Attack of the Anti-Pugger

Like it or not, the main driver of play in World of Warcraft is group activity. Whether you raid, run 5-person instances, or PvP in various forms, WoW revolves around the "multiplayer" in the MMO acronym. Easing the access for multiplayer activity has been a driver of the more controversial changes to WoW over the years, from the automated group finder to LFR (LFD's raid level equivalent). 

Given that Blizzard has stoked the FOMO furnace over the years, it's no surprise that raid and dungeon teams have spent a lot of time trying to find the "right" player to help them clear content. We're not talking about friends and family raid teams who raid in a more social manner, but raiders who have aspirations of Heroic and maybe even Mythic clears of content.

Oh, and then there's puggers, who don't belong to a regular raid team for various reasons, yet still want to experience group content. It goes without saying that pugging is a bit of a hit-or-miss activity in MMOs in general without even taking into consideration any "requirements" placed on the prospective raid leads. 

The WoW community has responded to those needs --and the FOMO driver-- by creating addons and websites to "assist" people in finding the best players for their needs. To say that these have been controversial has been a bit of an understatement.

Anybody remember the initial release of GearScore back in Wrath?

There it is, in all its glory.
I had this from another post; I can't
remember which one now.

The GearScore addon caused a huge row in the WoW community by attempting to reduce a player's raid usefulness to a single number --the GearScore itself-- which led to entries such as this in Trade Chat:

"Need 2 DPS for ICC 25 GS 5000+ req"

The irony about gatekeepers using GearScore as a barrier to entry is that all it provided was a compilation of the iLevels of your gear, not whether you were any good in a raid. I mean, by the end of Wrath of the Lich King my Ret Paladin, Quintalan, had a GearScore of something like ~5200 and he never set a single foot in a raid instance. All that gear he got by grinding badges by running random Heroic Instances. 

Could I get into some of these raids with these GS requirements? Certainly. 

Did it mean I was a good raider? Certainly not.

***

Why dredge up GearScore again? Didn't we have a repeat of GS in Wrath Classic? Oh yes, Wrath Classic, where people swore right and left that they weren't going to use it... Until it came out and people used it like crazy once more. 

The thing is, GearScore is just one incremental step along the way to the current status of pugging in WoW. Parse Culture has always been around to an extent, but ever since GearScore and the rise of FOMO, Parse Culture has been pushing the envelope of what it means to be a "good player". Notice I didn't say good raider, but good player. If you raid or run instances and you pug, you have to deal with people who think all of your qualities as a WoW player can be reduced to a single number, a color, or a summary chart.

And now here comes Archon.

From the Archon website, as of April 7. 2025.

Archon is brought to you by the same team that created the Warcraftlogs app and website, and the TL;DR is that it takes all of the searching through Warcraftlogs and places it into a tooltip addon, so you can perform real time analysis of who to take as a pug in your raid. 

GearScore on steroids, basically.

***

This addon has been the subject of quite a bit of discussion on MMO Champion and has seen its share of YouTube videos:

Of course, Archon has been around in Early Access for months now, but a wider release apparently happened last week (ish). The current version everybody can use, but if you subscribe (as in pay real money) you can get more info than what the free users get.

It's not as if gatekeeping is new, but this is making gatekeeping easier than ever before.  Just rolling up and hovering over players allows you to see at a glance what it would have taken people a lot longer to review manually on Warcraftlogs.

Even then, it still doesn't tell you everything. Archon can't tell you if you do the mechanics right in a raid, and if you perform a critical job --which typically also means having a lower parse-- you're punished for it. Look at Vanilla Naxx as an example: I was on Wall Duty on Maexxna and would be tasked with calling out and freezing the scarabs on Anub'Rekhan, both of which are critical tasks for success on those bosses. Both of them also required me to be basically giving up on my parses for the good of the raid. With Archon, however, I'd be punished for such behavior, with a lesson to be learned is that I need to play less as a teammate and more of an asshole. And who wants to play with someone like that?

Needless to say, there have been some interesting takes on this...

From the comments from Bellular's video above.

From the MMO Champion thread linked to above.

I tried to avoid some of the more toxic responses in those threads, especially when you see people pooh-poohing the whole thing as "it's easy to to get XXX parses", basically trolling everybody. And it kind of spiraled out of control in spots from there.

Still, if the best advice to give people is "join a guild and raid with them", well, I have some experience there.

No, this was not me.
From the comments from Bellular's video above.

My own experience with guilds over the past 15+ years of playing MMOs hasn't been that inspiring. The guilds I've been in the longest over this time have been --by quite a wide margin-- the guild the kids and I have in LOTRO (Heroes of the Old Forest on the Gladden server) and Rades' old blogger guild Puggers Anonymous on Moonrunner-US.* The Retail guilds from back in the day either imploded with the the force of a thousand suns or faded away to nothing. The guilds I've been a part of in Classic WoW either faded away or swung heavily toward hardcore to the point where it was unbearable to remain. 

'We want to raid with friends', indeed.

After years of those shenanigans, I fail to see why I'd want to sign up for it all over again just to raid or run dungeons. And let's be honest for a minute: if my experience is pretty typical, I'd say that joining any guild will have issues because of the cliques that have developed over the time the guild has been around. Unless guild leadership makes an actual effort to include new people in group activities, any new guildie will find themselves it a double bind, where they can't get into guild runs and they can't get into pugs.

And really, if the solution is continuously guild hop until you find one that you like, at what point to you decide to go and do something else?

That aside, I think this is just more of the same as far as WoW goes. For the people who seek out drama, they'll find it in spades with this addon. For the people who are part of a guild of any real cohesion, then this is a non-issue for them. For people who stick to LFR and normal/heroic mode instances (and Delves), this won't affect them at all. It's only the people who want to try something different, to push themselves beyond the basics, that will find issues exacerbated by this addon. If Blizzard wants to turn the casual crowd into something more, then this addon --and the community culture-- will torpedo that. 

But maybe Blizzard doesn't want to bother trying any more, because that's not what they measure success at in Microsoft. There, it's all about whether you met your profit numbers, and if another mount or two in the cash shop will get them there, that's what we should expect.

*I had to go login to Retail to make sure I had the server right.

EtA: Corrected grammar and some wording.

An Homage of Sorts

When I first started poking around on Atiesh-US, I thought about resurrecting the old guild name I was a member of on Ysera-US, Is Up To No Good. Instead, I created that guild on Myzrael-US as a home for some of my alts, such as Az and Linna. 

Something about Linna's Mona Lisa-esque
smile fits that guild name perfectly.

But if nothing else, I wanted to put a guild together on Atiesh-US for Deuce. I'd discovered the joy of having an entire guild bank to yourself, and I figured that if I was going to have an alt over on Atiesh it'd be nice to have a mammoth amount of space for oddball junk as well.

I try not to be a packrat, but with WoW
you never quite know when some of this
stuff might come in handy.

My questing buddy and I got to talking about this blog, and I mentioned about how the MMO blogging landscape had changed over the years. 

"There's a lot of blogs that were watering holes for the community, and they're no longer around. Places like Tam and Chas' Righteous Orbs, Rades' Orcish Army Knife, and Larísa's The Pink Pigtail Inn were the places to go, not to mention WoW Insider."

"What was that?"

"What? WoW Insider?"

"No, The Pink Pigtail Inn."

"Oh, Larísa ran that. She stopped blogging long ago, 2014 maybe?"

My questing buddy began gushing about what a great name PPI was, and then she mentioned something I hadn't considered. "That would be a great guild name!" she added. "Hold on."

"Okay..."

