Results tagged “Raiding” from From the Abbey to Outlands

You know, it is really, really hard sometimes being right. Less than two months from the release date of Wrath of the Lich King, and what do I see while perusing the forums? My first seen thread about... Tada! 'Whaa, whaa, there's nothing to do'. Of course the person is posting on a level 5 anony-troll(who is literally a troll, nice touch), but it has still happened. Of course this is likely just a troll being, well, a troll, and this may not speak to the thoughts of the entire raiding community, but this is not the first time I have heard the points Iys makes.

1) Raiding is too easy - from the ready at 80 Naxx 10 man, to the Sanctum and even Malygos himself, all of which was done by Ensidia within days of Wrath's release, the raiding community is calling it simplified and crying to the heavens that Blizzard made it all so easy that the lowliest of folks in casual guilds can no become battle hardened raiders. Well, folks, guess what? Your 5% of 11 million do not a player base make, at least not a player base of this here game. Sure, you might make the headlines, but you don't make the game. The first time 90% of the folks who got into Sunwell saw it was after the 3.0.2 patch when the raid bosses were nerfed and we were all super powerful. No, I have no math on this, only the observation of the many bloggers and podcasters I follow.

2) This is the end of it, The game is done - We know there are at least 2, and more likely 3 additional 10/25 person raid dungeons left in the works. Blizzard has already said Ulduar and the 3.1 patch has been done since Wrath, if not since before Blizzcon. We know Icecrown is coming in 3.3, and we heard rumor that 3.2 will also bring us a new raid dungeon, though we could just as likely see a new Magister's Terrace level of 5 man along the way too. The content is not 'done' and will not be done. You might be done gobbling it up and feeling a bit of the indigestion from pushing yourself to hit 80 and get those kills, but there's a bunch of us back here that are still waiting in the wings for that content to be at our level.

3) In BC Blizz did better, they are slipping - No, not slipping, realizing. They are becoming consumer aware. Casual Day is approaching. The humans are taking over. They will wipe out the (raiding) machines. Bad parody of Terminator aside(I shouldn't have just watched 4 episodes straight of SCC), Blizzard is realizing their customer base isn't the people bashed their head against the Mu'ru wall, but the players who rejoiced when they finally got Kara cleared in one hard fought night, who were ecstatic when the Burning Crusade attunements were dropped, who pushed to clear Zul'Aman once for a Bear mount, and who happily passed a Warglaive to the next guildie cause it was better for them.

So Blizzard, the raiders, or at least some of them, have spoken. They have rung the bell, they have challenged you to pistols at dawn. Will you sacrifice the 95% and toughen up your game so that only the truly elite can see the end game, or will you be kind to your majority who say nothing because the end game is just right for them, and who will just go do something else and give up the Tier Gear dream if you make it all unobtainable? We await your answer...

Sorry for the tardiness on this post, but yesterday was a big recording day for me, getting some All Things Azeroth episodes pre recorded for the upcoming NaPodPoMo, and just ran out of time before bed that would allow me to write this post. If you'll recall the last couple of posts I have showed you the mods that went bad, the new mods I found to fill the roles I needed, and today I am going to go over the mods that, like a rock, stayed by my side like a good friend.

I wouldn't say WIM was a rock, more a strong tree, but still it's there, and it does work well enough. It feels like it's lost some of it's features, like tab to move to the next window, but for now it's working enough to be useful. One mod that remained strong, though feeling incomplete, is Titan Panel. Like it's bar based competitor, FuBar, Titan Panel allows mod authors to write plugins for it, and that is there I have found Titan falling short. Many of the plugins I most cherished have not been updated, and therefore do not work as well as I would like.

I was pretty sure when I saw Ark Inventory available for use in the beta, I would be able to upgrade to it when the patch hit, and I was dead on. The patch showed that AI was fully functional and ready to go on patch day, and I rejoiced in the knowledge I would have that small piece of comfort. Auctioneer is another one that works, though I have not spent much time in the auction house to do testing to ensure all of it's features are where they should be in the mix.

When it comes to raiding, Deadly Boss Mods was a mod I knew would need to be done, because many raid groups count on it to be polished and working or wipes can, and often do ensue. Thankfully DBM didn't even hiccup in the face of 3.0.2, in fact it did better than expected in game queues for boss events like the rain in Zul'aman. Omen, likewise, is essential to any good raider and was updated, with a new parchment look, for the patch, and hasn't showed a bit of hesitancy since. In fact, I like the new config interface better, as it clearly shows me how to change that horrid 'you're getting aggro' sound off.

