You Only See It After The Fact

I attended the visitation for my friend last night, which was cathartic. I hadn't realized just how many people he knew, because there was quite a line of people to see him, but I also ran into several other members of my amateur radio club there. Yes, I'm quite aware that visitations and funerals are for the living rather than for the dead, but still it was good to be reminded that we have other people who count on us and connect with us. 

Speaking of connecting, I made a point the other day to get my annual flu and covid shots while I was picking up my medications at my pharmacy. While I'd known the people at the pharmacy for years, they'd been strictly professional in all my interactions with them. I'd occasionally wondered if they actually recognized me --a strange concept considering I'm a redhead with a (now gray) beard. Well, when the woman providing the shots took me into the little private room, I discovered that not only did they know me quite well but they were happy to see me whenever I made an appearance.

***

That got me to thinking about a couple of recent instance runs I had on the Anniversary servers. 

The first one, on my Hunter, was a run through the Underbog*. The tank and healer were from the same guild, and the healer was max level, so yay for us. But still, for the most part I was trying to stay out of trouble. Which, as a Hunter, meant not having my pet pull aggro from the tank nor trying to be a jerk and hitting the enemies hard enough to pull threat myself. Yes, Hunters have that reputation, and I'm quite aware of it. 

Of course, I did miss that I had the wrong buff on when we started (Aspect of the Pack). Sure, it makes you run faster, but when you get hit you get stunned, so... Yeah, not a good idea. 

When the Healer mentioned it, I apologized and switched the buff to the correct one. "I think every Hunter, myself included, has done that before," the Healer replied, which made me feel better.

"And here I was trying to make sure that Growl was off," I added. "Oh well."

I think that a little kindness there went a long way, and I appreciated that.

The second instance was a Sunken Temple run on my Horde Mage, Neve. After my failed attempt to get into ST the other week, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, the Druid tank was up front in that they hadn't been in ST in years, so they might need some guidance in finding their way around. Luckily, another party member pulled up some of the more intricate parts of the instance on ChatGPT (I guess going to Wowhead would have worked too), so we had that part covered. Since our tank was a Druid and I know Druid tanks quite well because I first met my Questing Buddy while she was on her Druid tank, I knew to wait and get a chance to see how they'd do at handling threat before I went all in on my DPS. 

Okay, so I'm casting Blizzard right now; sue me.
Typically I focus on a caster/healer and make sure
we kill them first, or at the very least I can counter
whatever healing or damage spells they put out.

That didn't exactly work as intended, because I kind of got excited a couple of pulls in and pulled threat. "Sorry about that," I said, "I'll slow my DPS for a bit so you can keep threat." 

"That's okay," the tank replied, "I don't speak English well."

Honestly, I had no idea why that mattered in terms of me slowing down my DPS, but I kind of shrugged and did my best to keep myself from pulling threat. I mean, that's my job: do damage but don't be an asshat; do crowd control** and make things easier for the tank and healer; provide food and water for the group, and make sure everybody has the buffs they need.

In case you've forgotten, Sunken Temple (formally known as The Temple of Atal'Hakkar) is one of those Classic instances that can take an entire evening to clear if you're very thorough, or if you're not quite at the right level for it. Just like the other four massive Vanilla instances, Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, Stratholme, and Maraudon, you'll just have to take your time and relax.

So I did.

I mean, I was constantly drinking to get my mana back, so I was fine with the pace. And to be honest, about 1/3 of the way through our group got into a groove and then we were able to speed things up just a bit.

Still, I was floored when the tank said in group chat, "Yr good Mage, you don't go all in on aoe when I pull."

"Thanks," I replied. I thought about making an additional comment, but that was kind of embarrassing. I mean, I'm part of a team, and I look good when the team looks good.

When we finished, both the tank and the healer said in group chat that they added me to their Friends' list. Again, a little kindness went a long way.

***

If there was one thing I'll always remember about my friend, it's that he was always there for you. He encouraged people, enabled them to do their best work, and celebrated with them when they achieved their goals. He was living proof that behaving like other people mattered and were worth cheering for paid dividends, both for the people he affected and himself. I don't know if he ever got to see how many people's lives he'd impacted, but I'd like to think he did. 

*Yes, it's Underbog, not "Underdog", the cartoon from the 1960s. Although I have been known to say "Never fear, UNDERDOG is here!" while in that instance.

This is a poster by Ian Glaubinger.
Note the evil Simon Bar Sinister on the
bottom left, and Polly Purebred on the right.

**Apparently not that many Mages actually do crowd control like you're supposed to. My Questing Buddy has informed me on numerous occasions that the Mages in her guild simply don't do any of that stuff. Or even bother with things such as removing curses from party/raid members, leaving that job to other classes. I have no idea where that mentality comes from, but I consider those "lesser" things a critical part of actually playing a Mage. 

