We managed to start Thursday nights raid with 23 people, and eventually collected our 25 but everyone was on edge.  They wanted to play Diablo, not raid and it became as our gm said one of those raid nights ” we shall never speak of again” as people’s hearts and minds were certainly elsewhere.

My D3 adventures so far involve me rolling a Witch Doctor first  – I played around with a few classes in the beta and even though it does look a little messy I love the stuff they throw.  It’s like a mega perpetual hissy fit, throwing jars of spiders, flaming bats, and toads.

The Witch doctor is the new huntard.  It hasn’t seem to cause group issues yet, but my Zombie dogs agro radius seems to be outside my screen and one of the earlier areas this caused a little bit of grief when I was getting charged by these massive beasts, attacked by buffaloes, and strangled by trees all at the same time.

I have friends playing, but now some of them have shot past me leveling wise, ( darn you people with more time.. ) so grouping has proven hit and miss depending on who is where.   I know its not a MMO,  and I miss the feeling that your never alone in a MMO even if its the trade troll ( and general chat option on didn’t help) everyone is playing in their own little universes right now, and it’s a little disconnecting.  I find it a much more immersive story wise though,  my experience is better if I can hear the journals as I play.  It means however music/2nd screen other entertainment needs to be  a lower volume.

There were lots of people needing to readjust to not clicking to move once they got back to wow, and I had some difficulty adjusting to clicking to move in D3. Getting used to now holding down the shift button when I’m spamming attack and clicking things all over the place, and putting myself in the middle of the mobs because I clicked the ground in my clicking frenzy.

I also worry more about RSI in d3- we don’t talk much about how long periods of gaming can affect the body when we play, and once upon a time when it was end of financial year at work, and I was doing a lot of spreadsheets and numbers for long long hours without proper breaks and I got RSI in one of my wrists to the point it was clicking when I moved it, it was a horrible feeling, like it was going to fall off at any moment and one I never wanted to repeat .  So I am more conscious of the fact that if I am doing the same thing for long periods of time I need to have a real break, and I found that it is easy to do the same kind of movements over and over again in D3,

Aussies were lucky – US midnight launch was our 5pm  and by the time I got home from work around 7ish,  set up the install,  pottered around a little it was ready to play ( with no errors for me) in less than half an hour.

But Alas our Thursday night raid ended with the happy idea that we could all seek the embrace of the new  temporary method of excitement,  in the arms of D3 – only to find that there was a 2 hour maintenance ( was supposed to be 1 and finish by raid end. BUT Noooooo

and so you get a blog post, and I go to bed early.

Depended on an Honor Guard of foes that one had felled.

And so in tardy tribute to the one we couldn’t save,

We’ll lay your fiery deaths like crimson flowers on her grave.

No Quarter – Echoes Children – Honor Harrington

One of the things that disappoints me in RBG’s is the tendency for losing teams to leave the BG

“Where did they all go?”

So you have to go through the motions of capping the flag 3 times, or waiting for your resources to cap out. This happens because the other team,  sometimes one at a time,  often all together will just leave the BG – and give up.

Starcraft does this better I think with the surrender button.  Not sure how they would do this in Wow,  but at the very least the Raid Leader could have the power to do a surrender maybe with a supporting vote to enact. That way everyone ends the game without having to all leave and give up, and the winning team doesn’t need to go through the motions.  This would mean then you could punish players/a team that leave the bg without surrendering. Currently there is no deserter debuff.

I understand not wanting to play a game where you are clearly outmatched.  Sometimes the ranking can be a little off kilter. We managed a guild run RBG last night after raid – and we smashed team 1  – none of them had any rating.  We sent a FC and a healer to get the horde flag, and we mopped them up, and rubbed their faces in the dirt before they could get ours. I looked up and couldn’t find any of them around, and they had all died, and were rezing.  Then they left BG. The 2nd game we were closer matched,  but we were the ones outclassed, and on the 2nd cap my team started leaving.

