Blizzard to Players: Buy Gold NOW!

Warning:  This post is a tin foil hat edition

Please take it with a grain of salt

Blizzard has finally made their stance on gold buying public.  They support it.  Even more than support it, they have decided to make a reason for you to buy gold and they spent time, effort and development money to create the perfect place to spend the gold you are buying.   Enter the Black Market Auction House (BMAH).

It has been a long held belief around some in the community that blizzard doesn't really mind the gold sellers being out there.  Anyone that has ever reported one of the susan express gold sellers posting in trade can tell you that.  Even more so, someone that did not report the susan express gold sellers could tell you better.

If you do not report them their future messages will not be blocked, so you will see them in all their gold selling glory.  All... Day... Long... You will also see that they keep going for hours and hours on end.

I've seen days where one susan express person was in trade all day long on the weekend.  Were the GMs letting them post or does no one work on weekends?  That is a full day of people reporting for spam.  That is a full day of any GMs possibly logging into the game and seeing trade.  That is a full day of no one playing the game that does not see it at least once.  Yet they are not banned.  They are not even silenced in trade.  Blizzard wants them to get some solid sell time before they pretend like that give a crap.

The common tin foil hat belief about gold sellers is as follows.

1) Gold seller creates an account.
2) Gold seller sells gold for some time quietly.
3) After a long time operating, blizzard gives them a short ban.
4) They come back and shift their stock to another account that just sells quietly and has not been banned yet so it is not lost.
5) They change that account to just an advertising account and spam trade until they are banned.
6) Go back to step one.

The reason for this approach is simple.  They want the gold sellers to feel as if they are getting away with something.  If they ban them as soon as they find them they might stop making new accounts because it is not profitable for the gold seller.  The gold sellers need to sell product to make it worthwhile to keep getting new accounts, blizzard has to allow them to make money to keep the flow going.  So they let them make money, enough to feel it is worth having accounts to do this, and then ban them for a short time, to let them know a permanent ban is coming.

This allows them to send all their stuff to another account so it is not lost when they come back and then they spam trade with that account until they get the permanent ban they knew would be coming shortly thanks to blizzard giving them the nice little warning.  Now this forces them to buy a new account and some game time, making money for blizzard.  Even if they only buy one new game, the base one, it is still a product sold for blizzard and it is still an additional subscriber for their numbers.

This is how gold sellers are handled.  They let them get away with it just enough so it is worth them continually buying new accounts, thus buffing up the companies bottom line.

The introduction of the BMAH is just pushing it to a whole new level.  More people will be needing gold to buy stuff on the market, which means more gold sellers.

More gold sellers means more people to ban and make buy new accounts. New accounts mean more income.  New accounts mean more people that they can label as active players for the stock holders meeting.

By creating a market that offers items that can not be attained any other way in the game, like offering T3 sets, they are saying you have to buy this, you can not earn it in game in any other way.  It is pay gold or you don't get it.

This will create a much larger market for gold sellers meaning they can ban gold sellers more often, as they are making a lot more real money, which means they will buy more accounts more often.  It is a full circle.  They create more demand for gold, so gold sellers make more money, which means they can ban them more often.

When people are not buying a lot of gold they can not ban them often.  It might reach a point where it is not worth them making new accounts all the time.  But if they are making a lot of money, they can ban them much more often.  This means it is worth them making more accounts which makes blizzard more money and looks like they are getting a nice subscriber boost.

This tin foil hat is on fire now.  It burns.  It burns because as wild as it sounds, it does sound... possible?

But could there be any truth to it behind the scenes?

People might say that blizzard does not want gold sellers around because that means hackers too and that makes more work for them.  There could be some truth to that but you also need to remember that they offer everyone in the game the perfect way to protect their accounts.

They do not want people getting hacked, that just creates work for them.  So they offer a free authenticator, just pay shipping and handling, so you can protect your account.

So basically anyone that says that the hackers causing them more work is proof they do not support gold selling is wrong.  It is an unfortunate side effect that they have created a way to beat, instead of banning the gold sellers and account hackers to begin with they just tell people, protect yourself and let the gold sellers do their thing, here is the item to protect yourself.

For things like Ashes, you could still farm it if you want to in game, or you can buy it with gold.  So that could be a flip of the coin in wondering if they support gold sellers by creating the BMAH.  However, by offering things that can only be attained through the BMAH they are basically saying they want people to have a lot of gold.

Being we live in the x-box generation of instant gratification, and they know that, people will not grind to make money.  The grinder generation is mine, not the ones playing the game now.  The x-box generation will just go out and buy the gold and blizzard is 100% fine with that.

Blizzard has been working on ways to drive up subscribers ever since they released the patch they passed off as an expansion called cataclysm that they charged us for and they scared away a fair portion of their customer base with.  The annual pass was a subscriber grab, and it worked.  The scroll of resurrection was a subscriber grab, and it worked.  The BMAH is a subscriber grab, and it will work too.

The thing is, it is a back handed subscriber grab.  They want gold sellers buying new accounts, selling gold, getting banned and then starting all over again by buying another account.  This way their subscriber numbers will go up while their player base gets happier because they feel like they are getting away with something and getting hard or impossible to get items.