EtA: Corrected intent in a sentence; it could have easily been misread.

When Words Aren't Enough

(Okay, I'm ready to post. At least I think I am.)

Like most hobbies, amateur radio has it's own slang.

Some of it I already knew prior to getting my license, courtesy of being a shortwave radio listener for decades. 73s means "best regards" or an equivalent, and is said at the conclusion of a conversation. QSL, which in question form means "are you receiving me?" or in a statement means "I am receiving you." The terms originated from the (ancient) past; 73 came from the telegraph era and QSL from when most hams communicated via Morse Code, and there's a whole host of terms that originated back then and are still in use today.

73 was also used as the name of an amateur
radio magazine. As you can tell with this cover
from January 1973, declarations of ham radio's demise
have been around since forever. From eBay.

Other terms don't require knowledge of Morse Code, thankfully, but can seem somewhat arcane by themselves. An amateur radio operator's mentor is known as an "Elmer" which originated from an article in an amateur radio magazine whose author was mentored by a man named Elmer, so hams kind of appropriated the name as a term for a mentor in the hobby. A "boat anchor" is an old piece of radio equipment, typically powered by vacuum tubes. Given that those radios weighed a ton and were hard to move around, they got the moniker "boat anchors" to reflect that.

Now THIS is a boat anchor, and one that I did
play with back in my college years, but alas it was
claimed by a professor. This Hammarlund HQ-180AC
is also as heavy as hell. From The Radio Attic.

And then there's a Silent Key. 

As you can probably figure out, the "key" part is a nod to keys used to tap out Morse Code, but the term Silent Key is a respectful way to refer to a ham radio operator who has passed away.

Last week, almost a year to the day that I took my first amateur radio class, one of the three instructors in the class became a Silent Key. 

The last time I saw him was a Saturday in the Spring, assisting with taking down the antenna tower at his home's backyard. He was planning on selling the house, and so he asked for help in taking down the tower and getting it out of the way. It didn't take us long to get the thing down, thankfully, and afterward he showed us how he set up his shack in the basement. 

I fully expected to see him at our next club meeting or at least hear him on our 2m repeater, but a couple of weeks after helping out he stopped logging in to our weekly net. I was told that he likely was busy with the move and probably looking at a vacation, but the longer the silence the more I began to worry. Then I heard unofficially that he was sick, so I reached out to him via email and sent him some words of encouragement. I didn't receive a reply.

A month later word spread throughout the club what the real reason for his absence was: cancer. I was told this in confidence and I kept it until now, since it is merely academic.

He was in his 80s and had lived a full life, and he'd recently remarried in the early part of 2026 after his wife had passed a while ago. But cancer really doesn't care about your hopes and dreams. And you'd think that knowing he had such a wonderful life would make this easier, but it doesn't. Not really.*

If it weren't for him and the other two instructors, I'd not be a ham right now. I'd also not be part of the club that I'm in, and I'd not have a larger circle of friends now. He was such a friendly guy, and he was patient with me as I struggled with some of the more advanced concepts on the General exam. 

I believe the best way to honor him is to pick up his torch of mentorship and pay it forward. I'm not sure how exactly, because I'm not secure enough in my knowledge to be an instructor, but I can be there for people and assist them as they need help. I surely hope that will be enough.

This graphic can be found on several sites, so I'm not sure
who created it. The Morse Code "silent key" is below the
artist's rendering of an actual key. 

*I also discovered this past week that two people I worked with back in the late 90s and early 2000s, who are both about my age, had passed away this Spring. The first one had cancer and was told that it was fatal, so he told people before he died, but the other I have no idea what happened. There were no clues in the obituary, but the photo that they used for the memorial... I couldn't look at it for more than a few moments without seeing the dead look in his eyes. I... I wished I could have reached out, but our paths hadn't crossed in over 20 years (different jobs and social circles), and I didn't even think about seeing what he's up to until recently.

How Much of Raiding is Psychology?

The lions sing and the hills take flight
The moon by day, and the sun by night
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!
--From Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

My Questing Buddy broached the topic again the other day.

She asked me if I was interested in raiding.

"Somehow I don't think your guild is at a loss for raiders," I replied. Her guild may not be at the top of the pyramid, but for the time they raid (evening Pacific Time, so their 8 PM start is 11 PM here) they're likely one of the top guilds on our Anniversary server. In my experience, top guilds have no problems getting recruits.

Well, my Questing Buddy informed me they have three open slots right now: Shaman, Mage, and Paladin. And, ironically enough, all of whom I had gotten to max level. 