Chatter is working, though it was copied from the old install, so I can't say it's a rock, since it hasn't stayed strong, just stayed functional. The quest log combo of DoubleWide and Lightheaded were updated within a few days, allowing for useful and happy questing throughout my WoW time. Pally Power is working nicely, though I am still grasping how it works and how to customize it properly. I am using AlphaMap again, which is a cute little map mod that shows on mouse over the current zone's map. Minimap Button Frame is also working, thought here is not a lot to the mod other than clearing up the minimap from the clutter of buttons that seemingly every mod tosses up there.

Gatherer was a mod that many in my guild were worried might not be fixed for the patch, and while it was not on day of, a couple days later it was updated and working, once again recording herbs and mineral spawns found in my travels. Lastly Statusbars, a mod I find essential for keeping my eyes on the action instead of wandering to the edges of my screen, was updated quickly, cleanly, and without any problems. I am loving the ability it gives me to see what's going on in front of me, and know if I need to run, heal, bubble, or push my DPS to the max in a fight if it is close.

That's about it. There was a couple of new mods I forgot to mention yesterday, like Class Bars v3, The Collector, and Mapster. The first I find invaluable to my play style, giving me more of my bars with which I can use for more critical abilities. The second helped with the pet and mount achievements by easily showing you what you do not yet have. the last is a replacement for the MetaMap mod, which I always found hogged my resources more than I liked. And there we have it, my mods in a nutshell. Below you can see a peak at my UI.

I wrote yesterday about the mods I sadly had to abandon from my post 3.0.2 world, well today I will talk about the mods that I have found since patch day and have fallen in mod-whore love with. Enjoy this list, and look forward tomorrow to the next in my impromptu series on mods; the mods which never went bad.

As I mentioned yesterday, Skillet is my new mod for crafting my items, be they gems, armor, or potions. Combine that mod, which allows me to search and craft based on a number of parameters, with TradeTabs, which puts a tab for every crafting profession that you know. This is a really simply, very useful way to keep all of my professions easily accessible and usable. I do not know if either of these are, or need to be updated for Inscription, however comments are down below if you want to test them out.

I fell in love, or back in love with TrainerSkills in the beta. I used to use this, or a mod like this, ages ago. It basically tells you when you can learn something and what that is. Whether it be a new class skill on ding, or a new profession item on reaching a certain point, these things are all clearly pointed out to you in the chat window of your choice. A long lost mod, come back and just as awesome as before!

Since I am trying to avoid the crutch of CT Mod, I have been forced to go elsewhere for a few things I loved about the package. TipTop takes care of the tooltip placement problem, though it admittedly took a bit to get the tooltip right where I like it, which is to say center of my screen right below TitanPanel. oRA2 is a mod recommended by a guildie as we prepared for a post 3.0.2 raid, and realized that CTRA had been abandoned. I replaced the bar mods part of CT Mod, which was always more broken than fixed, with Dominos, though I have a Druid in Cat while Prowling bug I had to fix. Lastly I have not yet found a fix for the mail mod, but I am working on it and have a few leads.

The last batch of mods I have come across is the Achievement mods. Overachiever is a nice mod that helps me track where I am on an achievement, and it also changes exploration tracking based on zones and the /love you've given, or need to give to critters all over the world. AchievementSS is a cool mod which takes a screenshot whenever you complete and achievement, no matter where you are. Lastly, we have Urban Achiever, which is accessed by /ua and allows you to search for any achievement, text for an achievement, or criteria in order to find an achievement.

So there you have it. A few of the neat new mods I have found in this, the post 3.0.2 mod world. Like I said before, check back for the strong and true mods that never, or barely faltered for me when modpocalypse hit. [Update: Dominos not only allowed me to turn off the bar changing in prowl mode, but also turn off the moonkin bar change! I have more bars now!]

So I spent a better part of yesterday on a new, unrevealed hordeside alt on Argent Dawn, but came over to spend some time PvPing with a close friend. When she had to go, I was lucky enough to see a call in guild chat "DPS still needed for Mags.   Anyone up?". I only have 1 toon high enough for 25 man raids, and that is Arita. I do have a wish list to get Medros up to the point where he meets my guild's list of Retribution Paladin stat minimums, but for now the Boomkin is the one who will see Zul'Aman, Magtheridon's Lair, or Gruul's Lair.