It is win/win for blizzard on many levels.  For those that know how to make money, there is more reason for them to stay in game playing.  For people that are not good at making money, there is even more reason for them to stay in game to grind money.  For people that buy gold they get to feel like they are getting away with something.  For the gold sellers they will be more likely to continue to make new accounts no matter how often they are banned because they are making money hand over fist.

It is all good for blizzard, as long as hacking does not increase.  So expect a new push for people to get an authenticator so they can let the gold sellers do their thing while they have less hacking worries.  Don't be surprised if an authenticator is included with the new mists box, just so they can let the gold sellers do their thing with less hacking going around.

This might very well be completely tin foil hat but you have to wonder what are their true intentions.  There are a lot of questions we can ask them and I wonder what the answers would be.

Is it really just a gold sink or just a sign they are out of ideas?

If they are really trying to get away from grindy content for the x-box generation why create something that would require people to grind gold?

If they want people out in the world why stop them from making TK groups every week to get the ashes mount when they can sit in their home town and buy it?

If it is just about making money, why not sell T3 at a cash shop like they do the mounts?

How is creating the BMAH good for the game?

Are they going back to the concept of whoever has to most time to play has all the best toys?

Do they have a plan to stop people from cheating (buying gold) to get stuff over others that actually worked for their gold?

This might be a tin foil hat edition but something inside of me read the announcement of the BMAH as blizzard putting up a huge sign in blinking neon lights over Org and SW that read "Buy gold NOW!" in huge letters going blink, blink, blinkity blink.

LFM DW Kill 395 ilvl+ Must have Achievement.

I've been seeing that line around lately.  On two different servers as a matter of fact.  Mind if I ask what is up with that?

Why would you need to be in almost all DS gear to kill DW?  You didn't need to be in all DS gear to kill DW before the debuffs.

I've tanked it, healed it, DPSed it at range, and DPSed it in melee.  Of the ones I have killed DW on not a single one of my them was over 395 when they killed DW the first time.  Two of them before this new debuffed version came into place.

Someone said in trade, 395 lololol.

Normally I do not like people that type like that because they are usually trouble makers but I am glad someone said something.  He was dead right, in this own trollish sort of way.

The poster said that they just wanted people that knew what they where doing.

I wonder how a 395 item level means someone knows what they are doing.  Could someone please explain that to me?

I wonder how having the achievement means someone knows what they are doing.  Could someone please explain that to me?

Maybe I am missing something here or that guy is just a total moron.

I'm going to go with the guy being a total moron.

I was so tempted to say that my druid tank only has a 384 item level but the fact I was killing it well before the 20% buff must mean I am baddie and don't know what I am doing when he was looking for a tank with those requirements.

People like that are the vocal ones, they are the ones that new people see and hear, they are the ones that make it hard for someone just starting.

I dislike them and I dislike their logic and I dislike the fact they make it hard for new players to actually pug things.  Sad thing is, you see more runs like that then runs looking for just anyone that can at least gem and enchant correctly.

The guy might have said "LFM DW Kill 395 ilvl+ Must have Achievement." but what I read it as is "LFM DW Kill need geared and skilled players to carry my sorry ass because I am too lazy to learn my class or the fights".

I hate trolls but sometimes I have to give them the credit they deserve and do something I rarely ever do, quote one.

So to that guy, 395 lololol.

Monday Random Thoughts

- No new mount this Monday, the trend has been broken.

- I did happen to finish off a few achievements however this weekend.

- The one that didn't get away finally didn't get away.

- So that gave me accomplished angler as well in the process leaving only old crafty as the sole achievement in professions that I do not have.

- I also killed loque to finish off frostbitten, which means bloody rare is the only achievement in exploration left for me.

- Three more rares needed for that one.

- It was sad having to kill loque, the first spirit beast I have ever seen even leveling at least 20 different characters in that zone over the years.

- Even after farming in that area countless hours on my miners, skinner and herbalists.

- I had never seen a spirit beast until that.

- And I killed him.

- Makes you want to cry doesn't it?

- Any hunter would understand my pain there.  It was a sad day for me having to kill him but a good day to finally knock out another achievement.

- Makes you wonder how they judge points on achievements.

- You get 10 point just for hitting level 85.  Something that is going to happen anyway without even trying.

- You only get 25 for frostbitten, something that take time and effort to do.

- Doesn't seem logical to me.

- Then again, nothing blizzard ever does seems logical to me.

- Take a look at what they are doing to poor healers in mists.

- We are in for cataclysm part 2, a world where all the healers disappeared.

- Why does blizzard keep piling on all the hate on to healers and making their lives hell?

- I guess it will be a good 4 months before I can start raiding in mists, just like it was in cataclysm, because there were no healers to be found anywhere in the game.

- Looks like mists is going to end up being worse then cataclysm in terms of the hell starting healers will need to go through.

- And here I was thinking nothing could have ever been worse than cataclysm healing before you where geared.

- The beginning dungeons, even nerfed, are still not capable of being healed by a 329 item level healer that is just learning.

- A pro, maybe with a good group, but a beginner?  Hell no.

- A beginner with a random group all in 329 item level gear?  You have a better chance of hitting the lottery.

- Hell, you have a better chance of hitting the lottery without even buying a ticket than you have of healing that dungeon with any chance of success.