"Even if I wanted to, it would take a lot to get even one of my toons geared enough to not be a carry, and I absolutely refuse to be carried," I replied to the feeler. "And by the time I got geared enough, you'd be on to the Sunwell."*

"Can you blame me for trying?" she responded.

"No, that's fine. It's also that my toons aren't even close to geared for Karazhan let alone any other raids, and I'd have to get pre-raid gear just to not be a carry in that place."

***

I decided to change the topic, and I at least thought it polite to ask how the new raids went with her guild. Those were the first raids that back in 2022 I'd never participated in, because I had to quit progression raiding a week before those raids were unlocked. 

"We're stuck on the same part we were back then," my Questing Buddy replied.

Huh. I wasn't expecting that. "Are you being caught by the same problem that you don't have enough Shamans [in the raid]?"**

"Yes," she replied. She also informed me that people didn't know where to stand and it was becoming impossible for her to heal the tank while everybody else was close by. "We got detailed instructions with [the guild we raided with in 2022] but here it was 'everybody spread out' and people still clumped together."

Oof. Yeah, that hurts. "I figured that since you'd blasted through everything else up to now that this wasn't going to be a problem."

The conversation continued quite a bit, with me hearing some of the same complaints she had back in 2022, and I decided that some things about certain raids never change. Good thing I'm not involved, or it would likely drive me nuts.

***

On reflection, that does bring up an interesting thought about the psychology behind MMO raids and other associated group content: do we all end up falling for the same traps on our first instincts that we then have to overcome by explicit training?

If the idea is to spread out, why do people end up clumping together anyway? Do they all run to the same places? 

Do people always have the same initial reaction to specific raid mechanics, and do MMO design teams make use of those psychological tendencies when designing that content?

I have to think that devs do make use of those psychological tendencies, whether explicitly or not, simply because forcing a player to go against their initial reaction is a more powerful mechanic than just about any other actual mechanic you can throw at a person. Sure, add-ons such as Deadly Boss Mods can give you a warning as to an incoming mechanic, which smooths out the initial reaction, but if you're not using DBM (or aren't allowed to, given your specific MMO) you're pretty much on your own to wrestle with your psychological tendencies. 

The thing is, you can eventually overcome your tendencies if you work hard at it, in as much the same way you can overcome your biases in other areas. Yeah, it's not easy, and I know I have a hard time overcoming my own biases that I grew up with, but I've found in the end that it's worth it to make the effort. As in real life, overcoming your raiding tendencies makes the victory sweeter.

***

There's still one thing that does make me wonder: if everything in group content is readily available on YouTube or TikTok, how does an encounter designer compensate?

Chaos, that's how.

If a boss gets to a special mechanic portion of the fight, they shouldn't telegraph what mechanic they're going to execute. The boss perform should instead perform the exact the exact same way every time ("Let me show you a taste of my power!" or some other thing) but then randomly pick one of, oh, 12 to 15 mechanics to utilize. If the boss does the same thing every time, the initial reaction can be easily overcome to create new psychological tendencies. If, however, you simply don't know what's coming that wreaks havoc with people who like steady, predictable mechanics. Sure, you can just weather the storm, but you pretty much have to at that point. 

Another possibility is to do what's always done, lead with an intro that goes into a specific mechanic as is defined in most boss fights, but have a 30% chance that you get a completely different mechanic instead. "What, you thought you knew me? Guess again!" would make a good tagline to go with that.

These are just starting points, because I doubt that the average player on the Anniversary servers really wants any extra challenges than what's there already. Sure, there are those who push the envelope and there are the speedrunners, but between where my Questing Buddy is and where I am lies the average player, and they really don't need any extra challenges right now.

So, maybe we don't tell my Questing Buddy about these suggestions, okay?

*Sunwell Plateau is the last raid in The Burning Crusade. The second last progression raid tier, with the Battle for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple raids, dropped just the other day.

**Apparently there's a mechanic in a boss fight in the Mount Hyjal raid that pretty much requires you to have a Shaman per 5 person group within the overall raid of 25. For those not in the know, an entire raid is broken down internally into 5 person groups, so a 25 person raid has 5 groups of 5 people each. A 10 person raid has 2 groups of 5 people each. So... a Shaman's totems only work within the group they're part of, not raid-wide. That means that because a shaman's totem is used to counter the boss mechanic, you have to have a shaman per group, so in a 25 person raid you need 5 Shamans.

#Blaugust2026

Time to Visit Another Old Friend

Last afternoon, I was noodling about on Quintalan when I noticed that Ancient, of the blog Tome of the Ancient, was on. Since she'd invited me to come and see her house, I figured I'd whisper her and take her up on the offer. I figured that my last Retail toon I'd leveled to (what was then) the level cap would be appropriate to visit with her. So, I pulled Azshandra out of storage and got a hold of Ancient.