The run took awhile to get started. From that first call out to first pull was over half an hour. I logged over quick, made up some elixirs and pots, then accepted the summons. I ran in, drank and ate, then waited. I chatted with the other 3 guild mates who were in the raid, and got an idea of the place, which I now realize was a lot of worrying for almost nothing. I have never seen Ony, so the description of 'it's like Onyxia' tells me nothing. I was shocked when a few short pulls in I was staring into Mag's room, and they were explaining the fight.

I can't say it went great, we did wipe once, but I know it wasn't my fault cause all I had to do was do DPS on command. On the second run I was able to battle res a healer, and we got him down, my excitement and nervousness building with every percentage closer. I ran up to loot my badges, and noticed that there was a lot of purple there. 2 and a bit 'pages' of loot to be exact. There was 2 Chestguard of the Fallen Defender, 1 Chestguard of the Fallen Champion, Girdle of the Endless Pit, Crystalheart Pulse-Staff, Pit Lord's Satchel, and Magtheridon's Head of course.

I didn't win the roll on the Chest, but all but one of those who rolled above me were rolling for off sets, so I got one. The Champion and the Girdle both went to the Ret Paladin(yes, there was a Ret Paladin there!). I did roll highest on the Satchel, but I had already won something, so I agreed to pass on it for the next highest. In the end I was the only guildie to win something in the run, as one had to go after the wipe and the others didn't have anything drop they could use(Hunter and Warlock), but both were happy I won an additional piece to boost my stats. I added to spell damage, crit, and hit, which I believe now puts me fully over the top in specs for 25 person raids. /cheer

We have seen a lot of reactions to the impending release of the second expansion to our favorite addiction, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. I wanted to go into the two 'extremes' when it comes to the end game pre Wrath. The two extremes I am seeing pretty nicely equate to feast or famine.

Feast - Let's get as much done as we can before Wrath comes and we move onto the new content. These are typically those not at, or not satisfied with their place in the conclusion of the Burning Crusade end game. Maybe they just started 25 mans, or maybe they are hammering their heads on BT, Hyjal, or a fight in Sunwell. Either way these people are ramping up to get as far progressed into the end game as they possibly can before Wrath hits. These people are the ones likely to be raiding even the week before Wrath if it will get them one more kill under their belts.

Famine - There's nothing to do. I'm bored. I'm going to play something else while I wait. These are those who either feel they have 'been there, done that, got the tabard', or they are giving up with the thought that all their gear will be sharded a few days or hours into Northrend and it is utterly useless to even try to go any further in the present end game. These people have usually gone off to play other games or another faction. They, and their raid groups, often suffer from this in huge ways, especially if a majority are in the Feast category.

The differences could also be the half empty/half full comparison. Is the glass half full(more to do) or half empty(no use wasting time)? Personally, I am a half full when it comes to the game, though I would love to be about 1/4 full, like if, say, I got into the beta. That would give me a chance to report on and test out the Wrath content and get a better feel for the specs of the Death Knight in the expansion, which no video can do well enough to make me decide which spec I want to play.

So far the info I am seeing, from Lume and from DeathKnight.info, has me really excited. I am, as some of you know, a huge Tirion Fordring fan, and lore fanatic, so added Ashbringer and Tirion story is just...amazing! I am not pushing for more raiding than those I play with are up for as a group, but we would like to see more, to see some progression, so that it is not such a big jump in activity once the expansion hits. What is your end game like? Are you striving to do better, to do more? Have you left WoW for the mistress of AoC? What are your goals before Wrath hits?

I was listening to a fellow WoW podcast, and I heard an interesting working of words most of us in WoW use a fair bit. The person was stating that theirs is a Guild that raids, not a raiding guild. I found this a very interesting perspective to apply to the big questions of end game. My guild, the Shadow Walkers, is much like this, but we do much, much more than raid. We RP, PvP, and just play together in the game. We are at minimum a guild that raids.