- And blizzard wants to make it worse this pass around.

- Healers of the wow world, you have my utmost sympathy.

- Maybe you should take the hint.

- Blizzard doesn't want you playing the game.

- If they did, they would not put all the pressure on the healers at the beginning of every expansion.

- Blizzard does not want people playing healers.

- But they do what you buying gold from the gold sellers.

- They would not be starting up the new black market if they did not want you buying gold from the gold sellers.

- A gold sink is one thing, offering you things that you can not get in game any more, or things that are super rare drops for gold, is a way of saying, we want you to have gold to spend, so go buy some now.

- Funny that this comes from a company that keep saying they want us out in the world more while they are giving us more reasons not to go out in the world.

- If I can buy the ashes mount then why go out in the world each week to try and get it.

- Blizzards new policy, "Stay in your home town and buy gold to get everything you want."

- Message received blizzard.  But I don't like it.

- I guess I'll have to start looking for what I consider the safest place to buy gold from.

- Blizzard basically just told me too.

- They said, stop wasting your time on a 1% drop grumpy, just buy it from the black market.

- They said, stop going out in the world to do things grumpy, stay in stormwind and we will sell it to you.

- More and more this game is feeling like it is not my game any more.

- I'm holding on, but not sure how much more of their bull shit and double talk I can take.

- Mark my words, the black market is going to make the gold sellers extremely popular.

- Heck, for someone like me that never bought any, I am considering it now.

- Even if I can make 10K gold per hour in game, I could make 50K gold per hour buying it and just working an extra hour at work.

- If time is money, my time is better spent working and buying gold than playing and earning gold.

- Keep it up blizzard and you just might convince me to buy gold.

- That is if they can convince me to keep playing with all this crap they are doing.

- And about those new achievements I got, it put me in the top 2.8% of all people playing the game achievement wise.

- Once shared achievements come I wonder what that will look like?

- I have 17 level 85s at the moment and countless other characters.

- I am sure many achievement whores have numbers like that.

- So getting all those achievement will become lesser of an achievement.

- Me having 1 character pushing 12K is an achievement in its own.

- Me having 18 doing the same thing is nothing special.

- Nice way to kill the value of achievements if you ask me.

- What is next?  Giving us an achievement for logging in?

- Don't forget to get your achievement for logging in.

- Or your achievement for walking 10 steps.

- Heck, I'll even give you an achievement for reading this post.

- You have earned the achievement [Wasted a few minutes on some random thoughts].

- Tune in tomorrow for more achievements.

- Have a great day.

The Power of Buffs for Survival

Out of boredom I decided I wanted to take a look at buffs and how each one effects me on a one on one basis and collectively.  Instead of doing my normal looking at them and pondering them I figured I should share what I was looking at.

As my extremely casual guild, with two hunters and a feral druid as the top DPS in a 10 man that only plays around 2 hours each week is attempting heroics here and there, I wanted to see what we can squeeze out DPS wise to make the fights easier.  Hence the reason for looking at buffs now.  The feral in our group is already top 20 on world of logs for all fights but me and my fellow hunter rarely rank.  Me only on two fights and him only on one and all those ranking are low rankings.

Hunter background.  Standard survival spec, standard ferocity pet spec.  All 397 gear, sporebeard gloves offspec, no spine trinkets and no DW weapon or bow.  Yes, over four months of clears and not a single bow has dropped for either of us hunters. :(

Aspect of the Hawk Only:
27242.19 DPS

Now to look at how all other buffs effect the hunter, no pet buffs are enabled for any of these numbers to make them natural and be able to see the impact of each buff/debuff on its own.

5% Stats Buff (All Paladins / All Druids):
+ 1078.19 = 28320.38 DPS

10% Attack Power (All Paladins / MM Hunter / Blood DK / Enhancement Shaman):
+2110.68 = 29352.68 DPS

5% Critical Strike (Feral Druid / Fury Warrior / Elemental Shaman / Subtlety Rogue):
+1063.82 = 28306.01 DPS

10% Attack Speed (SV Hunter / Frost DK / All Shaman via Totem):
+0 of course, as I am a survival hunter to begin with and it is always with me.

3% Damage Buff (Arcane Mage / BM Hunter / Ret Paladin):
+817.26 = 28059.45 DPS

549 Agility (All Warriors / All DKs / All Shaman via Totem):
+1681.71 = 28923.90

3% Haste (Dark Intent from a Warlock):
+656.28 = 27898.37 DPS

Tricks of the Trade, on cooldown, from any Rogue:
+721.64 = 27963.83 DPS

Tricks of the Trade, Glyphed, on cooldown, from a Rogue:
+481.09 = 27723.28 DPS

So looking at the numbers, the top 5 priority for buffs for a survival hunter to perform at peak efficiency are as follows:

10% AP > 549 Agility > 5% Stats > 5% Crit > 3% Damage

Now lets take a look at common debuffs, again, without any buffs to start and no pet buff given.