"There!" she said a few moments later. "I reserved it. Want to sign the charter?"

"Sure!"

Alas, that charter then proceeded to languish for some months, as we moved on to other things. 

Fast forward to this past week, and I logged in on Deuce to find this:

"Yes, Mistress Elsharin. I like it too."

So Larísa's blog now lives on in game.

Larísa, I know that you've moved on and don't play any more, and I'm pretty sure you've put your gaming days behind you, but in case you come across PC again I wanted to let you know that you were an inspiration to me and a lot of other bloggers over the years. This small thing, a guild name for a few people, is just one way of saying thanks for your writing and community way back when. It still means a lot to me, and I hope I'm not the only blogger who thinks so.

EtA: I had "gushed" in there twice. That looked weird, so I fixed it. No more gushers here.

The Hell Just Happened?

A little over two weeks ago I had a conversation with one of my fellow "Leftovers" (aka the Leveling Shamans left behind in the Old World when the Dark Portal opened back in June 2020), which between the two of us became a grousing session on how TBC Classic went down, raid-wise. Given that the two of us were the only people online in Valhalla at the time*, we had a good long rant session in Guild Chat. 

I was kind of busy helping get
a waylaid pilgrm to Falcon Watch
at the time.

A day or two later, I got pinged in Discord by him. Would I be interested in joining a 10-person raiding team for Wrath led by himself and another of the Leftovers?

Given that my job situation is such that I could now raid at night, I was initially receptive to the idea, but I needed to know more about what they were looking at. And as I was not planning on joining the franken-guild in Atiesh, I definitely wanted to make sure that joining the guild wasn't a requirement.

Narrator: It wasn't a requirement.

The more we chatted, the more interested I became. I think the clincher was when he asked what level Deuce was and whether I'd be interested in using her in the raid team. 

• Getting a chance to raid on one of the two toons I'd consider taking into a raid**? Check.
• Me not having to raid lead? Check.
• Wanting a raid team that is "more chill" than having the same 2-3 people talking all the time? Check.
• A raid that has a built-in rotation and bench where everybody sits at one point or another? Check.
• A raid not built on either DKP or Loot Council, but instead a Loot Reserve system***? Check.
• A raid that they are reaching out to people they personally liked to group with? check.
• A raid that --unlike our experience with TBC Classic-- people aren't going to have deadlines to get toons leveled so raiding can begin ASAP? Check.
• A raid that won't harass you about getting your gear the optimal gems/enchants ASAP? Check.

They pretty much had me at the first item on the list, but still the entire thing read like a dream. The thing was, I wasn't totally sure if I was going to want to do this again. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to have them dashed by having someone I personally didn't like on the raid team. While I get that I have to tolerate such things at work, I don't consider playing games to be at that level. I'm not interested in dealing with people I dislike just because I want to see content.

But.

The people they were bringing on board read like a who's who of people I've missed playing with in WoW Classic. And it included my questing buddy!

***

Okay, what's the catch?

Well, that's what I was wondering, and I waited for that shoe to drop in a meeting on Discord last night. 

As far as that meeting went, I can safely say that everybody there was on board with the concept of 10 person raids with 2 more --maybe 3-- for a rotational basis. We have 8 already, and it's a matter of recruiting 4 more to round out our list. My questing buddy is currently bringing her Priest, and I my Mage, but we are both flexible as to whom we bring. I'm fine with switching to Ret, and she's fine swapping to Warlock, but we both want to make sure we have those holes plugged before we do so. Others are fine with moving a bit as-needed, but we all want to see this group succeed. 

My questing buddy already informed me that she will torpedo any attempt on my part to try to level another toon --a Shaman, perhaps-- from scratch. "You are NOT doing that again," she informed me.

One obstacle that I can mention is that the franken-guild isn't quite as enthusiastic about this raid's existence, because "blah-blah-blah it will take away from 25 person teams blah-blah-blah", but I'm pretty sure the act of trying to compress 3 25-person raids down to 2 will do that on its own. As my questing buddy pointed out to me later, when people discover that they're going to be on the bench --and clearing up to the first boss so that the real raiders can take over from that point onward-- they'll do a "peace out" quicker than you can say "The hell going on..."

Okay, so this is referencing
the NFL's bizarre offseason player
moves this past summer, but it still
is appropriate. From twitter.com.

Regardless, it was pulling teeth to apparently get a chat channel created in the franken-guild's Discord to even discuss the thing, so one of the orders of business last night was to have us move our discussions to a separate Discord without being concerned about any snooping going on by said franken-guild's leadership.

To be perfectly honest, I felt immeasurably better with that having happened, because I did not want to have to be in that Discord any more than absolutely necessary. I'd had one of the people in that guild reach out to me in-game to ask if I was going to join them on Atiesh, and I rather bluntly said "Not planning on it."

And I'm still not.

I don't want to be there when the drama goes down, and I don't want to be there when I know that the questions about "Why move and merge at the same time?" start showing up when people begin complaining about the excessive people signing up to raid. I don't want to be there when the clash of guild cultures ends and the other guild's culture wins.****

Not exactly the clash I was
thinking of. (From Twitch.)

And now my Horde guild is thinking of dipping it's collective toes into raiding in Wrath. Nobody there has asked me yet if I want to raid with them, but given that there aren't a lot of L70 Mages in the guild, I'm kind of expecting to be asked at some point. I'm not sure what to do there, exactly. I'd not mind raiding on Neve, but I also know I don't have the time for multi-day raids beyond what I've already committed to. So, I guess you could say that all that's old is new again.

"Did someone say something about Northrend?"
"Don't worry, Neve. We'll get to you soon."

*There are a few of us that are still in Valhalla on Myzrael-US. There's a ton of alts that never migrated --and I doubt they will-- as well as the people who burned out and left. I keep a close eye on who logs in on a regular basis, just to see if getting any groups together for things are a viable option on Myz.

**The other would be a Ret Paladin. Could be Linnawyn 2.0, or another Ret Pally. Not sure yet.

***I've run Loot Reserve systems in the past, particularly in AQ20 and Zul'Gurub, where people are allowed one soft reserve. It's worked out very well. This particular iteration allows people to take turns on who gets loot, so it's not a Soft Reserve with rolls to see who gets loot if there's more than one reserve, but instead each person who reserved an item --if it drops-- gets a turn at getting their loot. That way the entire raid gets gear together, rather than one person with lucky dice gets the lion's share of gear and the rest are left with scraps.

****What I've been told, that has pretty much happened already. I've been involved in too many corporate mergers over the years to not know how the culture clash will end: there's always a winner and a loser, and the corporate culture I've been on has typically been on the losing side. The lines from Pink Floyd's Time come to mind...

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

Passive Aggressive Commentary

When I was sending some mats to Cardwyn to craft, Linna came across this toon on Myzrael-US:

Gee, I have no idea what that guild is referencing...

That's one way to express your displeasure with the swift abandonment of Myzrael-US by the major Alliance raiding guilds. 

#blaugust2022

WTF, Atiesh?

I've been putzing around with Deuce a bit on the Atiesh-US TBC Classic server, getting a feel for the place, when I saw this the other day:

Oh yes. You read that right.

Here, let me highlight it for you:

I can confidently say that I never saw ANYTHING like that on Myzrael-US. I saw some shit there, but NOTHING like this. 

At least some people called it out, but I hoped for a bit more condemnation than what I saw.

Stay classy, Atiesh-US.

But It Was A Beginning

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the great mountainous island of Tremalking. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

--Robert Jordan, The Path of Daggers

 

Last Monday, on June 27th, there was to be a proverbial "big announcement" about the future of our guild moving forward into Wrath Classic.

