old text based HTML chat room more than ever before.  Blizzard does absolutely nothing to moderate it and allows people to turn any conversation into a fest of throwing insults back and forth but instead of telling the children to act better they just let them go at it.

This trade chat garbage is bad everywhere you go and it is dragging down the community.

They added the looking for dungeon so people could find groups easier instead of spamming trade for hours on end.  I was glad for that because I hated coming home and spending three hours looking for a group I could never assemble and then logging off having done nothing all day long, so for that it was good, but for everything else it was not.

The LFD was bad here and there, you would run into a bad apple but most of the time it was fine, in wrath at least.  You made it through the content just to get your daily dungeon out of the way which is all most people asked.  There was the occasional asshat here and there but blizzard let it slide because it was only a random dungeon and 15 minutes later you would never need to deal with that jerk again.

What they did not seem to take note of was after a long time and after seeing a great deal of those people it soured people on the LFD and the community in whole.  While it might be true that only one in every 10 groups might have been bad the human mind is very particular in how it remembers things and it will remember every single one of those bad ones and seemingly forget those nine good runs.  But that is human nature.  Predictable human nature, something blizzard should have known about before they even released it and they should have taken serious action on LFD greifers back then.

When LFD moved to a 7 per week format instead of a once a day format for points everyone that was a decent player did their runs that first day or two and you usually had mostly good groups but when the end of the week came you ended up with the dregs of the game, the people you wonder how they even made it to max level.

This meant that when you did your random became more important, it also meant that if you did not run them that first day or two you where more likely to get a bad group.  We had a joke in my guild that you never run a random on a friday.  The reason being is no one in the guild had ever had a decent random on a friday, it seems like the worst players in the game play on fridays.

This also meant that your rare bad group was not a 1 in 10 but kind of like a fifty fifty chance when you ran between friday and monday. This means more people reporting more bad players.  This meant blizzard ignored all those reports and never took any action against any of these people that where ruining the runs for other people.  The healers that refused to heal, the tanks with all dps gear and spec that just went as a tank for the fast queue, the people that refuse to DPS, you name it, they where in there and they got reported and blizzard ignored it.

Blizzards response to situations like this is as follows.  If the player is that bad you can kick them if the rest of the group agrees or you can drop group and get another.

That is blizzards official stance.

That is them saying, we do not care if someone is purposely making your game time suck, as long as you are still paying for it you can go scratch because if we ban them they might stop paying so we will let them greif you and you will either kick them or leave to get a better group and we will keep getting money from both of you.

So the LFD started to drag down the community even more.

Then the looking for raid entered the scene and instead of the random one person making life hell on others you could get five or more depending on luck or lack thereof.  When it was new and those bad people did not have a 372 item level it was not bad at all but as soon as those people started to catch up the LFR went downhill fast.  People not switching to bloods, people killing the corruption, people doing everything they could to greif the group.  Pulling bosses, pulling extra trash, pulling when you only have 1 healer, stuff like that.

The worst of all the looking for raid greifers are all those people that would just laugh and say, it is only the looking for raid, and totally miss the concept that these people are barely able to do it.  If you are with a full group of actual raiders then yes, it is only the LFR but when you are doing it in LFR you need to follow mechanics because most of the people in there are not raiders and not very good.

I've seen good players, players that play it the way it should, turn into one of them because it has reached the point of if you can't beat them, join them.  A hear horror stories of wiping multiple times on morcok now because people just flat out suck.  People doing 4K in 372 gear, 4K was bad even at the end of wrath.  People dying on purpose so others can down the boss and they can get their loot.  All things like that.

We report these people, blizzard does nothing.  They go with their standard chant.  Kick them or leave.

The LFR has started to nail the coffin shut on the community.

Now if they are going to add the legendary for all approach it makes me scared for what is next.  Is blizzard trying to destroy the last good bit of community we have left?  Is blizzard trying to destroy the guild run raid group?

Blizzard has let trade chat become a chat room filled with trolls and done nothing.

Blizzard has let the asshats ruin random dungeons for the most part and done nothing.

Blizzard has let the inmates run the asylum when it comes to the looking for raid bringing community interaction to an all time low and done nothing.

Now they want to infect the last remaining bit of decent community we all have, our guilds.

I hope they balance it around everyone needing to do most of the legendary on their own and not have it be something they collect in raids like all other legendary things were.

I can see it already, tearing most guilds apart, if it is something that needs to be collected in raids.  Lets go over what to expect.

I should get it because I am the tank.
I should get it because I am the healer.
I should get it because I am top DPS.
I should get it because I have been here longest.
I should get it because I am always on time.
I should get it because I make the food.
I should get it because I make the cauldron.
I should get it because so and so had one last expansion.
I should get it because I am the raid leader.
I should get it because I am the guild leader.
I should get it because I am the bf/gf of the raid leader.
so forth and so on...