I guess the best thing to do in this conversation would be to define the two forms of the guilds that have a raid component. The first, and far more popular term is Raiding Guild. the way I see a raiding guild is a guild with a mandatory raiding requirement. An example of this could be 'you must raid 4 nights a week. Another could be 'You must raid at least 1 raid a week'. You will note I have put both of these, minimal requirements and mid to hardcore requirements, in the same category. I feel strongly that if your guild had a raid requirement, it is not a guild that raids, but a Raiding Guild.

Another characteristic found commonly in Raiding Guild is that they define themselves by a series of letters and numbers. 'SSC 4/6, TK 3/4, BT 3/9'. While a PvP guild might rank themselves by a different set of numbers, such as '4 x 5v5 2100+', the numbers that the Raiding Guild use are more widely acknowledged as the marker for end game content. My guild? 0/6, 0/4, 0/9. I will not say I am happy that we haven't progressed to that, but I am happy we haven't pushed ourselves into the realm of a Raiding Guild where those numbers make or break us.

while I will not attribute this to *every* Raiding guild, the lack of recruiting morals definitely seems to pervade the raiding structure on my realm. Raiding Guilds do not hesitate to poach, bribe, trick and even swindle players into joining them, even if the player will likely not see beyond farm content for weeks. My guild, with myself as the recruitment lead, has very strict rules on how and under what circumstances we will accept a player. for instance, a player needs to be leaving their guild for decent reasons, and be gone from it for at least 24 hours before we will accept them.

Now to the guild that raids. The guild that raids schedules raids for a few nights a week, and encourages sign up. They will do their best to help those who want to raid with gear, be it in gear selection, questing, or in dungeon crawls for gearing up. unlike a raiding guild, who will often demand their players spend hours on a boss until it is mastered, the guild that raids will devour a place like Karazhan where, once you pass Curator, you can go one of 3 or 4 directions. Wipe a couple times on Shade? Try your hand at Illhoof, or Nightbane, or Chess. Chess is always a good, easy round of loot.

Now that I have defined for you how I see these two different combination's of guilds and raids, I am curious of a few things. First, do you agree? Do you have stuff to add or detract from my points? Where would your guild fall in these categories, or would they be something completely different? Do you aspire to those letters and numbers? Different ones? Would you accept the invitation of a raid guild to leave your guild to join their raid team? Let me know what you think!

I honestly do know what brought this post to mind, but I have always wondered at the many varieties of the lauded end game. We each have our own form of end game, of that there can be no doubt. For some it's pure, for others it is a mix of little bits of different styles. So, before I get down to the question at hand, let me define for you a few of the main styles of what we can do when we hit the level cap.

Player Killer - Living for the thrill of the next elite player he can take down, and occasionally lowering himself to camping lower level players for varying reasons, the Player Killer lives off his honor kills and Arena ranking. Happy to use anything he can to get more kills, the PK spends his time at the generals, does each PvP daily on first login, and had a mailbox full of Battle Ground marks. Exemplified by the screaming all caps 'leader' of a Battle Ground, the PK can easily break under the slightest hint of failure in Battlegrounds.

Progress Seeker - The player aimed at progresion is likely the one who had their Karazhan key quest as soon as they could after level 69, and was LFG Shadow Labrynth minutes after their digned 70. They usually have a clear line set for their progression from ding to the 25 man raids, frequently doing the best quests for the gear they want for the end game spec, which they have outlined and planned weeks or months in advance. This player does dailies and other money making things purely to make the gold needed for reagents and respeccing as needed.

Badge Collector - Another thing that Burning Crusade brought to us was the Heroic mode of dungeons. Only affecting the Outlands 5 man dungeons, Heroic mode is one of the best ways to get rep with various factions, and with the dungeon dailies, also get extra cash and extra badges as well. Those are one of the biggest reason to do Heroic dungeons, though, is Badge of Justice. Badges can be used to purchase varying levels of gear, from Tier 6 equivalent to lower Tier 4 equivalent gear.

This is one of the more niche play styles in end game, but with the availability of Primal Nether and the epic quality gems through badge turn ins, it is an increasingly popular way to spend your time at level 70, at least in so far as the heroic daily goes at the least. Finding heroics beyond the daily can be a bit of a hassle, but like Arenas and Raiding, a good solid team can be invaluable to making the work a lot easier. Also, pugging heroics can be very, very painful.