Hey, Catwynn can be a sneaky druid...

And away I went...

Knowing Ancient's Druid, Catwynn, there were two things that stand out the most about her: she likes peaceful, wide open spaces, and she likes to fish.

She did not disappoint.

Here's a few screencaps of my time at Catwynn's place...

She does like to look at the stars, like
all Night Elves...

And she has a relaxing hot tub to hang out in...

For flowers and fishing... Check.

The house is a nice little rustic bungalow.

But Catwynn's home is a lot like the TARDIS:
bigger on the inside!

And like the TARDIS, it certainly seems to
be able to warp space and time. See above.

And even a drafting station! This was something
I didn't know about Ancient, that she used to do
drafting work.

All in all, if I closed my eyes and imagined Catwynn's
(and Anicent's) house, this is what I'd picture it as.

Thanks much! But there's just one more thing...

WoW! That was one hard to do achievement, and
really worthy of the title!

Okay, two things... A doggo!

I took waaay too many screenshots to fit into this post, but believe me it was all forth it. Thanks to Catwynn for showing me her home, and it was great to see it!

A Return to the Glory Years

I was getting on one of my toons on the Anniversary servers when my Questing Buddy whispered me and asked if I could join her in exploring AQ40 in Retail for a bit. I knew that the lead-in to the opening of AQ40 --formally known as The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj-- had begun on the Anniversary servers, and she wanted to poke around inside to make sure she had the cadence of the raid down.

Having actually completed AQ40 before, she could pick my brains a bit as needed.

"What do you need?" I asked, thinking of the Retail toons that could get into AQ40..

"Doesn't matter."

"Which faction?"

"Doesn't matter, because cross faction grouping."

So I hopped on Neve, who was simply loitering around Silvermoon City, ported to Orgrimmar, and then took a flight down south. I had to make some adjustments to the UI, however.

Yikes. That was embarrassing.

I felt it wasn't going to be that big of a deal, only there was one thing...

"You'll have to timewalk a bit," she informed me. 

"Do I need to do that? I haven't played Neve since Mists."

"Yeah, you will. The giant sword is in the middle of Silithus."

What sword?

The irony, which I called out midway through the raid, was that she was on a Draenei Warrior, and I was on a Blood Elf Mage. 

"TBC forever!" I said.

Yes, this is the same gear Neve wore when I last ran a BG
with her in Cataclysm. Or thereabouts.

My Questing Buddy's warrior was significantly higher level than Neve, because Neve was still at L32 (where she landed after the level squish, going from L85 down to L32), and with the mobs there around L31 or so, my aggro radius was pretty broad. On more than one occasion I'd be typing something in and I'd get shellacked by a mob that wandered vaguely close to me. Even when I behaved myself and hid away from the fight, such as the final fight against C'Thun, one of his tentacles magically appeared in front of me and tossed me into his inside, where I died quickly.

Story of my life, dying to C'Thun.

Obviously, one shotting mobs and bosses don't give you a good feeling of how the fights really progress, and so I was just there to bounce my experiences off of her. However, I believe she's going to have a bit harder of a time of it in spots than we did in the fall of 2020. 

"You have to be able to decurse here, so casters can't just sit at the top and then DPS. You need to put them on the stairs so they can reach people for decursing."

"That means me, because our Mages don't decurse."

I was pretty disgusted at that behavior. You do what you can to help the raid. "If they behave like that, they'll die very quickly in Naxx, let alone here."

Still, for a brief diversion, it was fun. I really didn't do terribly much other than comment on how much things had changed, such as the Blizzard spell behaving completely differently in Retail versus Classic, and how you could now use any mount you wanted inside AQ40 whereas back in the day you could only use those Qiraji battle mounts, which worked only within the raid itself. 

Also, I have no idea why raid frames didn't appear like they're supposed to. When we were in a regular party, things looked normal, but as soon as my Questing Buddy converted the group to a raid, the frames vanished. And for the record, I don't have any addons in Retail, because this PC didn't exist when I last played Retail.

Speaking of not playing Retail...

NOTE: I don't want to hear anything about the cluttered nature of my bars. I haven't touched them in 13 years, so they're bound to messed up.

Enjoying the Ride

Last night I spent some time doing something I've not done since November: actually playing in-game with friends.

Oh, I've been online at the same time they are, and even been in a group together, but either they were doing their own thing, doing boosting/getting boosts, or doing group content of some sort. Since they mostly were rushing on ahead in the Anniversary servers, there really wasn't much in common for us to work on at the same time. Even when they had gotten toons to L60 and were working on alts*, I'd kept a distance because they were frequently doing boosting of some sort.