I already had a clue as to what was likely to happen, but when the news did drop there were actually two big announcements:

• The guild was moving to Atiesh-US.
• The guild was merging with another raiding guild.

While I believed that Atiesh was the likely landing spot, the merger took me by surprise.

I'm still not exactly sure why the merger happened, because if guild leadership felt that they were going to have trouble recruiting, I thought that's why the move to Atiesh was needed. I suppose that leadership felt that since there was some decent overlap between the two guilds/raids already they might as well make it official, but to my mind that's a pretty poor reason to actually merge guilds.

But more on that later.

There was also another announcement --of a sort-- in the Monday raid: the remaining members of the Monday raid's lead team will be stepping down from raid leading in Wrath Classic. 

Now this I knew was coming, because I'd seen the discussions in the Monday raid lead Discord, and I knew how beaten down the main raid lead had gotten over the course of TBC Classic. But there were also other factors involved that I'm not at liberty to discuss, but I will say that there was a breach of trust involved that left a sour taste in the Monday raid leadership.

***

So.... What to make of this?

The moment I read the announcement, I exhaled with relief.

I'd been wondering how to just go and leave the guild without a lot of drama, and suddenly the solution was presented to me gift wrapped with a bow. 

I would simply leave the guild by standing still.

Now, the announcement included information that the raid teams' mains would remain on Myzrael-US until the pre-patch for Wrath is announced, then the progression raiding will stop and those toons will migrate to Atiesh-US. That means that alts would be free to migrate to Atiesh-US, which conveniently was during the big mid-Summer sale by Blizzard.

All those players who'd amassed a lot of gold on Myz were going to have to find a way to move that gold over, and the guild had set up a channel to allow people who didn't have a lot of gold to volunteer to be mules to migrate those players' gold over.

Sure, since I have very little gold compared to people who'd been doing dailies diligently*, I could be a mule, but I decided that if I was going to migrate any toons over, it'd be on my terms and when I felt I was ready. I already have Cardwyn 2.0 over on Atiesh, so Card wasn't going to land there anyway. And since most of my other toons are tied to her in one form or another, I didn't see a reason to move them over either. 

***

This whole turn of events brought a sudden halt to my Friday Night Karazhan runs, because with one or two exceptions (such as Briganaa) all of the toons in there were alts. I never got a chance to execute Pallyzhan, and I'm not going to migrate Linnawyn over to Atiesh just so I could do it there. There are people in guild who are aware I have Deuce** already on Atiesh, but I've already begun blocking guild invites, so I have no qualms about her going forward.

I remembered Larisa of The Pink Pigtail Inn, and the drama and agony she went through when she got "the talk" about her lack of raid performance that led to her brief departure from her guild, and I was determined to not deal with that. When I left, I wasn't going to have that drama follow me around. 

The more I've heard from my questing buddy about what the "new" raiding rules would be, the more I'm confident in the knowledge that I made the right decision. I'm sorry, but having the "bench" clear trash until the "real raiders" show up to replace them in the raid smacks of something out of Animal Farm: all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. The "you'd better perform or we'll replace you immediately" vibe that they're projecting means that they've swallowed the kool-aid whole and are going full hardcore. 

And to me, that's completely and totally stupid, because they then become no better than any of the other 40-50 hardcore raiding guilds on Atiesh-US, without any other distinguishing characteristics. 

The one thing that Valhalla had that other guilds didn't was that they acknowledged that people had families and real life and that came first, no matter what. That was why the raiding times were later than other guilds' raids, because families came first. Well, that entire modus operandii --along with the associated guild culture-- seems to have been thrown right out the window in pursuit of.... what, exactly? Is leadership so myopic that they truly believe they could be the top guild --or one of the top five guilds-- on Atiesh? The only reason why the Tuesday/Thursday raid was in the Top 6 in Sunwell Pleateau was because of all the other guilds that left Myzrael. To be a Top Five guild on Atiesh, they have to throw away the soul of their guild in pursuit of something that --at best-- they'll have only a year to a year and a half to enjoy before Cataclysm Classic appears.

There are other things I know of that I'm not liberty to discuss that I believe could fracture the merged guild before it even gets off the ground, but we'll see how that plays out. I'm staying out of it, because my time with Valhalla is at an end. 

My opinion on this merger can be summed up with a quote from Rebecca West that my fellow blogger Spinks used deep in the darkest days of Gamergate: "Women, listening to anti-suffrage speeches, for the first time knew what many men really thought of them."

*As I alluded to in a previous post, one of those same people who was diligently getting all the gold + mats so they could speed level their professions on their new Death Knight was the one who'd informed me in guild chat that doing the dailies may be boring and repetitive but "the gold you get means you never have an excuse to not have gold in game." I presume he meant that to me because I was the only other guildie online at the time, so that was his way to tell me "don't bitch about a lack of gold".

Narrator: Briganaa never bothered to accumulate gold.

Of course, now that he has to migrate all of his gold and mats over to Atiesh-US, I kind of chuckled at his predicament.

**That's what I've taken to calling Cardwyn 2.0.

Speaking of Endings

The elephant in the room finally materialized on Myzrael-US.

The top guild on the server, Variance, is planning on leaving for Atiesh-US on July 1st. 

Variance is not merely the top guild on Myz, but it is also one of the top guilds in all of TBC Classic. I've occasionally referred to the Myzrael progression raid scene as "Variance and then there's everybody else". Until they ran into Sunwell Plateau, they were able to down every single raid they came up against the first night. (It took two nights for them to finally finish the job on SWP.) Yes, that included Naxxramas and their full complement of bosses. 

They are that good.

What's more, there's likely about 200-300 raiding toons in Variance, so when they leave the Alliance raiding toon listings will take a 20-30% hit. 

***

What this means for the server is... Not good.

Well, if you're doing progression, anyway.

The problem about that is that progression is the straw that stirs the drink in TBC Classic*, and without a healthy amount of raiding toons, guilds will leave the server for greener pastures. This began in early TBC Classic when Imperium --the #2 guild on Myzrael-- left. Then the drip drip drip began.

Nox Terrorem (Horde) left.

Infernal hit the road.

Midnight Souls imploded and many people in that guild left the server.

Conquerors dissolved. 

Limelight moved on.

Anubis migrated off.

As did Carnage Asada. 

And there are a bunch of smaller guilds who have also migrated off, seeking their fortune elsewhere.

But losing Variance? That's something the server may not recover from.

***

There was a short but vigorous discussion about the server's fortunes in our guild's Discord, and the overall sentiment is that the guild ought to move sooner rather than later, because it certainly seems that if Myzrael as the #2 sized US-West PvE server is getting ready to implode, we shouldn't wait for the fallout to hit an unsustainable auction house or anything else.

One of the options? To move to Pagle-US, which is almost 100% Alliance. It is also gigantic with over 10000 raiding toons. The other potential option Atiesh-US, where Card 2.0 resides, has about 6000 Alliance raiding toons, but an 80:20 Alliance:Horde split.

I will be watching this with great interest, but given that the only raiding I'm doing is the Friday Karazhan raid, I might be seeing it's last days if the guild decides to migrate off of the server. After all, I haven't decided what to do, and I'm not deleting Card 2.0. I've invested too much time in her now.

Shintar, we haven't reached the "Blizzard destroyed my server" point yet, but right now their inaction on propping up the smaller PvE servers in the Classic environment speaks volumes.

*And WoW in general, but I digress.