Master Crafter - Also known as the Recipe Completist, the Master Crafter spends their time and money at 70, gained from dailies and quests at max level, working diligently on their professions. They run dungeons and work reputation to maximize their professions and abilities. The golden ticker for the crafter is finding that once in a lifetime item they can make that few if any have and everyone wants. The Master Crafter things nothing of killing thousands of a type of mob in order to get their desired recipe.

Mass Murderer - The Mass Murderer is someone who just goes out and kills everything in his or her path, not caring how long it takes. This could be best described as a Grinder, who only starts out with the barest reagents and food required, and just kills and loots mindlessly. This person has no specific goals other than to kill, kill, and kill some more. There is no rep or item they seek, just to see the trail of bodies behind them.

Multiple Personality - Suffering from a varying degree of Altitis, this player can occasionally get through the quests at max level before relegating the character to farm status or maybe filler raiding, but they then move onto a new alt or leveling one they already have in the works. This type of end gamer finds the shear idea of a cap of 10 characters per realm to be ludicrous, and often plot out which character will get the big old DELETE next to make room for another.


So, now the we know a few of the main types of end gamers, I ask you my readers, What is your end game? A mix of a few? A pure version of one of the above possibilities? Or are you one of the niche options apart from above? For me, I am a mix of a bunch. I do light raiding when needed and time allows, I have many alts, 5 played characters at this point, but I also farm and am a hardcore recipe completist. My end game is so varied that it easily keeps me interested. Is this why so many raiders are giving up and moving to other games? How about your end game? Is it keeping you happy and your attention in the game?

As we are beginning to see the news and blog posts of people making preparations for the upcoming expansion, I felt it time to begin working on this planned series of articles. When you look down the path and see change coming, it is natural for us to look back on what has been, and to look forward to what will come. That is the plan for this series of articles of indeterminate length.

In our next aspect of looking ahead, I wanted to take a bit of time to look to what is coming in the end game for Wrath of the Lich King. So far what we know is both significant but lacking details. There are a few general bits of information we know, but as of the last time we heard anything we had nothing about specific dungeon bosses.

The first part of the End Game we have is Lake Wintergrasp, a full PvP enabled zone that will cause anyone on any realm who enters the zone to be PvP flagged. Undoubtedly there will be a new Battleground, likely revolving around the Wintergrasp zone, and a slew of Arena seasons including seasonal gear and other rewards.

The second part is 5 mans and heroics. While we do not know what the majority of the 5 mans will be, we do know that they will be itemized completely separately from the normal mode 5 man dungeons, so it should be a little easier to find a group for a dungeon to fill the needs of those who want gear from the regular version of the dungeons. The big question will be whether the daily drops will also be kept to only the specific level they are meant to be in.

The final part of the End game by most standards is the raiding end game. Again, we do not have much information regarding raid bosses, other than the previously mentioned basics like Malygos in the Nexus and Arthas in the Ice Crown, but we do have a fair bit of info to mull over at this point. First, the split between 10 and 25 mans of the same dungeon. Like the 5 man and their Heroic counterparts, the 10 and 25 man dungeons will have separate loot tables, so the 25 man will have an additional tier of gear higher than the 10 man dungeons.

For the other possible end games I have another piece coming in a few days, but I do wonder what part of the end game we know about are you most looking forward to? Will you be making use of the 10 and 25 man raids being on separate lock outs? Will your guild even bother with the 10 man versions of the dungeons? Will you look forward to or dread hearing of the first 10 person kill of Arthas? Or are you one of the many who feels that someone like Arthas needs 25 people to be a decent fight? Think they will make his 10 person defeat be a token defeat instead of a full kill? Let me know in the comments!

As we are beginning to see the news and blog posts of people making preparations for the upcoming expansion, I felt it time to begin working on this planned series of articles. When you look down the path and see change coming, it is natural for us to look back on what has been, and to look forward to what will come. That is the plan for this series of articles of indeterminate length.

The first part I want to look at is looking back. First thing I would like to know is what your favorite part of Burning Crusade was. Was it flying mounts? Daily quests? The Isle of Quel'Danas? Becoming Ogre royalty? Or was it the end game? Did Karazhan give you the thrill of your raiding career or was it pushing into Black Temple and Sunwell? The improved leveling and Dustwallow Marsh revamp?