12% Armor Reduction (Sunder Armor / Expose Armor / Faerie Fire):
+352.04 = 27594.23 DPS

30% Bleed (Mangle / Trauma / Hemo):
+0

4% Physical Damage (Blood Frenzy / Brittle Bones / Savage Combat):
+358.69 = 27600.88 DPS

8% Spell Damage (CoE / Earth & Moon / Ebon Plague / Master Poisoner):
+1461.99 = 28704.18 DPS

So looking at the numbers, the top 3 priority for debuffs for a survival hunter to perform at peak efficiency are as follows:

8% Spell > 4% Physical > 12% Armor

Now to look at these all combined in terms of pets a survival hunter should have out if that buff is not supplied.  Cross the buffs off the list as they are applied and take the best pet otherwise.  A few of the top buffs a survival can not bring, these include two of the very top ones and they are 10% AP and 5% Stats, however a beast master hunter can bring 5% stats with a shale spider.

The other three of main consequence are as follows:

Cat (549 Agility) > Dragonhawk or Wind Serpent (8% Spell) > Wolf  (5% Critical) 

Now to look at other buffs we can apply ourselves.

Food: 90 Agility (Skewered Eel / Seafood Feast):
+273.28 = 27515.47 DPS

Flask: 300 Agility (Flask of the Winds / Cauldron Flask):
+1160.66 = 28402.85 DPS

Potion: 1200 Agility for 25 Seconds (Potion of Tol'Vir):*
+316.72 = 27558.91 DPS

Potion: 1200 Agility for 25 Seconds + Prepot (Potion of Tol'Vir):**
+619.22 = 27861.41 DPS

* Number will increase if used during hero/lust, proc and/or cooldown usage.
** Number will increase based on timing for prepot and hero/lust, proc and/or cooldown usage.

This basically means that you, yourself, with no buffs other then hawk, can increase your DPS by, at minimum, 2053.16 DPS.  Over the course of a raid night in DS that could very well translate into as much 4,927,584 damage done.  You might think 2K DPS does not sound like a lot but when you look at it as 5M damage over a night, it is a lot.  So eat, drink your flask and use your potions, it matters.

Now lets look at that base number again, with just hawk, and add the best raid buffs to it.

All buffs and debuffs:
+15175.05 = 42417.24 DPS

Buffs make a huge difference don't they?

You just went from doing 27K DPS to 42K DPS just by having the best buffs you can have.

In 10 man raiding you will most likely not have all the buffs but with your pet you can try to fill the spots as needed as best you can.  For me and my current raid set up I am currently looking at this for what my best numbers should be:

My 10 Man with the buffs and debuffs we have:
+7378.87 = 34,621.06 DPS

I've been averaging 33K-35K, and even can reach 39K on ultraxion, so I guess I am doing just fine.

So if you are a hunter and wondering why you are seeing the top hunters average around 44K yet you can't seem to match that look at the buffs you have and base your performance on the buffs you currently have in your group, not the best the other hunters are doing. Not only might they have gear you do not, they might have buffs you do not and we have now seen the massive effect buffs can have on your numbers.

I am almost 8K under the max number I could be, and that is all because of buffs.  Not because of what I am doing but who I am doing it with.

Hope the little list helped some people in figuring out where their DPS is going wrong, I know it helped me move from thinking I was doing something horribly wrong to knowing I am doing something right.  I am reaching my maximum potential based on the gear and buffs I am currently running with.

I guess for my raid group the only thing I need to change is to get one of us hunters to switch to a wind serpent.  That will get my 34621.06 maximum potential up to 36083.05 DPS.  Might as well be me, I am running with a wolf, see picture on the top of blog, and we already have the critical buff.  Who would have thought a wind serpent could make that much of a difference?

Special thanks to Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer for crunching all those numbers for me.

Shared Achievements: Are They a Good Thing?

With all the announcements about shared pets, shared mounts, shared achievements, and shared sharing it has me thinking if it is really a good thing over all.

While I have always liked the idea of account wide achievements I am not sure I am ready to embrace the idea of characters having them all.  Let me explain.

Lets take the what a long strange trip its been meta achievement for example.  Only one of my characters has it.  More than a few others have many parts of it but only one has actually put forward the effort to finish it.  That is my main, my main is who I try to get the achievements on.  Makes sense right?

So when I am on my hunter, I have it.  When I am on my priest, I do not.

What I would have liked to see is achievements put into two numbers, first number meaning this character and second number meaning an over all my characters number.  For example my hunter has 11000 achievement points and my priest had 4000 but my priest has a fair deal of achievements my hunter does not.

So my achievement points should look like this, when displayed.

Hunter 11000/11880
Priest 4000/11880

This would show what that character has, and what all my characters combined have.

The way I am understanding it is that it will show as 11880 on both my hunter and my priest now.

The question is, is that a good thing or not?

I have a feeling that showing it as one definitive number like that takes something away from the concept of achieving something.

If I get an achievement that takes time and effort, like strange trip, on my priest it would feel like I did nothing, because I already have it thanks to the work I did on my hunter some years back.  Sure, I made it on this character as well now, but will it feel the same?  Will I even have the desire to do it again?

It is not like I ever wanted to do that on any of my other characters again anyway.  When I finished it a few years ago I was happy to say I would never have to do it again and I never have.  I've not even attempted it on any other characters.

The one thing that seems to be confusing me the most about it is the recent announcement that reputations will not shared as well.  So if my hunter gets exalted with therazane and gets the achievement all my characters will have the achievement yet I will still need to grind exalted to buy shoulder enchants with each character individually?