However, last night was a respite from that because my Questing Buddy was playing with one of her kids**, and I noted that her kid had died. 

"Need a healer?" I asked.

"Not a bad idea," my Questing Buddy replied, so I switched to a Priest who was close to Darnassus and went up to Teldrassil to help out.

I spent the next hour or more following them around, healing and shielding them, while they quested inside the Ban'ethil Barrow Den and against the Furbolg encampments nearby. Once in a while I would pull threat due to the heals, so I had to use wands and the occasional attack spell, but I was perfectly fine providing a minimal amount of support to keep them upright. I had no skin in the game, since I wasn't trying to keep up with quests or catch up with leveling. It was simply something that I could do without disrupting their enjoyment of the game --or making it all about me-- so I could enjoy the ride for a while.

*At least one has an alt closing in on L60 as well. Go figure.

**The kids play on a free account, which works well since they only tend to play in the starter and adjacent leveling zones.

Channeling My Inner Boss

I've been dipping my toe back into some raiding. Nothing crazy, mind you, just regular old Molten Core on Wednesday nights. One of our little group got into that MC on his Paladin, and when I happened to login earlier than usual on that Wednesday, he asked if I wanted to come. My wife was already beat and was going to bed early, so I said sure.

Hmm... Have I been here before?

It didn't hurt that the Good Twin got a couple of pieces of gear, the Azuresong Mageblade --it's made for a Mage, because it has "Mage" in the name!-- and the (Mage Tier 1) Arcanist Bracers. Between those two pieces of gear --plus an offhand I had obtained as a reputation piece via Alterac Valley-- my damage on an unbuffed per Frostbolt hit went from mid-600s to mid-700s. Which ain't so insignificant when you think about it.

***

There's also been all sorts of sneaky activities that my Questing Buddy and I have gotten ourselves into.

Because I simply can't keep my mouth shut.

She and I --on my old Classic Rogue, Azshandra-- have been sneaking into Zul'Gurub and picking herbs, hoping for Bloodvine to drop. 

In case you're wondering, Az's spec is a customized mixture of Combat and Subtlety. I designed it so that I could go just far enough into Subtlety to pick up Improved Sap and then into Combat to get the bonuses for dual wielding daggers. (Oh no, a Dagger Rogue! And a non optimized one, too!)

Eh, it works for me. She's not raiding. As a bonus, she has advantages in stealth that a regular Combat Rogue would never have, and that means she can help my Questing Buddy with Operation Bloodvine.

When we're not dead, that is.

There's a reason why I'm still hidden.

Those of keen eyesight among you might notice that my Questing Buddy's Druid doesn't have any real gear on, and that's because she'd died enough times that her gear broke.

The idea is that we target an herb node, she casts heals on herself, mounts up, and pulls the nearby mobs. Then I stealth in and grab the herbs and any nearby Hoodoo Piles, then stealth away before the mobs come back. She typically manages to avoid the mobs long enough to find a reset point, but as you can see above she occasionally pulls too many enemies or she runs into one during her escape.

Still, the reward of Bloodvine for some of the best non-raid gear in Classic Era is worth it. The Bloodvine 3-piece cloth set is great for Warlocks and Mages up through Blackwing Lair, and only starts being replaced in the AQ40 T2.5 set pieces. Back in the Fall of 2020, once I obtained my Bloodvine set on OG Cardwyn, I kept it until I began getting replacement pieces in Naxxramas.* My Questing Buddy was hunting for Bloodvine to make the set for herself, but Bloodvine alone is worth a pretty penny on the Auction House. 

So the lure of "free gold" --minus the gear repair bills-- is strong.

When my Questing Buddy is running back from having died, I find myself with time on my hands. So I've taken up dancing and singing while hidden. Because I can.

Yes, I remember Born in the USA quite well.
Between that album, Purple Rain, 1984, and
a host of other classic albums, 1984 was a good year.

***

Oh! And I ran into an old friend in Feralas.

Fancy meeting you here.

It's good to see Rexxar out and about like this, and not tied up at a Horde-only base in Outland.

***

And, uh, this person is back too.

/sigh

Sometimes you just can't win.

*Why is it so good? Because the Bloodvine set has two distinct advantages over most other gear: it has superior spellpower bonuses, and it also has hit bonuses. If you want to go raiding, a Mage has to get to roughly +17 to their Hit bonus to reach the cap and have the greatest chance of hitting a raid boss that's roughly 3 levels higher than you. The Bloodvine set alone gets you a +4 to Hit, netting you a quarter of the bonuses you need to become "Hit Capped". The drawback is that there are absolutely no Stamina bonuses to the Bloodvine set, so you don't have even close to as much health as wearing Tier raid gear will get you. That is.... kind of deadly in places such as Blackwing Lair or AQ40.