That Archimedes Moment

Last Saturday I had to cancel my Zul'Aman run due to a lack of a tank and two DPS. 

The Saturday before that we barely filled out a group, but we had two Warriors as the tanks, and one of the Warlocks was filled with green gear. 

Where did the people go?

Well, it seems that another guild that ours partners with on occasion --and some people on the other raid team (the 2x/week one) raid with on their alts-- has a pair of Zul'Aman raids on Sunday. And I discovered tonight while just messing around on Linna that quite a few guildies were in those ZA runs.

Sure, it could just be the Saturday night nature of the runs, but I'm also thinking it's the lure of a quick warbear try that is also pulling people away to those Sunday runs. Which is all the more ironic that if they were on their mains and in the Saturday ZA raid, we'd likely have been able to breeze through and get the warbear timer met.*

Once again, it's a lot about who you bring to the raids that determines success when you're talking about a raid that's not on farm.

So....

I think that my Zul'Aman adventures are going to be coming to an end fairly soon, because if I can't keep a Saturday evening ZA run going I'd rather not go back to the other raid, the Saturday afternoon ZA run, instead. I know my gear is kind of borderline, and I could go and use my accumulation of badges to get some better gear, but then I'd have to gem them and enchant them. And I'd still be stuck with the weapons I have, which aren't very good for Phase 4. As good as they were for Phase 1 raids over the pre-raid gear, they're even farther behind where they should be coming out of Black Temple and Hyjal. And I have no recourse except to run arenas, and.... No thanks. I'm not doing that treadmill. 

***

That leaves the Karazhan raid as the only raid I have. And it's now starting to become harder to get people to sign up for that raid too, as until we got an additional player at the last minute we were going to go with 9 people this past Friday. 

This raid is beginning to fall victim to the 2x/week raid team as well, as one of the people there is switching to a Resto Shaman spec and wanted to run Karazhan weekly to try to get the healing totem that drops off of Maiden. Since Karazhan is on a weekly lockout, he's getting people to show for his "limited scope" raid on Thursdays after their ZA runs, further cutting into the available pool of people. He could have come to my raid and we'd have accommodated his attempt by having him join right before Maiden, but... 

I knew this would eventually come, but my raiding days are about to be numbered. In a bizarre way it's a relief, but it still is annoying that there are these activities and they're being ignored while someone else says "Hey, let's do this!" and people flock to them. My questing buddy tells me that she's sure it's not because of me, but when I realized about the Sunday ZA's tonight, I think it is a matter of cliques and who hangs with who. And despite people saying "hey, we should run together", they don't show for the raids I sponsor; actions speak louder than words. 

Unlike Shintar's guild basically fading away in a death of a thousand paper cuts, this guild continues on. 

And I don't see any real reason to remain in it much longer.

*Yes, their mains are all Hyjal/Black Temple geared.

EtA: Corrected a grammar issue.

A Bucket of Cold Water

For some reason that I can't fathom, people fawn over Karazhan.

The fact that it was the residence of the Guardian of Tirisfal, which is on the other side of the continent, for pete's sake, doesn't truly enter into it. Lorewise, yadda yadda yadda, whatever, doesn't change that it was designed as a "catch up" raid in as much the same way as Zul'Gurub and AQ20 were, to be run in conjunction with Gruul's Lair* and Magtheridon's Lair, so that people who ran Naxx in Vanilla would be on the same footing as those who didn't raid at all. If you look at the entire focus of The Burning Crusade, which is Illidan and the Burning Legion in Outland, it seems pretty silly to have both Karazhan and Zul'Aman as part of the same expansion. Neither of these 10 person raids are directly part of the story; while you could make an argument that Zul'Gurub and AQ20 were built up to in Vanilla as part of extended storylines, neither of the TBC 10 person raids could lay claim to the same level of build-up.

And no, attunement to Karazhan doesn't count.

But regardless, people who played TBC back in the day seem to have a universal love of the place, and just about any conversation I've had with friends in TBC Classic has led with "Are you raiding Kara yet?"

The attunement to Karazhan itself is pretty much a bare minimum if you want to consider yourself "caught up" in TBC Classic, it seems, as guilds have made a concerted push to get into Karazhan and to get as many bodies into Karazhan at all costs.** 

***

I knew that by the time I reached L60 that people in guild were already attuned to Kara, and a week later they were already going into the place. As one of the raid leads I also knew that there would be a push --once I reached L70-- to get me attuned as well.

Another add-on the guild has been promoting --and WoWhead as well-- has been Attune, which keeps track of the various attunements needed in TBC Classic. That's nice and all, but by default it announces in Guild Chat whenever you've accomplished an attunement. 

Which drives me nuts.

If this was all it did, I would be using it myself.
From the Attune Curseforge site.

 

Yes, you can go into the settings and turn that off, but the blatant spamming and wink-wink advertisement --by default-- by the add-on only serves to irritate me. Maybe it's my Midwest upbringing shining through, but the "look at me!" nature of the add-on only served to remind me that I was not with the cool kids. And to make matters worse, you could configure the add-on so that you could see where everybody in your group was on attunements so you could "keep track" of them.

It just had to get more invasive. I work
in IT Security, and this set off alarm bells
in my head. Just what else under the hood
is going on? From the Attune Curseforge site.

 

So what have I done? 

I've ignored any and all suggestions to use the add-on --or any other add-on that keeps track of things and reports/collects them without my knowledge-- and am using my own noggin instead. Just like knowing that Guild Roster Manager is watching for any changes to my information, and that even my birthday would be registered if it were known***, I've been trying to keep as minimal a footprint as possible within the guild itself.

No changes, no updates, no snooping. 

I've strongly considered keeping only my main in guild, which means Briganaa, and pulling Card. After all, she's my disenchanter right now, and will remain so for the time being. I may do that once I settle into Phase One raiding at the end of July, because by then everybody and their grandmother had better be aware that Card is in semi-retirement.

***

Regardless of how it was tracked, I knew that I would need to get attuned to Karazhan. And given that I got to L70 my way, I was going to get attuned my way as well. The Friday that I dinged, I'd already done every single quest or instance that I could perform without flying being required.**** This meant that I had the first two Tempest Keep instances to be run to get the parts for the key for the third instance (The Arcatraz) and then I also needed a Black Morass run to get the key 'approved' by none other than the past version of Medivh himself.

I still think a Shivarra would make a great
around the house assistant. Imagine the
amount of repair work that could get done
with six arms!

 

Yeah, bear with me on this, because there's absolutely no reason --in game or out-- to think that Medivh would be so stupid as to provide his imprimatur on a key to his stronghold to someone he didn't know. This is the case where Blizz' careful story building completely falls apart, and they pretty much handwave that obvious flaw in the story to just say "Hey, you got to see some lore firsthand, isn't that cool?"

/sigh

While I was watching the livestream of the Gruul attempt on June 25th, I was pinged by my Raid Lead. She was already dead in the Gruul attempt (I think), so she had time to chat. She apologized for missing that I dinged L70 (see my previous post for my standard answer), but she asked if I thought I could get attuned by Monday's Kara raid.

Only four instances to run and 3 days to do it? I told her that sure, I could get attuned.

I had only one requirement about joining Monday's Kara run: that I not bump anybody. 

Just because I'm on the raid lead team doesn't mean that I should bump someone who had been waiting to raid Karazhan. I don't get to jump the line just because of my rank; I'd much rather have someone else go who was ready before me, especially since the Raid Lead and the other two members of the lead team were already signed up.

I was assured that yes, there was a spot for melee DPS as the raid was short one already.

Then she dropped the bomb: "How do you feel about off-healing?"