I don't get it.  If anything, that is something I would want shared.  Why should I have to grind all my characters to exalted when they all have the achievement for getting to exalted already?

This is one of the huge faults in the shared design of shared achievements.

Like if my main has the achievement for master flying, the 310% one, all my characters will have the achievement for master flying as well.  But they will not have 310% flying.  Who decided these things and do they want to share whatever drugs they are on?

Another thing I don't think I get is the concept that certain things are shared while others are not.  Lets say a part of loremaster needs 14 areas and If I get loremaster on one character in 12 areas and on another in the 2 the first one was missing they are collected for one lump sum of the 14 needed and thus I get the meta achievement.  Yet my honorable kills are not added up so I can have the 100K achievement?  How can you choose to add some things up and ignore others?

I think there is something good about shared achievements.  Some achievements are easier to get on some classes.  Like the moonwell thing with the healer never getting hit.

My priest healer has it because I know how to heal, I know when to heal to get the least aggro, I know how to position myself and I know how to hit fade at the right moments, but none of my other characters have the achievement because I have not been lucky enough to have a healer that knew those things.  I like that achievement being shared. 

For the longest time I had many cataclysm glory achievements on other characters that my hunter was missing and my hunter is my main, so of course I wanted them on my main.  Same goes for T11.  I finished BWD as a tank and a healer but never on my main, a DPS.

My main still does not have shattered world because I have never gone back to do it.  At the beginning of the expansion we were healer light and tank light, so I took one for the team and played those roles instead of on my main.  Now I will get that achievement on my main.  I love shared achievements for that.  I will not longer be upset because I am stuck healing when I would rather be on my main.  I will no longer feel tied to my main because I want the achievements on him most.

But look at the bad things I mentioned, do the good things outweigh the bad ones?

I think they are going about the shared achievements all wrong.  They should do them the way I mentioned before, and share everything, even rep, even valor points collected, even honor kills, everything.

They should display the number as xxxx/xxxxx meaning character points / player points.

So my main, my hunter might not have the achievement for BWD but I, the player, do.  My hunter should not be given the achievement for clearing it, as he did not but I should be able to show people that me, the person behind the characters, does indeed have the achievement.  This way would also give me the incentive to go back and get it on my hunter.  While I, the player have it, that character still does not.

They want to add more to the game yet they don't seem to understand that sharing achievements takes away from the game.  Now if I want something on all characters I have to get it on all characters.  If this goes through, all I have to do it do it once.

Doesn't this effectively remove tons of content from the game?  Doesn't it remove the desire to do things on an alt?  Doesn't it take away the feeling of accomplishment that some people like while they are leveling an alt?

My hunter might not have 100K honorable kills but over all my characters combined might.  So my characters would have their respective achievements they earned, and I, the player, would have the collective total and its associated achievements on my player achievements list.

Shared achievements are a good idea.  Just not a good one as they are planning it.

As they are currently doing it, I do not think they are a good thing.

The Dog Days of Cataclysm

The expansion has reached the point where we are waiting for what comes next.  Most people have completed what they wanted to complete and now it comes down to running the same stuff we have been running for months already over and over to get that one piece that still won't drop for you (actually three for me) or playing around with alts and/or achievement hunting.

Really what it comes down to is this is the point of the expansion where you just want to have fun.  It is no longer about the rat race to finish content before the next patch.  It is no longer about getting as much gear as possible because we all know our gear will get replaced by quest greens soon enough.  Now it is more like if you get it you get it and if you don't, who cares.

This is the time of the expansion where people usually leave the game in droves which is not good news for an expansion that drove them away when it started, which is the time it is usually supposed to gain subscribers.  While the quarterly reports are due out today and I expect to see a rise in subscriptions from the scroll program and people popping back into the game to see the last raid, it is still the dog days.

These are the days that we just try to make it through.  The days where we look for things to do.  The days where we play with new specs or new classes or new aspects of the game we normally don't.

For me, on my main at least, there is not really a great deal for me to do.  I do some solo mount farming once in a while.  I like to try and solo some more challenging content as well from time to time.  Over all there is not much for me to do as I have nearly all the achievements you can get solo already.

So it is time to play with some other characters some.  Change my warrior from a tank/tank spec to a tank/arms spec.  Change my priest from a disc/disc spec to a disc/shadow spec.  Change my druid from a bear/tree spec to a bear/kitty spec.  You know things like that.

These are the dog days, the hard times, the heat is hitting us full force and the last thing we want to do is doing anything that isn't fun.  This is where the expansions start to lose people.

Why does the expansion start to lose people now?

There are a few good reasons for it really.

1) If you have done everything you can save some money by not being subscribed.
2) Knowing there is no new content coming until the expansion makes people lose interest.
3) The desire to earn gear that will be replaced by quest greens turns off many people.
4) There are other new games out there to test out during the lull in the game.
5) The game is still not fun friendly for most, so trying new things is not appealing to many players.

The heat is on now and it is getting hot in azeroth.  So much so it is scaring people out of the sun.  This is not a cataclysm thing, it is an expansion thing.  Four of the five things I mentioned blizzard can do nothing about.  One they can and I would like to see it fixed, even if it really is not broken to begin with.