I’m one of the last to give up in a normal BG. The infuriating person who keeps going after the flag, and often sneaking past the horde only to die tragically in the tunnel to our flag room because I have no support. I don’t like giving up because it’s boring.  There is always something new to learn, a reason to keep fighting.  I won’t go quietly and It pee’s the other team off when you just won’t die.  I hate leaving a Rated BG unfinished as well,  but in this case mainly because we still have an opportunity to work as a team. To learn as a team. Maybe we won’t win, but how do you get better if you don’t try?

I’ve pugged a fair few tragic Rated BG’s in my time. and so with the highest rank achieved being 1600 I’m technically only a armchair expert, but I will stick out a bad team just because often the only way to get better is to practice. And most importantly practice as a team but most Pug RBG’s end quite messy after a loss.  Often to competing leadership, people who don’t listen to targets or strats, or tunnelers, but some of  the correcting that can be done is just having a good leader focusing the efforts of the team – you assume a Rated BG team is more likely to listen to a ‘get out of mid’ call.  Players don’t follow a pre determined sequence of phases like a boss fight does. The unpredictability is what makes is fun for me, and difficult to lead when you can’t see or trust that everyone is doing what they should be doing. ( or at the least avoiding the things they shouldn’t)

But I get the impression that there are a lot of people out there who have dabbled in RBG’s but give up because it’s too hard to make headway, or their guild doesn’t run it.  Even as a 25 man guild with subs and casuals and alts we still have had issues getting 10 interested in doing RBGs regularly.

I’ve been curious to try Battlemasters.Org premades which is supposed to work like the x-realm raiding sites as per Joystiq’s list of resources and I’m hoping to give it a decent shot this weekend when more people  should be around ( if anyone will have me.) 4.7k resil Disc priest LF RBG. that is on when I am awake, not a work, and not raiding.

“How to win? Simply log in to GuildOx, go to your options page and update your guild’s recruitment needs – you don’t need to be a guild officer to do this. Anyone that updates their recruitment profile will be eligible to win one of these two companions. The prizes will be drawn on the 11th May so don’t delay.”

go to http://www.guildox.com to log in and update your recruitment profile  ( you will need to create a log in to do so though)

* disclaimer – I don’t normally do plugs,  but it’s for  a pet, and everyone loves pets right?, esp with the Panda Pet battle incomming and I’m helping a guildy out

( Bench from Ikea)

Right now we are running a little heals heavy.  By heals heavy  it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the healers are available all the time. So mostly it works out that we seem to always have enough healers around, and a couple of healers that can do offspec dps if we need the dps, but sometimes a healer or two,  or a dps or two will need to bench warm for a boss.

Sometimes while we were working on hard modes,  this would mean a significant part of the raid night, and then we would slowly lose our bench warmers to alts, or they would just would log off and not come back, with no response in guild chat/vent when they were called on.

Now hard mode attempts still may take a couple of goes, and the bench warmers know not to go too far. But we still have Spine and DW hard modes to work on and that means likely some time will be spent by someone on the bench.

The problem with sitting is that you have set aside time,  been prepared for raid and some of that time  – unspecified time may be spent not doing what you wanted to do with that time, and instead have to find other things to do that keep you reasonably available when/if you are called on.

You can’t do daily’s in a raid group ( but if you drop you don’t get DKP from the mod)

You might get in a Pvp game,  but you also may not get to finish it, start farming, start something.

You could log into an alt, and do any of the above  as long as you in some way,  vent, guild chat, whisper, real id , remain in contact.  ( Or you can stand in SW which is mostly what I end up doing because I don’t want to ‘commit to any other pursuit/activity that I have to leave very quickly, ( and I have duel screens)

When volunteers were called the other night, one raider said they would sit if they had to,  but they just want to raid.

It can be that simple. “I want to raid.”

Bench warming isn’t killing bosses.  It is still being part of a team though,  because the reality also is,  if you don’t have bench warmers,  then you have the possibility of not having enough players at a time when random things happen, and people aren’t available – and we want to do hard modes which means we need the 25 people in the raid. Having people ready in reserve, helps make a healthy raiding guild.

I’ve bench warmed, I’m getting better at volunteering for it, but I’ve raided with people in flexible positions ( eg not tanks or raid leaders ) who refused to sit. Ever.