Well, crap.

"I haven't healed an instance since 2010, so I'll need to practice."

"We'd only need you to off-heal on the later bosses in the run, as we can get by with two in the first half."

"Okay, I'll do it."

***

You have to understand something about my relationship with instance healing: it ended badly.

I still remember the run as clear as day. It was an at-level Halls of Stone LFG run, with me on Quintalan in Holy Spec. The tank zoned in and while the rest of us were getting ready he took off. After the first couple of pulls I was sucking wind on mana and constantly having to drink. Of course, I know now that a Holy Pally drinking constantly is pretty common, but he wouldn't wait. Still, I'd done this instance before so I knew what to expect. 

It was then that the tank started harassing me, asking me "Do you even know how to heal?" 

"Of course," I replied.

Then he posted "Divine Plea", "Arcane Torrent", and told me "Use them." 

That was great and all, but if I was going to use Divine Plea, I'd ideally use it while he wasn't in combat, which was, well, never. Back then at least (I can't tell you if/how it works in Retail now), if you healed while Divine Plea was active the outgoing heals were severely handicapped, so you'd preferably use it while out of combat. Such as, you know, drinking. And besides, Arcane Torrent's minimal amount of mana regen isn't exactly a panacea for constant pulls like the tank seemed to think it was.

Then, right after the first boss, before I had a chance to get unstoned, the tank runs up to a trash mob, pulls, and immediately after dropped group and left, the others following shortly thereafter.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen, thinking that maybe he was right and that I didn't know how to heal. Maybe he knew things I didn't, and I simply didn't measure up.

And I thought about all the stress that I induced by simply trying to heal an instance --which was considerable-- and I decided it wasn't worth it. I could go Ret, treat healers with respect, and probably do a much better job overall than what I was doing. If the healer went down, I could pick up the slack by sliding Healbot into view and just start casting. In that scenario nobody was expecting heroics out of me, so I could relax a bit.

So I said screw it and switched off to Retribution on a permanent basis.

With the benefit of almost 12 years of MMO experience, I now know that was just a bad pug, and that instead of a complete overhaul I likely needed to tweak things a bit and get more heal specific gear. But then, when I was still feeling my way through WoW the first time, that was a gigantic and crushing blow to my ego. I'd had the benefit of running with Deftig as tank for months, and he made my healing a lot easier because he was a skilled tank. Oh, and he was overleveled for a lot of these instances, which made a big difference.

Still, my belief I was a bad healer persisted through the decade, and I avoided healing like the plague. 

And now I was going to have to confront that belief, whether I liked it or not.

***

I finished my attunement in a semi-guild Black Morass run on Sunday. I say 'semi' because the tank was an ex-guildie who he and his friends from our AQ40/Naxx raids had gone back to their original guild when TBC Classic dropped, but they remained friends overall. So there was me, a couple of guildies, and our ex. The run wasn't put on for my benefit; the tank wanted some rep and I happened to be on at the right time. Considering a few hours earlier a Black Morass pug had ended in abject failure (the Pally tank was unable to keep threat even though I was doing non-crit white damage) these two runs ended pretty much as I expected. 

Another thing that Black Morass is
good for is farming Netherweb Spider Silk.
And leveling Skinning.

 

"Hey, I get to group up with the world famous Cardwyn," one guildie quipped when we hopped on Discord.

"It's not like I've not been around," I replied, a touch irked.

"I know, but the thing about this guild is that if you don't completely keep up with the latest you get left behind."

Tell me something I don't know, I thought. "I won't lie and say it hasn't been rough, because it's been rough for all of the leveling Shamans, watching everybody else being where we want to be while we struggled alone. And now, once I get attuned, I'm going to be tasked with off-healing on Monday, which is something I've not done in over a decade."

"The thing is, Card, that sometimes you're too nice for your own good."

"I find it hard to believe that treating people with courtesy and kindness is considered too nice."

"Amen to that." One of the leveling shamans had hopped on Discord and chimed in.*****

I realize that he meant well, but I wasn't going to change who I am just to play the way I want. If there was going to be a choice about it, who I am versus what I want to play, I will always choose being true to myself.******

So when Monday came around, I got some practice in learning how to create and use mouseover heal commands, and I set off for Deadwind Pass. 

I'm still not used to some of these empty
places in Wrath being active and busy.
Much like how Silithus was in Classic.

 

***

I can describe Karazhan in four words: Shadowfang Keep on acid.

If Shadowfang Keep is Worgen heavy with a decent helping of ghosts along the way, Karazhan is a haunted house where the ghosts have decided the party never ends and the entertainment borders on the bizarre. 

Courtesans? Check.

Wanton Harlots? Check

Opera? Check

/record scratch

Opera? Yep, there's an "opera" in there, but Aida it ain't. We're talking stuff like The Wizard of Oz, The Big Bad Wolf, or Romeo and Juliet, and it's a boss encounter. Our raid got the Big Bad Wolf --a Worgen, naturally-- who turns a random raider into Little Red Riding Hood, and you have to kill Wolfie before he kills off Red and the rest of the raid. It's hell on totems, let me tell you. I was constantly throwing down Tremor Totems while chasing Wolfie around, because he fears (again, naturally).

Other people in the raid loved it, but I was kind of meh about the whole thing. Part of that was that I practically went out of mana just tossing down those freaking totems, but part of it was also that I wasn't amused by the shtick. 

Nor was I amused by the Chess event, which was obviously a Blizzard homage to Harry Potter.

"Ron, you don't suppose this is going to be like . . . real Wizard's Chess, do you?"

"Yes, Hermione, I think this is going to be exactly like real Wizard's Chess."

Probably part of the reason why I was not amused by the Chess event was that two players in a 10 person raid were going to be stuck with being pawns. What's the fun in that?

Let's see, some other highlights....

There's a giant woman dressed in Roman garb as a boss, because that's apparently a thing Blizz does. See: Uldaman, Myzrael, Halls of Stone, Halls of Origination (Egyptian garb here), etc. For all I know someone on the dev team has a thing for Giantesses.

I died three times on one boss, the Shade of Aran, because he requires constant heals while on the run, and guess what class' off-heals doesn't have instant heals? Shamans. So I had to constantly stop to try to get a heal off, and that put me behind this boss' blizzard. And not being on a Mage, I couldn't blink out of the blizzard either. 

Oh, and did you know that there was a ghost dragon in the upper halls? Well, if there's Chess and an Opera, sure... Why not have a ghost dragon?

Or that the end boss was a demon,******* in an impossibly large roof area of netherspace? I am shocked... Shocked, I tell you.

***

As you can tell, I wasn't altogether thrilled about the experience.

Healing wise, I think I did okay. I didn't have too much to do, but I filled in where I could. I can confirm that Chain Heal is really nice, but if not a lot of people are taking damage, the quick heal is much more efficient.

DPS wise, I was called out for my positioning, and the tank was absolutely right. My positioning sucked. I had issues trying to figure out which direction the ghosts were pointed, because you can see through them, so I didn't have the visual reference of knowing the tank was on the other side or not. And that was on me. 

I suppose I'll get better at my melee positioning, having played Card for so long, and as far as mechanics goes I'll get better with practice.

But what I think won't get better was my impression of the place. 

I've a friend who is an English Lit teacher, and she went bananas about all the Enlightenment references in there. There are other friends who came to TBC Classic just so they could run Karazhan again, because it was such a touchstone on their WoW careers. Still there are others who think Karazhan was the best raid that Blizzard ever produced for WoW.

I just... No, I just can't think that.