The perfect example of the dog days and why I think they might get to me for the first time comes from a random heroic I ran while trying to learn to play a warlock better.  Yes, learning my warlock better is one of the ways I am dealing with the dog days of having nothing else to do.  So I figured I would just have some fun.

Long Version of the Dungeon - Skip ahead for the short version if you do not want to read it all.

I finally reached the item level to get into HoTs with my warlock so I queued up for one while doing my cooking and fishing dailies, two other things I am doing just to pass the time during the dog days.

My lock is still not enchanted, still has at least 6 pieces 333 or lower and only the few 378 items he is wearing are even gemmed.  At this stage I do not bother gemming and enchanting anything lower than 378.

The way I look at it is this, 378 is easy as sin to get, it is the lowest of the starter gear as I see it.  So that is where you "start" now.  Just like when the expansion came out, you started at 346 items.  That is the first time gear began to matter.  Now, gear only matters if it is 378 or better.

Either way, back to the dungeon.

We enter the first of the HoTs, End of Time.  I say hello, as I normally do, you could hear a pin drop.  We port to Baine, the tank runs right into the dragons after everyone else had ran to the platforms and start attacking.  The healer sees that and runs up to try and save him, I figure if the tank is tanking and the healer is healing, we can just down them, no big deal right?  Apparently so.

Tank died, healer died, I died, the other two DPS, that did nothing, somehow managed to get on the aggro list and died as well.

Tank leaves. One DPS leaves.  No words said yet.

We get new people, I say hello, I once again hear the crickets.

Second verse, same as the first.  Tank runs into the dragons, this time the healer and all DPS start fighting the dragons but the DK tank apparently does not understand that DK tanking is all about cooldown usage and that not every healer is an over geared healer that can handle it so he dies, the healer dies, the three DPS die.

At this point I was thinking to myself, okay, maybe the dragons are not a push over like I thought they were.

One DPS leaves this time, one replaces the lost one, I say hello, I hear crickets.

We get to the boss, finally, after the tank decides to fight them again, the healer decides to heal him again and one DPS decides to do damage to them again.  The other damage dealer and myself decided we wanted no part of it so we moved on to the platforms and waited for them to die and mass resurrected them.

The tank didn't want to accept.  He waited and waited and waited, one DPS dropped group, we got a new DPS and I said hello to crickets again and the tank finally accepts the rez that has been going out for about 6 minutes now.

Tank asks if everyone is ready, everyone says they are, tank pulls, we wipe.

No one threw the totem back at him and sadly being I was alone on my platform and none where thrown at me I had nothing to throw back.  The DPS was subpar as well.  I mean I knew mine would be subpar because I do not know how to play a warlock, I do not have any decent gear and I do not have it gemmed and enchanted.  But when I am the number 2 DPS behind the tank you know there are going to be issues.

You should be able to do at least 12K in HoTs as I see it.  It can be done with 8K each, if the people know what they are doing but that does not change the fact that if you have a 353 item level you should be able to do 12K, even if you do not know how to play a class well, have no enchants, no gems and the 15% buff.  I am glad to say I barely make my own cut off point, I can do 13K at the moment under those conditions.  The sad part is, compared to everyone else there, I was a god.  This is sad, this is very sad.

Apparently the tank noticed that little fact.  I could almost hear him thinking through the computer screen.  "Not one person threw a totem back and that shitty lock is the only one that is even doing DPS capable of a wrath heroic nevertheless a cataclysm one."

He left group of course.  Then one DPS leaves and another follows.  When we get new people, I say hello again, to no one apparently and start thinking is my party chat broken, not one word from anyone even if I have went through this many people already.

Tank pulls, totem get thrown at me, I throw it back, I spend half my time running from platform to platform while the tank is tanking the mob in the lava and finally I see something in party chat, the tank complaining he did not get heals after he died.

We wiped of course and I am on the healers side here even if the healer never said anything, nor anyone else outside of that one outburst from the tank.  I was thinking if you tank him in the lava with the subpar DPS we had there is no healer, not even a heroic raid geared one, that will be able to keep you up.

At least I notice that party chat is not broken.  One DPS leaves, we get another one.

Tank pulls, we wipe again.  Not enough DPS and we run out of places to go.  One DPS never did anything.  They start a kick and get rid of the AFK DPS.

Tank pulls, we barely survive this time but we finally down it.

I say, port out and back in so you do not have to run through the dragons again.  Three people do not listen.  maybe it is their party chat that is broken and not mine.  They die.

We finally assemble for the moonwell run, after another DPS drops and is replaced, and it seems one DPS decides to attack one mob while waiting for the tank, who seems AFK, even if he didn't say anything.  Suddenly we are covered in mobs doing all we can to survive.  The tank comes back and decides to tank them right there at the entrance and not bring them to the moonwell.

You can tell where this is going right?  We wipe.

Everyone leaves, I think of getting four new people when I finally get that completely defeated feeling and give up.  I do not want to finish it.  At the moment I do not think I ever want to do a dungeon again.  By the end of the run I was feeling as if I never even want to play this game again.

Short Version of the Dungeon - For those that just want the facts.

After a horrible wipe fest on what is really simple content, not even getting crap down and rolling through at least a dozen different players I am left feeling like I never want to play this game again.