I understand why they don’t volunteer. You’re there to raid, you want to raid.  You’ve committed.

A raid can still be done with less than 25 or less than 10 -  but never more. However there has to be a Tank/heals/DPS balance for the content especially the harder kind.  Once the content gets easier because of nerfs or better gear then the balance can be shifted, but unless there is an achievement in it most guilds will try to run their current content with full raid groups, especially when encounters aren’t designed as tank and spanks where everyone stands in one position the whole time, and a couple of people pushing a little harder could compensate for lesser numbers.  You have oozes that have die by a  particular time, damage that needs to be healed up, targets that need to die before you move to the next one.

Bench warming is also where good guild leadership comes in.   You also need to keep your bench warmers warm. Keep them interested. Keep them committed, to the point that there are no bench warmers per say.  They are not reserves,  only put into play in extreme circumstances,  they are raiders, but for that to happen,  you need people to volunteer to sit out.

So the change of thought is  that you’re not being sat because they don’t want you,  but it’s to give someone else a chance at…  ( encounter, fight, loot ect.. ) It makes the raid group stronger. If in the event a  player is not available then you have someone in the position to be there instead, and the show goes on.

I can’t put it down on Heroic Yor’sahj in case someone clicks it and gets a stack.  ( better to be safe then blown up right?)

I stick a bright yellow bowl of light in the melee and no one notices it, or clicks it to see what happens before the fight has began and considering I watched someone eat 10 charges of my lightwell last night when I had placed it for attempts at Heroic  Warmaster Blackhorn only to see it disappear before pull, made me VERY MAD. * Priest rage Priest rage*

No one takes it seriously.  People rarely click on it and I seem to be one of the few common people through several logs of who actually uses the thing. I click on it so it’s a little heal on myself for when I am worrying about everyone elses heath bars.

Am I really a bad holy priest if I ‘forget’ to place it down.

It really is only good for dancing on .

Maybe if we changed the color people would click it more. Neon Green.  Add Flashing lights maybe.

I have been in LFR’s where someone has glyphed the lightwell so it has 15 charges, and they have a macro that THANKS the person who click on it.

“Thankyou for using my lightwell..  thankyou for using my lightwell…”

I’m pretty sure if I tried that in Raid I would get blocked/reported for spam or told to turn it off very quickly, but it served a constant reminder of it’s existance, and people clicked on it.

We have a habit of not taking as much personal responsibility for your own health, Some classes have their own heals, boosts, and wouldn’t rely on the lightwell or a health stone,  or arguably they would say they  don’t need it.  As a healer I look first to using a heal on myself before I use something like a lightwell,  health stone or a health pot, however there are things available to us to use to boost our own survivability. Click the lightwell. Eat your lock rock ect ect..  do eeeet  and live longer.

I can use Health stones as another example of things that people don’t use as much as they should.

Most fights when our locks remember   ( or are reminded ) we get a  health stone

We made 16 attempts on Heroic Zon’ozz the other week. say 25 x 16  = 400 times that a health-stone could have been used and the logs show only 41 in total was used. I used 2,  and a couple used it 5 or 4 times.  Some of the wipes were called early and the stone would have been wasted but 16 attempts/41  = 2.56 people using their health-stones each attempt.

On our kill 14/25  people used their health-stone.

That’s looking better ( 6 people clicked on the lightwell )

Did the kill give us more opportunity to use the stones,  or did the stones give us more opportunity to kill, I don’t know. But ( puts on authoritative voice) There is a positive correlation between using health stones and killing Zon’ozz  ( so far.. )

The from emails  are potentially believable  @blizzard.com v @email.blizzard.net

Say it’s from Blizzard and we will believe it right? The top one is the real one ( and yes did check my account)

Titles of the emails are the same, the name of the “From” is the same  but it’s only the email address that is different. ( and Sif bliz  would use a .net

Images are identical.  The Text is same font,  writing is same color. (different wording though )  but the biggest difference is that one tells you ” Play free now”  with a clickable button and the other one tells you to log into your battlenet account and get the installer.