For me, Karazhan was neither epic nor special. I never went there until I was L90 --and soloed the place-- so I didn't have the pull of nostalgia. Its mere existence in the southern part of a continent for a Guardian who was named after the northern part is off putting to me, lore be damned. If nothing else, it feels like a very pretty "look at what we can do!" showpiece that is out of step with the rest of TBC. Now, if this raid were a bridge between TBC and Wrath, some judicious reworking of the bosses could let this fit right in as a prelude to Wrath. But TBC? The only thing it's got in common with TBC is that there's a demon at the end. And that the last occupant opened the Dark Portal back in Warcraft 1.

I mean, I'll still run it, but it doesn't have the same feel or pull that the Classic raids did. Even if you took the 40 persons and converted it to 25, the Classic raids would have a greater sense of purpose and awe than Karazhan has. And while Karazhan does make a 10 person raid feel like a raid, that's not saying a lot given that if you treated both Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire as one dungeon --which it can be treated as such if you choose to-- Blackrock Spire would feel pretty epic in its own way. And be more integrated into the WoW Classic story than Karazhan is to TBC Classic.

Even Gruul's Lair looks more like a regular raid to me than Karazhan does.

***

I suppose I ought to brace for the commentary telling me I'm full of crap, but after the Death March to L70 and the subsequent push to attunement, I've more than a bit of buyer's remorse. 

I busted my ass for this?

*I still don't get why we're picking on poor Gruul Dragonslayer. I thought the Black Flight were the enemy, after Onyxia and Nefarian made pretty plain. 

**That 'all costs' reference continues to bear fruit, as I've seen some acquaintances decide to pass on the raiding scene in TBC Classic entirely, getting off the treadmill just as they should be getting ready to roll. Ironically enough it hasn't been any of the Leftovers, although we could be forgiven for jumping off the raid train, but people for whom real life has trumped any game playing. 

***Sorry, I'm not gonna put it out there. I'll just say that it's already happened in 2021, which means you've got half a year to guess. 

****Technically speaking, if you had a Warlock in the group you could get summoned to the platform of a Tempest Keep instance prior to running inside without being L70, but I knew that wasn't an ideal situation. Or, bypassing the Arcatraz key, if you had one person in group with the key plus a Warlock, you could skip two instances entirely. But like I implied, you're going to need that key eventually, so why not take care of it now?

*****I couldn't decide whether she agreed with me or the other guildie, but I'm going to assume given she said it after my comment that she meant my opinion.

******Somewhere upwards of 25-30 years ago, my father was involved in a disagreement with his boss at work. From what I remember, the disagreement stemmed from activities that his boss would do --and encourage his underlings to do and then expense-- when they went on business trips. Dad thought the activities were unethical and said so, and the resulting tiff led to my Dad getting reassigned. Well, the people who worked for my dad --his entire department as he was a middle manager-- effectively revolted and told senior leadership that they would all quit en masse if Dad didn't get his old job back. Because of that pressure, my Dad's boss was reassigned instead and Dad put back in his former position. My dad and I frequently didn't see eye to eye, but I never forgot that moment. 

*******Whom we defeated on our third try. Or was it fourth? Either way, the RNG gods smiled on us and we were able to defeat the Prince before the summoned hellfiring demon that wiped us in previous attempts appeared.

At the Crossroads of Practicality and Desire

I am now at a very weird intersection in my leveling process: I want it to slow down. And I'm not even sure that I can slow it down, either.

Well, let me clarify things a bit: the reason why I want to slow the leveling down is because I'd prefer to get flying right as I ding 70, and my preferred leveling process appears to be working against me for that.

***

When I arrived in Outland, Brig had 40 gold in her pocket. 

That's right: 40. Not 400.

I don't have a toon that has all my gold, either. Until Brig came along, Card has the most gold of all my toons at roughly 50-100 gold depending on which day of the week it was. Naxx put a gigantic crimp on my ability to earn gold, as I spent a lot of time farming mats so I could attend the Naxx raids. And for those who would say to just farm herbs to sell on the Auction House, I was doing that until the cost of the potions and/or raw materials on the AH outstripped my ability to sell the herbs I was farming. And once the price of Firefin spiked, well.... I grabbed my fishing pole and hit the shores of Wetlands.* It was only in the final few weeks of Naxx that my gold situation began to trend upward as we wiped (and I died) less and less in Naxx itself.

One more point: I did get world (or BoE) drops that I would try to sell on the AH, but I rarely was able to pull that off. I mean, I even got the Disgusting Oozling as a drop in Western Plaguelands, and even putting it up at less than half of the price of the other sellers I couldn't get any takers. Go figure. It's only now, with the new expac out there, that I'm getting some takers on the greens and Enchanting mats I've been putting up.

Still, the leveling of 1 to 60 was an exercise in speed, not wealth generation, even though the only things I bought were food and water.

***

Until a Shaman gets Water Shield around L62, they are a huge water hog. 

And I do mean huge.

I'd be slowly gaining ground on gold while leveling, and two things would happen: I'd ding and have to go get trained, and the price of water kept going up. I'd have a couple of stacks of water on me when I'd go out into the field, and every time I came back in to sell junk and get more water, the overall fluctuation would be such that I'd net a lot less than I thought. And once I hit the range for the L45 water.... I'd net zero.

The obvious answer was to get a friendly Mage to give me some water, but I was in such a hurry (and on at weird enough hours) that the alternate method of finding a random player, create a group, switch to Card, add Card, and have Card make and distribute water. I did that once, and afterward I thought "This is stupid. All this work for a couple of stacks of water." It may have been free, but as every other goblin in game will tell you, "Time is money, friend." And I didn't have that much time to sit around and do that on a regular basis.**

So, I did what any other slightly insane leveling Shaman would do: switch to L35 water and change my rotation to minimize spellcasting.

It may have been rough at times, but in the end it did help me become a better Shaman because of one thing: Enhancement Shamans are supposed to be masters of White Damage (aka the 'regular' non-magic damage). So I learned to be patient and let my White Damage attacks do their job and only cast when I'd get maximum impact from something. It stretched out my mana use, and it also helped me manage totems (when I used them) better.

And getting Water Shield has been a godsend. I rarely drink when out in the field, and when I group with people for quests or instances I typically get some water given to me as a courtesy.

You know, just like how it used to be.

***

Back to the original point of this post, getting to Outland has been a gold boon for me, but like I alluded to last week the gold demands are higher. My need for water has lessened, but repairs have gone up. 

And the training costs....

Blowing 30+ gold per level on training hurts. A lot. And the way the Shaman's toolkit is designed, I can't not skip some training in favor of others.

All of this has added up to the reality that I'm sitting at L69, partway through the level, and I'm about 500 gold short of the total cost of flying (skill + mount). 

So I'm doing other things rather than questing: working on my Skinning skill, which will (eventually) net me some gold on the AH, helping other players level, and running instances that are on the lower end of the scale (the first two SSC and HC instances, respectively) to help out lower level toons get leveled.

Still, I think it likely that I'll have to ding L70 to gain access to the excess gold gained by having no more XP to accumulate. It'll be a blow to my pride, but I can wait on getting to the Tempest Keep instances. 

***

One final note....

I have decided to honor my commitment to the Raid Lead team through Phase 1, but I will re-evaluate things after Phase 2 is announced. While I'd like to think things will improve, I believe it highly likely I'll want to go back to where I was and leave the guild. To do that will require me to give up my Raid Lead position, and I'm fine with that. I will have given things a fair shot, and if it's not working out for me it's not working out. 

And I do have options, so it's not like I'm giving up on WoW Classic.