EtA: Apparently I can't spell the word "keen". Fixed.

Rawr, She Said

My Questing Buddy has been going into Alterac Valley with me the past week, as she has her eye on some gear that you can buy once you become Exalted with the Stormpike Guard. I know she'd had a rough time in Warsong Gulch in TBC Classic when one of her BiS pieces was available from the Silverwing Sentinels, but I think I might have miscalculated how her competitiveness was going to surface in AV.

#Blaugust2024

If We Had The Chance

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?

--The Way We Were, Barbara Streisand (Written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch)

The other day I was helping out my Questing Buddy with a run through Uldaman --that mid-L40s dungeon out in the Badlands that is actually the archaeological excavation of a titan city-- when I mentioned something amusing I saw when I got to the Ironforge Flight Point to head out.

"One of the people from [the guild I occasionally help out with Onyxia] was here at the Ironforge FP and they did a keyboard turn as I ran by on OG Card," I reported. "It was as if they saw my full Tier 3 set and said, 'Wait, isn't that the Mage who never reserves anything in Ony?"

"LOL"

I'm sure I got recognized, since that Mage Tier 3 set is pretty distinctive, and having it also means that I was raiding Naxxramas in Vanilla Classic long enough to actually get the full set. In a 40 person raid where you have --on average-- 5-6 Mages, 3 Warlocks, and 3-4 Priests vying for the same drops-- you're competing with over 1/4 of the raid to get 9 pieces of gear.

Too bad I didn't say out loud "I'm the EVIL twin!!" before I took the FP, but because my brain only thought of that now, oh well.

"Maybe they're waiting on the T6 set," my Questing Buddy added.

"They'll be waiting a long time for that," I replied. We both knew that the T6 set was released in Burning Crusade, and Classic Era is permanently set at Vanilla Classic.

After a short pause, I said, "I never got a T6 set. Or a T5 set, for that matter."

"Neither did I." 

Our TBC raid team disbanded after only one try in Sunwell Plateau*, and since I was Loot Manager for our raid, I was also aware of her struggles to get gear in the two Tier 5 raids, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern.

"IIRC, Tier 5 wasn't that good for Enhancement Shamans," I mused. "Maybe two of the pieces were good, but overall Tier 4 gear was more desirable."

"I didn't even get Tier 4 gear at all," she replied, "since Fire Spec Warlocks used the Spellfire set."

"Ah, the Tailored set?"

"Yep."

That was the set that required a Tailor to make Spellcloth every couple of days. While it's one of those 'it sounds great in theory' concepts to spread out the gear acquisition process, what ended up happening in TBC Classic was that people would fanatically level alts just for the purpose of cranking out tons of Spellcloth for their gear. I knew one Mage who actually had FIVE toons making Spellcloth so they could get the gear needed for raiding.** (Yes, they also had a 'normal' full time job.) Somewhere in the back of my head I would have liked to get that set for Cardwyn or Neve, but I looked at how sweaty people were at working for that set, threw up in my mouth a little, and walked away.

The next day, we were killing pirates in Stranglethorn Vale when talk about TBC Classic came up again. 

"I find it surprising, but I'm now kind of missing TBC Classic," I said. "It would be nice to go back and do things differently."

"What would you do differently?" my Questing Buddy asked.

"First thing is that I wouldn't switch to being an Enhancement Shaman," I replied with some heat.

She laughed.

"I'm a Mage, and while I love melee, I absolutely hated the totem-twisting rotation. If you were off by just a smidge everybody's DPS would tank. I know I'd lose my raid spot, but that'd be the case only on the hardcore guilds."

"Yeah, I'd do a lot of things differently," she added. "I loved Warlock Fire, and I hated giving that up to tank [Leotheras the Blind]."

"I don't miss raid leading." Being peripherally involved in guild leadership drama wasn't worth it, particularly the perception that we were the "casual" raid despite our once per week raid trying hard to keep up with the multi-day per week hardcore teams.

"I miss Jesup." Jes ran a lot of alt raids, and she was the one who originally created the Friday night Karazhan run before handing it off to me. She'd burned out on all those alt raids in TBC Classic, but she came back to run some in Wrath Classic.*** 

"How is she doing?" another of our friends asked.

"I haven't heard from her in months," I replied.

Now that we're a few years away from the end of TBC Classic, I find that I've come around to agreeing with Shintar's desire to have a few TBC Era servers around. For all those worried about the player base being fractured, to Blizzard a sub is a sub is a sub, so if they keep you "in the family" in some fashion rather than having you unsubscribe to go play FFXIV or Elder Scrolls Online during content droughts, then Blizz has succeeded.

Preach talks about the "keeping it in the family"

concept here, so it's not just me who thinks that...

