On Nerfing of Dargon Soles

Every time major nerfs come around for a "current tier" raid, people rather loudly huff and barrel their chests out and speak down to the proles who raid and say "Well, they should improve if they want to see content at our level."

That's not a wrong opinion, but it is a bad mindset!

Blizzard, with their raid development, are in a position now where they want the time they spend crafting these raids to be seen by more players - many supporters like to bandy about the "1% of players saw the Sunwell" statistic, when arguing for the opening of content to more levels of play skill; much of the opposition throw the argument that "the challenge is the fun" and that "in the old days you'd spend many raid lock outs on a single boss!"

Both sides have legitimate arguments; both sides are legitimately right. But, both sides are unable to find equal ground - it's the scene from Reservoir Dogs where the mob boss hands out the nicknames: Nobody knows each other, so nobody wants to back down.

Bashiok is Nice Guy Eddie in this analogy. The KBilly Radio DJ is the gentleman who runs MMO Champion. Stealer's Wheel is thus replaced with Rebecca Black. (I am bad at analogies)

The side that wants it easier isn't necessarily bad players, but on a limited time frame. The side that wants everything "left alone" aren't necessarily on a limitless schedule, but they have a drive and determination that leaves them wanting to achieve MORE.

They may be the side that heavily romanticizes the days of yore, where you'd spend weeks wiping to a boss because everybody hadn't farmed enough Nature Resist gear - they may just feel like this is what they want to to do with their time. The side that supports the nerfs may have been those players too, who remember the Chambers of Suppression in Blackwing Lair - may have been the rogue tapping all the traps so people can pass, even!

Let's get past the idea that there's only two "kinds" of people playing World of Warcraft.

But before that happens, there needs to be an across the board understanding between two very emotionally charged parties.

To the people who support the nerfs: It's okay. You'll see the content.

To the people who are against the nerfs: It's okay. You've seen the content.

I'm over simplifying this. It needs to be simple. Maybe it needs to be overly simple.

There will never be a clear conversation about anything if we're constantly going to war with ourselves about what side of the bread we put the butter on.

Lets have a discourse on the topic with respect for each other. Don't instantly kneejerk about "Bads in mah raids killin' mah dragons" - don't get butthurt over "special snowflakes don't want us in their sandbox!"

Be excellent to each other. Just to mix it up a little, for once.

A Series of Half Finished Thoughts

I have OPINIONS on the INTERNET.

Notes for Endtime Dungeon

Recently, World of Warcraft's Patch 4.3 added three new five-player dungeons, End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight: this is a quick guide to the first.

On Character

Not the personality trait, no.

There's a couple letters in MMORPG that kinda hang - the whole "Role Playing" thing. Some people can treat World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, the upcoming The Old Republic, or whichever their MMO of choice is as a numbers game - bigger numbers forever, all the time!

Metagaming is okay, you know? Munchkin out, munchkins, keep on trucking, 'coz we love you too. (But if you roll seven RIGHT NOW, our love for you is double all weekend)

Kerain North, as drawn by @Outbirk

For some, the Role Playing may stop at the "get better gear, be better at game" - but, for others, they may have a personal attachment to characters they play. Might make stories for them, even!

I've felt bad about the recent offerings because I dump more fanfiction than anything useful here - but it felt like a good conversation piece!

What about you? Do you think of your "toon" as a character? Do you put thought into their motivation? Their history? Do you do this for every character, or just for your favorite?

Fiction: "Service"

Rambling on a theme

Before I start rambling in a jumble of half-formed thoughts, I would like to start by directing you to this latest post on the Flavor Text Lore blog, "Failure, Challenge, and the Decline of WoW" - while a lot of people might be quick to point and say it's a familiar argument made by people who play Warcraft at a much higher level than the average player, they do themselves the disservice of realizing Hamlet and Perculia give probably the most intelligent dissertation on "fun" and "engaging" gameplay short of David Sirlin's dissertations on Street Fighter 2.

There is a good counter point to be made here in regards to their article; I am not the writer to make that argument, nor do I have the complete thoughts to do the argument a shade of the justice it deserves.

Instead, I want to move down another train of thought; to talk about what is fun, because I do feel pretty confident in being able to illustrate what I think is fun, and hopefully, to tie back to the Flavor Text post, I can illustrate an idea that I've been rolling around for a few weeks:

 Being picky is okay, because being picky is knowing what you want. And if you know what you want from a video game (be it WoW or anything else), your gameplay experience changes based on your expectations.

Let's agree to a single conceit before we move any further on this point: Overcoming challenges is fun.

You play a video game because you want a challenge. Everything extra that you do in a video game is compulsory.

Now that you and I agree, "We like to be challenged" we can riff a little. We have an even ground. We don't care what the challenge is, we like to beat stuff. We play a game and like to be able to point to whatever we've done and say "I completed this. For me."

This Is How I Priest

In July, I tagged the "Circle of Healers" post - to detail a bit about how I understood healing, to talk about things I did, and to look at stuff I watch intently. And then, Blizzard recently had a "call to arms" for classes for players to detail what and why they're happy/unhappy with their chosen class.

This, paired with conversations I've had with Lizzia and some others about HOW I actually heal has led to this, this thing here. A blog post.

As before, the character in question is Karanina, Discipline Priest of US Medivh-A's guild Waypoint.

She's not smug, she's just prettier than you, and has the GM logs to prove it. (Picture by outbirk of Dancing Runes)

Anybody who's had the misfortune of listening to me debate my Valor Point purchases will probably know all of this stuff already, and will likely want to close this blog and silently mourn their knowing me.