*Other people liked Stranglethorn Vale, but I preferred Wetlands due to the lack of competition.

**Before you ask, no, I didn't ask any of the other Mages in guild. They were all busy running instances and leveling since the Dark Portal had opened. Some of them had friends from their old days join them in guild, and they've been running with them as much as they can. So why bother them?

Friday Thoughts: TBC Classic Edition

By the time this posts, I will most likely be sitting at L66, somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way through the Terrokar quests, and will have gathered enough playing time to get a better feel for TBC Classic. It still feels distinctly weird to see a crowd in Shattrath City* or at the Inn at Honor Hold, but I'm getting used to it.

So without further ado, here are my thoughts about The Burning Crusade Classic, 18 days after launch.

***

It takes a lot of effort to NOT level in Outland.

Seriously.

I get it, I get it. This is kind of my thing.

 

Running instances will net you XP. Questing will net you XP. Exploring will net you XP. And all of that adds up.

Quests back in the Old World? Yes, you get XP for them. I actually got 4 bars' worth of XP just going back and forth, finishing up about 5-6 old questlines still in my quest pile. So even if you do NOT go to Outland but instead pick up, say, Silithus quests at L60, you can get a surprising amount of XP. 

About the only thing that does not net you XP are the gathering professions, but you end up with "surprise" XP simply because you have to kill the occasional mob standing on top of a gathering node.

So the fact that I'm almost L66 means that I've been logging in and actually doing things in game. It may sound like a lot, given that I'm 7 days into Outland by now, but really it isn't.

***

TBC Classic brought in quite a few retail players, and it shows.

The most obvious flag that you've encountered a retail player is their casual disregard for politeness when out questing. You see, in retail, as long as you get a hit in, that enemy counts for you as well as anybody else. In WoW and TBC Classic, that ain't the case. Here, it's "first hit gets the reward." And since the Retail crossovers frequently can't be bothered to discover those little quirks of the system, they come across as colossal jerks. Especially when you politely whisper about grouping up to take down mobs. 

I recently was questing in Zangarmarsh when an Ally toon ran past me and pulled about 6 Naga in the surrounding area, and once they DPSed the large pack down the toon threw me an invite. I honestly don't know what the fuck that player was thinking --maybe that I'd be grateful that I'd have such a badass that I'd be grouping with-- but I immediately turned it down. A few minutes later, I met up with a Mage who suggested we group together to finish the quest we were both on, and for the next 15 minutes we had a pleasant time, talking about Magecraft while killing Naga.

In fact, I received more assistance at times from Horde toons out farming/questing than my Alliance counterparts, such as just this morning when a Horde Warlock and I each traded turns killing Torgos over on the western edge of the Bone Wastes. Since the quest is a 2-person one, he went first and pulled aggro, then I came on and helped. On my turn, we reversed the order but after initial aggro I let the Lock's Felguard take aggro from me, as it's a more natural tank. I had to do it twice as Brig pulled aggro back and died, but that's the breaks. And the Horde Lock stuck around while I had to go get another bloodied kill to lure Torgos in, which is more than some of my fellow Alliance players would have done.

***

Gold does come quicker in Outland, but never quick enough.

If you're like me, who was gold poor due to the constant need to farm for mats for Naxxramas, heading to Outland was like Mana from Heaven.

Within 2 days I had over 100 gold, enough to splurge and buy a pair of Fist of Reckoning maces off of the Auction House, which should last me through most of my leveling time in Outland. 

But in spite of the influx of gold into my bank account, the amount of gold needed for Fast Ground Riding remains just out of reach. I now have just enough for the riding skill itself, but I'd also need enough for a mount and the wait has been annoying the crap out of me.

Oh, and repairs cost quite a bit more than before, too. So my first (and so far only) foray into Slave Pens and Underbog netted me a nasty repair bill, higher than any I experienced in Naxxramas on Cardwyn.

So more gold != flush with cash.

***

While not everybody is following the Meta, enough are that it will have an impact on Auction House prices for quite a while.

One of the "side bonuses" of following the Meta of spam running dungeons for rep is that you'll get to L70 with a lot more quests to run. And instead of XP, those quests will yield extra gold instead. This has been the case with the original WoW Classic, so it's not a big surprise. People are using the extra gold to try to get Epic Flying trained (at the cost of 5000 gold), but there will be enough extra gold pumped into the WoW economy that it will impact prices on the Auction House.

People can afford the higher prices, particularly on items they need for professions or raiding, so they'll pay more. And that will keep the prices higher, just like how inflation works in the real world. Eventually all that gold will get depleted, but it will take quite a while for that to happen. And it may not happen at all, depending on just how many alts people will take into Outland. So if you're not following the Meta, maybe it's time to go into farming some mats to help out your gold situation.

***

Respawns are hell.

I can't tell you how many times I've killed a mob only to have it immediately respawn and attack. I'd say about 4/5 of the time it's not a big deal, but if you kind of really need to drink or take a short break, that instant respawn is a major problem. Most of the times that I died when I was out questing an instant respawn was to blame.

***

I am outleveling zones.

I still don't understand why she didn't just
kick me into the next county.

 

As I mentioned I'm somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way through the Terrokar Forest's quests, and it was the first zone where I entered it being slightly overleveled for the zone. I have since caught up in quests to level appropriate ones (~L65 or so), but when I move on to Nagrand (probably Saturday at this rate) I'll be slightly over the targeted level for over half of the zone itself. And at this rate I'll likely ding L70 somewhere in Blade's Edge Mountains.

That has good effects (access to better spells and gear) and bad ones (finding said gear).

***

I should probably look into doing a few more dungeons.

As of this writing, I've run 9 dungeons.

Total.

Compare and contrast those who used the Meta, who likely saw the inside of 9 dungeons in less than 2 days in Outland. 

In my case, over half of the dungeons were Hellfire Ramparts, with a full breakdown as follows:

Hellfire Ramparts: 5
Blood Furnace: 2
Slave Pens: 1
Underbog: 1

I ran Ramparts 4 times that Sunday after I arrived in Outland, not because of the Meta but because I was hoping that the Bracers of Finesse would drop. (They did, once, and the Hunter won the roll.)

While I don't feel like I'm missing out here, I ought to run them just for the chance at improving my gear set, which hasn't budged much in the past couple of days. However, most of the LFG entries I've been observing have been for the "endgame" and "attunement" 5-person dungeons, which don't help me at all. With the current state of things, I expect that by the time I'd be ready for, say, the Tempest Keep instances a lot of people would have moved on to Heroics.

***

I have not forgotten what it took to get to Outland, and I still carry a lot of resentment.

I mean, there's a reason why I've
been on Neve quite a bit. Also,
Farstriders FTW!

 

As you may have noticed from the previous musing, I have been utilizing the in-game LFG channel for a lot of my dungeon running. 

That is not an accident.

While two of the Leveling Shamans and I have been to Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, and Underbog together, I have been taking advantage of LFG where I could. I've pugged most of my MMO career, so unlike other people who dislike pugs I actually prefer them.

Plus, I've some issues right now that will take quite a while to work their way out of my system. If ever.

The other day there was a post in the Guild's Discord LFG channel, asking if people were still leveling at all. That brought a pretty swift response from Guild Leadership, pointing out that many of the Shamans are still leveling, and the Healers are way behind too. Normally I'd have ignored that exchange, but for some reason it incensed me. The total lack of awareness that a significant number of people --all of whom are critical for the 25-person raids-- were still leveling in Outland made me get up from my work and take a short walk to cool off.