I know I'm not the only one who misses the concept of TBC Era servers, given the community driven "fresh" server push on PvP-RP Classic Era servers, as highlighted by WillE here:

Apparently Microsoft/Zenimax is pushing hard

to promote ESO's Gold Road expansion with
all of these sponsorships...

He is right in that Vanilla Classic seems to be an evergreen thing, where there's continual interest in starting over every few years, but another part of it's appeal is that in an Era server you have all the freaking time in the world. You don't have to rush to the end and then start on the progression raiding treadmill because you know an expansion will be coming out in a few years. That's kind of why in LFG and Trade Chat there's an ongoing argument about why pay for a level boost when most of the Vanilla Classic experience is in the leveling itself. 

With Cataclysm Classic in full swing, there is now no ability to see the Old World + Outland + Northrend as it was, so Blizzard is effectively creating a demand by simply going through the progression of World of Warcraft's expansions. While it's not their primary motivation for creating Cataclysm Classic, I'm sure that the WoW Classic team is aware of it. I'm also completely sure that Blizz has at least kept an eye on the private server community to see if there's an uptick in interest in TBC and Wrath Classic servers. 

But we'll see. After my experience in TBC Classic, I never thought I'd be circling back to want to try it again, but here we are. Maybe it's a shot at redemption, or maybe it's a chance for me to finally get some closure from all of the shit that myself and the other leveling Shamans went through, but if I did go back it would be on my terms, not anybody else's.**** 

And that's a start.

 

*That's where you get the Tier 6 gear, along with Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.

**And to sell on the Auction House.

***I'd have loved to have run with her in those, but since she was doing them under the franken guild's name and some people I no longer respect participated, I refused to join. I'm not so desperate to raid that I was willing to overlook bad behavior, which judging by commentary in social media makes me feel like I'm some sort of unicorn.

****Even just writing that last paragraph gave me flashbacks to that insane month I spent and how miserable it was. Slaying that soul-sucking psychic vampire would be very much worth it. Now, where's my fucking wooden stake?

The Opposite of 'Nobody Cares'

I think I'm at that stage in my MMO career that what attracts me, more than anything else, is playing with other people.

There's always the automatic dungeon
finder, dude. I hear people who use it
are absolutely fantastic to play with.
Just ask Reddit. From Imgflip (and Reddit.)

I guess I'm just kind of done chasing the next new thing, whether it's a new expansion or a new raid or a new instance or new gear.*

There's only so many times you can be asked to keep running on that hamster wheel before you start to question why you're doing it in the first place. This is particularly the case if you're also questioning the quality and direction of other aspects of an MMO, such as the story or class design. 

But.

I can throw all that whining out the window, since I have a group of friends I play with regularly and I value their company. 

It is not a coincidence that I continue to both play WoW Classic Era and have a small group of friends to play with. If it weren't for them, I'd have likely not renewed my WoW game time when it ended back in early 2022, after I walked away from progression raiding. Hell, were it not for the Friday Night Karazhan Run that I raid led** until the guild up and moved from Myzrael-US to Atiesh-US, I'd have probably not made it until March, much less June of that year.

Yet here I am, almost two years later, and I'm still logging into Classic Era regularly. 

***

It is also not a coincidence that in the age of people predicting WoW's demise --myself included-- that the power of friendship keeps World of Warcraft and other MMOs afloat.

No, I'm not talking about the Retail WoW team's recent storylines, although judging by some of the commentary surrounding them I can understand why some would feel that way.

So... Who are the Bronies in this scenario?
From Reddit.

But the reality is that while you can play MMOs solo --and "playing solo" while in a group via the automatic dungeon or raid finder is very much a thing-- MMOs are built upon group content. And you don't have to be in a guild to find friends to play with. 

I mean, that's how I found most of my friends in WoW Classic.

Ancient of Tome of the Ancient was the only friend I knew who not only was playing WoW Classic at launch but was also on the server I played on.*** Sure, I knew a few people in the blogosphere who were going to play WoW Classic, but most of those whom were friends were over in Europe. The people from previous guilds that I could have considered friends at one point had either drifted away from the game or vanished from view in one of the couple of guild blow-ups that I've had the dubious privilege of witnessing. 

So... outside of Ancient, I was pretty much on my own as far as making my way was concerned.

***

I was fine with that. I'd been effectively playing MMOs solo since about 2011, when the Alliance guild I was in basically faded away to nothing in late Cataclysm and then after a burst of activity early in Mists proceeded to do a repeat performance. The only group content I participated in were the Flashpoints in the "vanilla" portions of SWTOR, and by 2016 or 2017 I moved away from even that.