Back to the dog days.

By the time we get to that point where there is nothing to do but things just for fun we no longer can deal with those bad dungeons any more.  Not like wiping was fun before, but they go way beyond frustrating now.

There is something about cataclysm that makes these dog days worse than any dog days before a new expansion ever. But really the only thing we have that can be compared was the end of wrath.  Random finder was not around any other pre expansion time.

At least at the end of wrath you could pop on a rarely played alt, get in a dungeon and be done with it.  Something just for fun.  Something just to pass the time.  Something that kept you playing during the dog days.

Unless luck is on your side, you can not do that in cataclysm.  This was a Tuesday, the day the best players usually random, and I could not get even one person that seemed to have a clue what they where doing in their role, I could not get even one person that seemed to have a clue about the dungeon we where in.

If this is the day that the best players play and this is the group I get, I do not see many people surviving the dog days.  There is no reason to stay playing, to stay subscribed, unless there is something worth doing, even if just for fun.

The dog days of cataclysm are going to bring the game to a whole new low in subscribers for this expansion, it is going to show that a game can't make it past its best used by date, it is going to show that the hell the start of cataclysm rained down on the subscriber numbers will hit a second time, for the same reason, the dungeons.

Also, I should note, even if you run into the truly good players, if you use gear as a measuring stick, they even make the dogs days horrible.

Had a run with a rogue, with the legendary daggers and every piece of heroic gear with his savior title proudly displayed, do absolutely nothing on trash for an entire run.  Trash was beneath him, he only attacked bosses because he was better than us.

Sorry, that guy with his attitude would not even get into the third team DS run that we bring fresh 85s on just for fun and laughs and never get more than a few bosses down with.  He would not even be good enough for that with his attitude.

Even the good players make the dog days horrible this expansion.  I don't see things going too well for the game as a whole if mists does not come out soon.

The community is ready to implode and destroy itself.

We all have a front row seat to watch it while Blizzard allows the dog days of cataclysm rip the game apart.  At least, the ones of us that don't unsubscribe do.

How to Fix Bad Players: Part II - Leveling Content

This is a second in a series of posts aimed at fixing bad players and determining what makes bad players bad.

How to Fix Bad Players: Part I - Leveling
How to Fix Bad Players: Part II - Leveling Content

The concept of content dictating what people learn was touched on last post about leveling.  Longer leveling meant you needed to use each ability for a longer amount of time which in turn means you get used to using it and get used to what each ability does making it more a reflex, which is what we call skill.

You can argue many points because they are mostly based on opinions with some facts sprinkled in here and there but you can never argue that repetition helps people learn.  That is a known fact of life and that is where the faster leveling mentioned in the last post abandoned the aspect of teaching people.  However, this is about content and not the speed of leveling as last post was.

So lets touch on the leveling content that has abandoned teaching in favor of just letting people get to max level as fast as possible.

Before I start I want to remind people that they need to think about when they where new.  Sure, we all know how to play now but when we did not know how to play our leveling did teach us things.  Sure, nothing is ever really hard in game but when you had no idea what you where doing it was challenging and we learned how to play our classes because of that challenge.

Each and every person that plays the game probably has learned a hell of a lot from questing and they do not even realize it.

Before leveling was changed to be as quick and easy as it has become there were inherent difficulties with it.  The mob packs were tighter grouped.  The mob packs were in bigger groups.  There were more roaming mobs that would come and join the fight.  Mobs would last longer meaning runners could become a huge issue, even more so if they happened to run into a pack of four or five more mobs.

With the decrease of mobs in the world it has become increasingly easier for new players that do not know any better to pull one mob at a time.  That is something the people that leveled before the old world was changed did not have the pleasure of.  It was rare you could get one mob at a time in dense areas, now it is commonplace.

When going into a questing area, to hunt murlocs for example, it was well known to anyone that has been there in the past that you where going to die.  Many times.  Those buggers traveled in packs, large packs, they moved fast and they bought friends when they moved and there were always murlocs circling your hunting grounds.

If there were ever a case of mobs teaching you how to pull at a low level, murlocs were it.  There is not one of us, at least on alliance side, that can say we have not ended up getting our asses handed to us by murlocs at least once.

While it is true that is it still possible to get two or three murlocs in a pull, the packs have been thinned out greatly.  So much so that it is to the point where someone new, someone that does not know better, could very possibly go to kill their 10 murlocs and never once pull more then one, even if they didn't know their history and even if they didn't actively try to only get one at a time.  Getting one at a time in some areas back before the world was changed was a skill, a real skill.  Murlcos do not come one at a time.

The thinning of the packs have made it that new players do not die as easily when questing which means they do not learn from their deaths.  There is something to be said about having the murlocs rip you limb from limb and that is the next time you went there you paid close attention to their pathing.  

You paid close attention to when you pulled so you could get the least amount possible.  You paid close attention to which one was getting low on life and into that life total running range so you could kill it before it took off to grab some friends. You paid close attention to anything and everything whenever you went into an area with murlocs or you where dead.