For me, it is a hard thing to answer. I have enjoyed making money at my professions. I always enjoy the feeling of flying from the most northern tip of Netherstorm to the Netherwing Ledge in under 5 minutes. I love the collection of flying mounts I have, and the soon to be 4 level 70s I have. I love the dailies, though to be honest after a month or so of doing each of the new ones, they can get boring unless combined with something I do already like the Nether Residue one.

The second part of this is what you liked least about the Burning Crusade expansion. Was it welfare epics? The constant first kills? Lackluster patching? Did Blizzard not take the game in the direction you wanted? Did you find a disparity between casual end game like the 10 person dungeons and the higher end 25 person raids like Magtheridon and Gruul's Lair? Do yuo not like how hard it is to get through the end game? Is your class not useful in raiding or PvP?

For me, I guess the one biggest annoyance is the duration of TBC. I have never denied that I thought we would have Wrath go gold by now with a July or August release date, not just at about the halfway point in development at this point. Another thing I didn't like about TBC was the utterly useless and wasted time spent on the in game Voice Chat feature.

With Blizzard's need to make their games available to as many people as possible this feature was doomed from the start, because accessible and high quality audio are not possible. Blizzard spent months on that patch when they could have put time and effort into other things like housing and more stable servers.


Overall, I give the first expansion to the game a 4/5 rating, or a B+ grade. The expansion brought a lot of content to the game and really changed a number of aspects of the game. From PvP to raiding, Low level to end level, the World of Warcraft changed drastically in the 2.x version, and I think overall it was a positive change to the game that has only increased it's popularity.

Next up, we will look ahead to a variety of aspects of Wrath of the Lich King that we know about before the big Worldwide Invitational. 

So as I was preparing for work this morning, I noticed WoW Insider had an interesting post about a change in the descriptions of the three different Death Knight talent trees, Blood, Frost, and Unholy. The changes are interesting, moving away from stereotyped roles of a spec(tank, DPS, PvP, etc) to a more tagged type of description, as well as removing the description about what the presence does from that tree.

WoW Insider suggested a pretty decent guess from my perspective of why this might have been done. One of the reasons that we have the current tank shortage in the game is perspective. We have Warriors not wanting to lose the loot priority value of being the main tank in raids, and thus have complained at any improvements that could potentially see them replaced in that role, such as buff to Paladins or Druids as tanks.

Blizzard being attentive to warriors has led to a deep tank shortage, because no one wants to spec their character in a way that will make them less effective or desirable to the overall gaming population. WoW Insider points out that the change to the trees could be a lead up to a change in thinking from Blizzard. If the company stops referring to trees by the stereotypical terms, DPS, Heal, Tank, PvP, Raid, etc, we just might see players change their thinking.

I have to agree with the writer of the piece in that we could just as easily see the terms to describe something, for example Tank, change to be the new terms, control, counters, and combos. We could see 'LFC(control) DK for Naxx' instead of 'LF Tank for Naxx'. Of course, there is something to be said for the stereotypes. Which is nicer to see: 1) 'LF AoE Pal, Threat War, Swipe Druid, Control DK for <instance>' or 2) 'LF Tank for <instance>'? I think 2 will be it.

In the end, this still has the ring of a move away from the age old stereotypes and to a new way of thinking about how characters are designed and planned, as well I would think in how they are evolved as the future expansions hit. As Blizzard brings more Hero classes into the game in those expansions to be named, this will undoubtedly help them broaden the classes beyond the narrow stereotypes that have plagued them since the game was in beta.

Will changing the descriptions of the classes in the game and in the future change how you think about them? Or will it just be a matter of same crap, different pile? Do you think this will even have any effect on the game and it's instance and raid aspects? Let me know what you think in the comments!

I am sitting here at work, and I popped over to WoW Insider on my phone during a slow period. I read this article with interest. To sum it up, the former top raiding guild, Risen, who was well know in the pre TBC days, has decided that they are going to kiss raiding goodbye until the next expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

I was reading a blog post from my friend, the ever insightful and interesting Alyviel over on Bitter Roots. While we are of the same guild, officers both, we have differing viewpoints. This does not prevent us being friends, thankfully, as everyone needs friends, but there are issues at times. One of those such issues is a difference in perspective. I am a casual raider, raiding when time and other things in life allow.