Blizzard could in one swoop cause more guild drama than all guild drama there has even been everywhere in the game all added together.  Thanks blizzard, this is just want the community needed.

Is blizzard even considering trying to destroy the last piece of decent community in the game?

If they make it that people need to kill 300 bosses instead of collect 300 items this can work just fine.  If blizzard is making it collect 300 items than blizzard has truly lost their mind and is attempting to destroy the last bit of decent community there is in the game, the guild.

I beg of you blizzard, I plead to you, do not make it like that.  I know it might not be like that.  I know it is too early to tell.  I know I might very well be over reacting and probably am, but it scares me what would happen if they did this.

You do nothing about trade trolls, you do nothing about random dungeon asshats, you do nothing about looking for raid greifers, at least give us this.  Leave our guilds alone.

It is hard enough dealing with the who gets the legendary first in most guilds, but if everyone can get one at the same time you are just asking to create drama if it requires collecting pieces from raids.

Don't do that to us blizzard.

Please think for a moment and please make my worrying all for nothing, make me wrong.

Spend a little time moderating the community to make it better and spend less time adding things that attempt to rip the community apart even more.

Now to end this with a joke.

The evolution of LFM

Classic: /2 LFM MC must be level 60 with all level 60 gear.
BC: /2 LFM Kara must be attuned and geared.
Wrath: /2 LFM ICC must have 5000 gear score.
Cataclysm: /2 LFM DS must have item level 395 or better.
Mists: /2 LFM RoO must have legendary.

Actually, that is not very funny, but expect it, I am calling it now.

Bad idea blizzard... bad idea.

I can't believe that a legendary might be coming out that I can get and use (still don't have the bow) and I am against it.  I guess I am one of those rare people that would not cause guild drama over it because to me there are things much more important.

The good community and good vibes of a guild will always be more important than a legendary.  But as I mentioned, I look at things differently.  I would put guild first even if I want the legendary too.  I don't suspect you will see many people that think like that.

This is drama no one in game wants or needs.  Lets hope all the guessing going around about the legendaries for all is wrong, or at least that it is wrong that it will require collected items from raids.

A Hunter is Born: Starting New Again.

I decided to roll another hunter because the end of the expansion blues are getting to me.  Of course it will be another hunter but I am going to do things a little different this time around.  I am going to attempt to take my time.

Leveling being as fast as it is this expansion has really ruined the fun of the whole leveling alts thing and I do nothing to help myself really.  I will accept an invite from a level 25 guild, because of the bonuses.  I love the reputation bonus.  I love have group.  The bonuses are more quality of life for the most part.

Depending on if the guild has anything worthwhile in the bank I love being able to carry the guild bank around.  Not to mention, sometimes when you are questing and run out of bag space having the guild bank that you could at least throw some of the stuff people have a use for in is not a bad thing, it is better than just throwing it away.  Boar meat is better there don't you think?

The experience gain boost is over kill.  Leveling is fast enough as it is.  If you have that it is even faster, if you happen to have heirlooms it is even faster.  So fast you have to think what is the use of leveling anyway, just give people an option to go to 80 instantly and let them level only in the current expansion.  It is not like leveling is teaching them as it should.  If leveling is not going to take time, leveling serves no purpose.

But back to task.  I am on a server I have no characters on so no help to myself, from myself.  No heirlooms, no bags, no gold, I'll be doing it all on my own.  I will also take my time.  I will stop at every fishing pool.  I will get two gathering professions and make sure to gather everything I see.  I will draw it out some.

This is supposed to be something to pass the time while waiting on the new expansion.

If anything, I think that is the biggest loss with leveling being made so fast now.  An alt you play just for fun once in a rare while can now find themselves at a high level without even trying.  It used to be nice that it took time to level.  Even in wrath I had alts I would pop onto from time to time and they never made it anywhere really.  They remained low.  Now, you sneeze and you gain 10 levels.  Sad really.

So my hunter is going back to basics.  I am going to level beast mastery.  That is something I have not done all expansion.  All my new hunters this expansion have leveled survival and being it seems BM might be the way to go next expansion I figured I might as well relearn the spec and get the feel of it again being it has changed some and I have not played it at all this expansion.

I am guessing starting new with no boosters except the guild one which I can't avoid if I want to be in a guild and stopping for all fishing and gathering nodes I can easily extend the leveling time to at least 5 days played to max which would be a lot better than my standard of 2 days or less for hunters.

The more I think about it the more I believe that the biggest problem with bad players at the end game has to do with the leveling system.  I want to see the return of the days when people reached max level and they had 30 days played, not 3.  It would make for a better game.

It would also make for those alts like this that are made just to pass the time to pass more time.  Let the huntering begin.  I love starting fresh on a new server sometimes, except for not having any bag space.  Oh how I dread that.

I know I say I am going to take my time, but I know me, I get into a grove and go.  I'll bet next week I will have another hunter at 85.