Those bunched up packs, like it or not, taught people pulling procedures, taught people to wait for the right moment to pull, taught people an attack priority, taught people to use abilities that are best classified as utility abilities such as slows or crowd control or any other trick you could pull out of your sleeve, taught you positioning to get them as far away from others so they might not run quickly into more mobs.  It taught you a lot.

Now add another part to the then and now equation.  Life total and damage dealing.  The mobs had more life than they do now and you dealt less damage.

When you had gotten three murlocs, by accident or on purpose because you did not know better yet, you would die.  It was just the way things were.  Maybe on some rare occasions you might make it out alive but that had a lot of luck to it if you did.

There was no way in hell you could kill all three before they started to rip the flesh from your bones most of the time.  They did not go down in one shot or two.  Heck, they did not go down in three or four even.  Maybe if you had some good gear you might be able to down them in six shots or five if you happened to land a crit or two.

Usually, back then, a mispull like that would spell death with a capital D.  It is a pull we all had happen.  It is part of the reason we needed to pay attention to what we pulled and how many of them we pulled and where we pulled too and when we pulled them.

Now lets look at today's version of the same pulls in the same area.  The mobs are not as tightly packed which means the odds of trying to pull one murloc and ending up with 42 (slight exaggeration of course) of them is really rare. 

Worse case scenario would be three at most and while three can still surprise you and kill you, most classes can handle it without much of a hassle.  It wouldn't force them to have to rethink their plan of attack to try to learn from it.  They would still run straight back in because something like that is amazingly rare.

Once you reach level 10, every class gets a powerful ability now.  Every class gets something that will most likely one shot one of them which means that three on one, worst case scenario, never happens after level 10.  Worst case becomes two on one.  If you happened to be one of the class and spec combos, like a protection paladin, that gets something that hits multiple targets you could very well kill all three with one shot. 

Yes, I've done it with my shield with only quest greys and whites at level 10, no heirlooms.  Three murlocs dead with one shield.  Sounds like a huge difference from grabbing three back in old days doesn't it?  Three in the old old world meant a very big chance you will die.  Now three means one key press and three mobs to loot.  That is not exactly going to teach anyone anything.

The old way a runner would become the top priority, and it taught you that because you knew what would happen if you did not stop it, but now a runner means you get more mobs and you want them.  You look at it as, thank you, now I do not need to move, and switch to target another murloc closer so you while the runner goes and gets you more loot, er, mobs.  Big difference from seeing one runner getting away and the only thing that went through your head was "oh shit, I'm dead".

The compact mobs, the tied together mobs, the crowd control pulling, the mobs that walked paths, the runners that could not be killed only by the DoT left of them when they took off, all those things made a difference in the difficulty of leveling.  All those things taught people while they were leveling.

While I did argue that leveling is faster now and it is true and I did argue that leveling faster helped make bad players it doesn't mean that those faster leveling quests and more experience giving mobs had to also be so watered down.  So not only is the speed of leveling an issue with the game developing bad players, the quests themselves and what is required of the players is developing bad players.  It just compounds the error that faster leveling has made further.

How about the elite mobs that were part of quests.  Some were group quests.  Some were just slightly harder end of the quest line quest mobs.  They taught people to get others to work with.  They taught people how to work as a team and make a plan of attack.  They taught people roles and how to work them in a group to best benefit everyone in the group.

Even the mobs that you could solo required you to clear an area to attack it beforehand or you would be in a special type of hell as soon as you had 15 mobs on you.  Even the classes that mastered soloing mobs like that, hunters come to mind being one myself, you still needed to plan your attack so you could solo something like that.  It was not like that big baddie end guy would be going down in three or four shots like it does now, the fight was going to take a little bit of time and you needed to make sure you had that area clear for however long it was going to take.

All of that taught you something, but those quests are gone now.  No more elites to run into, no more need to make groups, no more massive amounts of mobs that will come after you if you went straight to the big baddie.  No need to worry about respawn timers because it is not like the fight is going to take more then a few seconds.  No more epic battles that would require you to know every ability you have and be able to use them.

I know some people will say I am wrong and they are entitled to their opinion as much as I am.  All I know is that leveling used to teach you because as post one stated, it took time so you learned your main abilities by repetitive motions and as post two here says, it taught you the other basics like lesser used abilities and how to pull.

I first learned about pathing mobs from questing.  I first learned about pulling too many from questing.  I first learned about runners from questing.  I first learned about creating kill orders from questing.  I first learned how to best set a path to get to where I wanted to go from questing.  I first learned how to use my extra abilities like slows from questing.  I first learned the power of crowd control from questing.  I first learned how to kite from questing.  I first learned how to manage threat from questing (because I was a hunter, this does not fit for other classes solo). I first learned how to use line of sight to my advantage from questing.  I first learned how to pick a spot to stage my battle from questing.  I first learned my limits from questing.  I first learned how far I could push those limits from questing.  I first learned how to work as a team from questing. 

I first learned how to do so many things from questing.  All of those things I would not learn now because everything dies so fast even with only quest gear that planning is no longer a part of the game and neither is learning what your class can do apparently.

So it is not only the speed of leveling that is creating bad players, it is the content of the quest that people do while leveling that is creating bad players.

Leveling just does not teach anything any more.

It is kind of hard to teach things when one shield from your paladin can kill three mobs.

Next up:  Leveling dungeons are teaching players to be bad players.