I write many things, not just these stories, and I also have the podcast. Raiding is maybe 8th or 9th on my priority list. I like the gear Arita has, and hope to get more for Med to bring him up to par, but if I had a choice between a 3 hour raid and 3 hours of writing, podcasting, or even questing, I would take them. Progression, epics, and all that goes with raiding is great for many, but does not have an overarching dominance within my realm of interest to be honest.

So, when I read Aly's post today, and her statement,

However, I've been looking at some boss fights and I think we're ready to move on.

This made me sad. I love my guildies to death, they are like a family, but I just don't see this push to raid, to move past the content. I am not saying we can't go on to 25 mans, but it takes more than 10 people to go to Mag, ot Tempest Keep, or even Serpentshrine Cavern. What her post shows is that we have 10 people who have hours on end to kill in a dungeon on a Sunday afternoon, forsaking all other plans. Her post doesn't say a thing about the Zul'Aman run that was canceled because their full run tired everyone out.

Perhaps I am taking Aly's words a little too literal. Perhaps she only means less Kara. The way I see it, though, is that there are only 7 days in the week, and we can't run Kara to get people geared for those 25 mans if we hit 25 mans every other night, not as long as we hit Zul'Aman at the same time. I understand burn out, I see what it does to people. I just think that Eledith, her healer, doesn't need to be on a run every week.

We have at least 4 or 5 other decent healers who can main heal in Kara, be it raid or main tank. So let Eledith and the other top geared players who are tired of Kara and don't care about Zul'Aman go off and hit Magtheridon, Tempest Keep, and Serpentshrine Cavern with 15 PUGs or another raiding guild, and let those of us who still want to learn Karazhan, and still feel we have something to experience do so. Just because we now have more raid focus than before, doesn't mean we need to leave the beginner raids behind.

I love WoW, often more than I should. I love the art, the story, the feel of accomplishment when a goal I reach is a long toil, but worthy in the end. Grinding Ogri'la to get my Vortex Walking Boots. Grinding out SV runs and buying up every available Coilfang Armament I could until I got my Cenarion Hippogryph. Pushing every day to get my Netherwing rep to exalted for a Netherdrake. Even grinding out the rep for Darnassus to get Medros a Saber instead of his tired old Charger. All of these have been enjoyable but long battles for rep and a bit of coin, to get the items I want in the game.

Some call me hardcore. Some call me a farmer. Different people, different titles. I have even been called the WalMart of Argent Dawn. Addict is a popular one, and one I am not even sure I can deny anymore. Me? I call myself casual. I don't spend hours on end mastering fights that can turn on the chance of a crit. I don't spend hours getting the rep or reagents for a raid. I don't spend days upon end running heroic after heroic to get the best gear in the game. I don't fret over going somewhere and wiping over and over, giving 30-50g worth of repair bills. It's a game, and not really worth all of that effort.

My question for you is this: can you be a hardcore casual? How about a Casual addict? Can you be addicted to the game and still play casual? I guess the base problem in the entire discussion is definitions and classifications. How do we define an addict of WoW? How do we define a casual player? How do we define a hardcore player of WoW? Can a casual still play 5-10 hours a day on a weekend? Can a hardcore play only 10 hours in an entire week? Is an addict someone who can't stop? What if you are a hardcore player who is addicted but only plays for 10-15 hours a week?

In the end it all breaks down to stereotypes and classifying people by our own biases. For someone who is struggling to get the time for their first character to hit 70, someone who raids Kara every week and does a 25 man or Zul'Aman on the weekends could be hardcore. Someone who has a couple 70s and sees the same guy RPing in Shatt every time he is near, wearing the same level 45 greens, could see that person as a casual n00b who can't play worth a damn. To that RPer, the hardcore who ridicules him, or even the one who just doesn't respond to the attempts to RP, those guys in all purples from Kara, ZA, or the 25 mans could be seen an elitist jerk raider who can't follow the rules.

You see how perceptions are? They only serve one purpose: to break up the community into divided camps, more easily picked off by other games and bad patches, leading to a fractured, aggressive, and volatile community. What keeps us apart as a community, what maintains the divide, is the fact that the patches seem to focus in one area at a time, making one part of the game good while seeming, from the player perspective, to break or sacrifice the other parts of the game.

I wonder, though, is there any way to repair the problem? Can we fix this growing divide between the different goals? Will we just drift apart until the game falls apart with players drifting to different games that fill their particular need more than WoW does? What do you think of this problem, of the stereotypes in WoW?