But as they have pretty much copied the images and the text from the real beta invite,  what things give you an indication that it’s a fake?

Because of similar scams – not just wow ones,  I am now naturally suspicious of any email that asks me to log into their site via a link in their email.

The “Play free” selling point also – I guess irks me.  Of course the beta is free, but the free point of the Beta is already an assumption.  They don’t need to use that it’s free to convince me more to play it.

The .net at the end of the email instead of .com

I was expecting to get a fake one at some point.  I expect it, and therefore are  forewarned.

and of course the ultimate test to see if it is attached to my battlenet account.

First step I would have taken if I got the fake one first, would have been to check  my battlenet.

But caution is no longer paranoia – at least think before you click on things like this. Be suspicious, find other ways to verify stuff if you can ect….

He was offering a free lap dance in trade channel.   He was the leader of our Pug RBG team and he was recruiting for another healer.

“Lap dance by an AUSSIE chick”   he amended his trade advertisement.

In vent I was like.  “Huh.. wait..”

How do you respond? Righteously indignantly?  /leave party?  giggle?  coo “you wish…”?

I did  say  ” you’ve just stuffed up getting a decent player responding” and completely embarrassed me in front of the rest of the people I had been trying to do serious rated bgs with.

Sex does not sell well in Trade chat.

Sexy beefy guy with water background…

They use sex to sell games  ( just look at the  marketing stunts for Saints Row 3 where “scantily clad women gave away free petrol” in Sydney  as seen on their youtube here  and there is certainly is sexual overtones within game. We also can’t deny that some class  dances,  wiggle, shimmy, shake., crouch grabs and a very ‘sexy’ way.

Besides Lap dances being offered to potential healers to try to get them to join the  RBG’s,   there are on occasion people who advertise in trade,  who will RP for gold,  will table dance/ strip/ pretend to be your girlfriend / offer to send you pics . Even this weekend a prolific glyph seller in trade chat changed their  lets say,  marketing strategy to include a sexual offer. ,

They are never taken seriously in trade, even if they were genuine offers, they get trolled,  ridiculed or  Ignored.

Yes there is a difference in selling sex, and using sex to sell, but neither works in-game.

Services for sale are ignored and the person who  offers to cook their buff food in a lovely purple dress,  enchant their gear in under daks,  doesn’t get any more trade business.

I think there are a couple of reasons why using sex as marketing within Wow trade doesn’t work.

1. Virtual goods

Your not selling a real loaf of bread /energy drink.  You are selling Pixels within a pixel world, that may have an influence on the game ” Like buff food or enchants”   but you cannot hold, and feel the goods.

2. Virtual experience

The lap dance would not be real  It’s not that exciting to have toon ‘standing’ on your lap dancing their racial dance. We don’t have control over our Avatars to the point where realistic interaction could happen.  Avatars as sex objects well that’s a whole other line – we are well aware of RP in Wow,  but taking your toon and simulating certain acts using your avatars  – each to his/her own.  A lot of people are very uncomfortable about this idea.

3. Your not a real girl.

There has to be more boys pretending to be girls and asking for free stuff and hand outs than girls who ask for free stuff and hand outs, and most people know this.  There are no girls on the internet anyway, so even if you did take up that offer  for whatever reason  you have no idea who is actually climbing in your lap.

4. We are desensitized to sexy imagery in-game.

( though to give people their due,  while wandering round SW looking for examples the worst I saw was cleavage and naval) and we also ignore the casual semi nudity of the person running around in the  ugly brown  ( or blue)  underwear that most classes seem to have. Your not special in any way because your removed your pants.

( I did try to design a better bra -  not sure how well it would take off though. )

This isn’t meant to be a post against sexy santa outfits,  yes my toon has it, and my warrior wore her metal g with pride and much amusement. and my hunter really likes her red little mail number.

But using sex to sell doesn’t seem to be a valid way of marketing your goods in trade chat to fellow players. It might get your noticed, but if it’s for stuff like recruitment for a raid, or a Rated BG than anyone who is half way serious will think less of you,  and if it’s for goods we are not picking your service or trade goods because it comes with something extra.