Given that I wasn't raiding, and --outside of the mini-Reds and my blogger friends-- I knew almost nobody who actually played MMOs, this wasn't a surprise.

But the surprise was that I began to make acquaintances and then friendships with people in Classic WoW.

Look, I'm tellin' ya, that's what happened.
And no, people weren't asking my toons
to strip or anything.

It was a natural outgrowth of manual group creation and obeying Wheaton's Law: "Don't be a dick." I would get into a group, behave nicely and not try to pull threat from the tank, and at the end I'd thank people for the group and if they ever needed a Rogue (or Mage), to hit me up. Most people wouldn't whisper me again, but a few did. From those initial connections grew some of my longest lasting friendships in the game. 

While I had acquaintances in Classic WoW that have fallen by the wayside as interests diverged or people unsubscribed, other friendships persisted. It is those friendships that keep me playing WoW Classic Era more than anything else. So when I see that subscriber numbers kind of float between 4 to 8 million --and I'm assuming that paying for game time as opposed to an actual subscription qualifies-- then yeah, there's far more here than just approval and love for the game and its content. 

Yes, that's 4 to 8 million players spread across (effectively) 5 games: Retail, Wrath/Cataclysm Classic, Classic Era, Classic Hardcore, and Classic Season of Discovery. I get that it's not the same as 4 to 8 million players that were playing a single game (Retail WoW), but money is money to Microsoft and it pays the bills.****

I realize that friendship isn't impervious to anything video game related, just as in real life, but MMO creators would do well to realize that fostering and maintaining friendships are likely the smartest thing they can do when designing and building an MMO. After all, it is an armor stronger than any plot armor out there, and can keep players subscribed even when the product stinks and the development team make horrible decisions. Okay, maybe not, but when people still play after a bad expansion, I believe there's more at work than that the WoW community are just a bunch of "sheep" who blindly continue to play the game. 

And for pete's sake, don't expect the sanitized group and guild recruitment tools to do the heavy lifting of interacting with people for you. I'm almost 100% certain that if I relied upon an automated dungeon finder to enter into Classic Era dungeons that I'd not have made the connections I have. That doesn't mean that there aren't problems in a purely manual system --there are a truckload-- but by minimizing interpersonal contact the WoW team(s) have inadvertently exacerbated the problem of people forming bonds in the game. And online want-ads aren't the answer.

Uh, that person spamming a level
boosting service in Mandarin notwithstanding.

At least I'll admit that the guild name "Frequently Reported" is kind of funny.

*That doesn't mean that I'm not interested in trying new games, because I am. It has far more to do with games I'm already playing that rely upon people constantly ponying up money for more things --whether it's an expansion or some cash shop item-- than getting a chance to try something completely new. I'm looking at you, Paradox, who either give up on a game after a very short period of time or will simply throw "expansions" at you ad-infinitum until you cry 'uncle'. It seems that every time I turn around there's a new addition to Stellaris or Europa Universalis IV, while on other games Paradox simply gives up on those that need bug fixes and tweaks to make them shine (Imperator: Rome).

**I found out much later from a friend who remained in the guild and in a semi-leadership position that the franken-guild's leadership expected me to run the "social" raids in the same manner as I ran the Karazhan raid, and they were surprised when I refused to move to Atiesh-US with the rest of the guild. Given that my orphan raid was pretty much independent of any guild leadership input or oversight for over half a year, they kind of screwed that up pretty badly given they never bothered to ask me my opinion on things.

***To be fair, I chose Myzrael-US in part because Ancient had decided to play on that server, as I figured that I at least knew one person on there.

****If anything, Microsoft is disappointed that I don't pay for more via the Cash Shop, because there they get maximum profit for minimal effort.

Life as a Kindergarten Teacher, MMO Style

Several people in my friend group on WoW Classic Era have been leveling Mages lately, so they've prevailed upon me to help get them through some of the low to mid level instances. I may not run boosts for people for profit, but I can do this for friends. Since my gear is about as good as you can get without going into raids --more on that on another post-- I can solo up through about partway into Uldaman.* If the people I'm helping to run through instances are high enough level to actually be there due to quests, we ought to be able to handle all of Uldaman and most of Maraudon and Zul'Farrak.

Still, it's not a big deal and it does keep me in practice.

Inside Uldaman.

Did I mention that they were all Gnomes?

Oh yes, and the "herding cats" mentality runs strong in my friends, which led me to a revelation:

So what did I do? I took that and ran with it...

Having raised three kids, I know the drill.

My friends were only too happy to oblige:

*This is WoW Classic Era, mind you, and to reach the end in Uldaman you need at least three people in a group to start an event that opens up the last part of the dungeon. Still, I can do trash mobs and whatnot through most of the instance without dying.

EtA: Fixed a problem with one of the graphics.