And it’s tempting to keep watching.

I sometimes forget that I need to click off the fail angel to ‘die’ and I have been dying a lot. But we are now 5/8 25 man Heroic leaving piles of bones behind in Dragon Soul – but taking epic lootz with us.

and who wouldn’t want to hang around and watch the likes of these types of fireworks.

Fire bug is not helping.

and boys and girls. Do not step into little purple puddles on your own = more fail angels.

I also wonder at what point I should confess I not really shadow priesting much. I’d like to claim all three specs as part of my ‘player’ identity.  But heals has been much easier to do stuff with in cata, and I am finding it easier to heal, then dps right now.

I’m raid Healing as holy, and my offspec is now Disc for Pvp with a  half hearted attempt to try and do arena and rated bgs ( stay away from trade chat pugs or random people wanting to do points for fun! )

It has been an adjustment getting back into raiding, needed to be more aware of time, and making sure I could do shopping/washing/garbage/dinner/don’t finish too late at work to make sure I have time to take a breath before I sit and raid.

I’m finding the guild atmosphere to be much like the guild I missed so much in Ulduar days, and that may or may not be in part that there is a greater gender balance – and happily vocal gender balance in this 25 man then my ICC 25 man raid guild.

With team mates wanting to know why they didn’t call for help – ” I was peeing” is a common response.

Biological urges -  you can’t really argue with that.

But it’s a 20 odd min bg at the max really   – some of these things can be taken care off before you enter the BG.

“Have you pee’d before entering the BG?”  its like a teacher, or a mother asking kids ” did you go” before you leave.

In my house when whenever we went on a car trip or going somewhere – making sure we pee’d before leaving  was a given, especially on a holiday trip where toilet stops and breaks were planned by distance.

Besides the buff/cookies/mage food call in the preparatory time when you enter a BG should we also be asking.

” Now have you all gone Wee wee?”

It is a tactic of stealthies to approach a node being guarded by one person,  and not even attempt to sap/stun or anything to them.  Like sly predators they sneak up to you to see if your still alive,  and if you’re not paying attention they will cap it under your nose and if it’s a druid bounce away chuckling gleefully,  or a rogue, just ‘Pops’ vanishing

Not all of these stealth caps are because of people on Bio breaks. Plain boredom,  inattention or just standing out of line of sight will do it too.

But needing to pee!

Why didn’t you go before !

“I’m soooooo exciiiiiittted..   I  juuust can’t hiiiiiiiide” here

It’s kinda how I feel about mists. I say the words, “I’m so excited”  but there is no real feeling in it.

Yet.

I missed the excitement of the BC expansion because I had only been playing Wow for a month when it came out, so I am probably more of a BC baby, but I have been through the excitement of Wrath, and Cata, and I am getting a little weary. I still love the game, still playing, but it’s like a broken record,  the same people who get excited seem to be the first to moan  how easy/how boring it is / leave the game.

I don’t mind some spoilers, and I read what’s happening and occasionally I’ll go – Hey.. Stampede for hunters sounds really cool. I can’t wait to try it.

And I wonder if I am more tired of the people then I am of the game.

Stupid stuff like needing on greens, people wiping raids deliberately by pulling bosses, starting fights before raid is complete/everyone is there.  Aspect of the pack on spine, or Hagara, and then afkers in bg’s   I know Blizzard seem to be trying to make playing with pugs as asshat proof as possible with their new loot rules, and have improved things like reporting over the years  but it also feels like we are getting wrapped in more and more bubble wrap. One person should not have the power to ruin 24 other,  9 other 4 other peoples fun and I guess bubblewrap is one way of going about it.

I signed up for 12 month subscription thing so I will get the Beta eventually,  but I am of two minds to use it.  I would question my motivations,  do I really want to help them find bugs, or do I want to see some of the new stuff before most other people. I’m also not too keen on having the new stuff ruined for me, and while I would like to see the new panda zone – and be a monk, before a million other people on go live also do the same, I suspect the starting zones on test realms would much the same experience.

and while I may be a little quite,  I am still here, not going anywhere.