To add fuel to the fire, it's only now, after people have gotten themselves leveled to L70, attuned, and have entered into Karazhan, that I've started to see posts on guild Discord saying that they can help by running instances with people. 

Thank you, Dana Carvey.
I was thinking the exact same thing.

Right now, I'm not certain whether this altruism is motivated by a desire to help or the reality that these people finally have reached the point where they actually need the rest of us, but either way I'm planning on taking a hard pass on any of these offers. If they weren't around when we needed them, how can I count on them helping out if a better offer comes along?

The current set of guild dynamics reminds me a lot of the old Twilight Zone episode, The Shelter**. A family is hosting a dinner party when it is interrupted by news of what looks like an impending nuclear attack. The family hosting the dinner party goes to the shelter they'd built in their backyard, while the other families, none of whom had built a shelter, try to claw their way in by any means possible. Just as the other families manage to pry open the shelter door, the news calls off the alarm, saying that it wasn't a nuclear attack at all. The other families try to return to a semblance of normalcy, saying "hey, let's hold a block party so that we can get back to normal." But the husband doesn't think so:

Jerry Harlowe: Hey that's a great idea, block party, anything to get back to normal, huh?

Dr. Bill Stockton: Normal? I don't know. I don't know what normal is. I thought I did once. I don't anymore.

Jerry Harlowe: I told you we'd pay for the damages, Bill.

Dr. Bill Stockton: Damages? I wonder. I wonder if anyone of us has any idea what those damages really are. Maybe one of them is finding out what we're really like when we're normal; the kind of people we are just underneath the skin. I mean all of us: a bunch of naked wild animals, who put such a price on staying alive that they'd claw their neighbors to death just for the privilege. We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder if we weren't destroyed even without it.

I don't think anybody will know the true long term effect from what happened after the Dark Portal opened, but I do think a lot of people won't like it in the end. 

As for me, I will honor my immediate commitment, but I also will take a long hard look at whether I want to continue raiding in this situation. Knowing that I am less valued for me and more valued for the body I bring to the raid has been eye opening for me.

***

There are people in game who do read my blog, but I also know that there are very few in guild who do so. I've kept my blogging quiet because I don't want to necessarily draw attention to myself, but there are a few guildies I have mentioned to --in a private manner-- that I do blog. 

However, I do know that of those people who I have confided in, only one actually reads Parallel Context. 

How do I know? Because nobody else has mentioned to me about the content of the TBC Classic posts. And believe me, my opinions would generate a bit of heat right about now.

*Yes, I have finally arrived in Shattrath, taken the tour, and selected Aldor. I passed through a couple of times when helping my leveling buddy with a quest chain that yielded a nice piece for her, but I never considered it an actual "arrival". I still haven't taken the portals back to the Old World yet, either, preferring instead to leave via the Dark Portal; but that's because I'm thumbing my nose at the expectations surrounding the expac.

**In his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King has a very insightful view of The Shelter, as "rarely has any television program dared to present human nature in such an ugly, revealing light as that used in 'The Shelter', in which a number of suburban neighbors along Your Street, USA, are reduced to animals squabbling over a fallout sheltere during a nuclear crisis." Thanks to Twilight Zone Vortex for jogging  my memory about both the King book and the quote. I'd forgotten I'd read the book, and that was before I saw the Twilight Zone episode itself. Only much later did I realize the connection.

 

EtA: Fixed a few grammatical mistakes. That's what I get for writing/editing while sleepy.

To Have or Have Not

I kept my promise to take the day off from WoW this past Friday.

For the most part.

Oh, I didn't login to the game or anything, and I didn't read any WoW related Discord servers. However, there were discussions among the leveling Shamans that went on, and I grew concerned enough that I decided to reach out to my team's Raid Lead, who was also a member of Guild Leadership. I informed her of the current state of morale among the leveling Shamans, and after a short conversation that I won't repeat, she took the matter to the rest of Guild Leadership.

The net effect was that I began receiving Discord messages at 4 - 4:30 AM EST about how the leveling Shamans were finally starting to get some love. (That was great and all, but I kind of wanted to sleep.)

Over the weekend there have been some small changes here and there, and an announcement post highlighting the issues both the leveling Shamans and the Healers are having in getting to 70 and attuned.

Long term? I'm not certain how it'll play out, but I feel that at least we're moving in the right direction.

***

Yes, I was being intentionally vague with a lot of that first part, because outside of some general stuff it's pretty much internal and private discussion.

But I ought to mention that this problem, whether it the leveling Shamans, Healers, or people rushing to L70 while others aren't, well.....

Let's just say this is not a problem limited to my guild.

Shintar has highlighted her early forays into Outland, and how FOMO is real for even those already in Outland, but she's also highlighted how the new expac is changing her own guild.

I've discovered similar things, where people I've never seen before suddenly showing up in the Guild, and others not showing up at all. And we're not talking 2-3 people, but like 10 or more in each category.

But for me, in discussion among friends on the server who are part of other guilds, the biggest takeaway is that the current min-max Meta strategy for "Winning BC" (my term) is creating a big divide of Haves and Have Nots.

On the one side, you have the Haves, those who took the week off from work* and followed the Meta to the letter and now found themselves at Max level, attuned, and ready to jump into Karazhan. A lot of these have already started leveling their alts through Outland, focusing on the same Meta strategy, but without as much free time as before.

On the other, you have the Have Nots, those who didn't do all the stuff that the Haves did, for various reasons, and have found themselves lagging behind the rest. This includes people like the leveling Shamans**, Healers, people who had vacations or whatnot planned before Blizz announced the June 1st TBC release, graduations, family reunions, etc. This also includes people who are following the Meta, but simply don't have the time to devote to it that the Haves did.

Among a wide range of guilds on Myzrael, these two divides are creating internal tension. The Haves want to raid Karazhan and 25-person content NOW, while the Have Nots are looking at the Haves and saying "Hey, Kara isn't going anywhere, and it's not like Wrath of the Lich King Classic is dropping in December, so what's the rush? Why not help us get to L70 and attuned if you're so eager to raid?"***

I've heard from more than one friend that there's been posts in their guild's Discord about how "we're all in this together", and "we raid as a team". That sounds great, but I suspect more than one guild will be rent asunder by the internal tension as the Haves split for guilds that will let them raid as soon as possible.****

***

But for me, my answer always is more of a long term one: what's the point of the rush?

You binge on Kara now, and you'll be sick of it in a couple of months. And guess what? The people or alts who will need to get into Kara won't find anybody in guild wanting to run it. 

The same thing will happen --and likely is already happening-- with 5-person content. You binge on it so much, you get sick of it, and you never volunteer to help out a guildie who needs it. And I'm here to tell you that except for the raids, the only additional multiplayer content that drops in TBC Classic is Magister's Terrace. And that's it. So if you want to experience "more" TBC Classic, you're going to have to raid, and the Have Nots will not forget how they were treated by the Haves when they finally get to the 25-person stage.

***

From what I've heard from people who were there, when the original TBC was released, all of this wasn't quite as much of an issue. People weren't rushing to endgame with a ready made Meta, as they were still trying to figure the damn thing out. Guild issues were still there --as people will be people-- and scaling down from 40 person raids to 25 person raids is frequently an exercise in eating shards of glass. And the concept of leveling a Shaman to be ready when the Dark Portal opened was non-existent, as you couldn't roll a Shaman (Ally side) or Paladin (Horde side) until TBC released.

But now, years later, I think that the Meta is just the latest attempt to apply Retail WoW "sensibilities" to TBC Classic, which is something it really wasn't designed for. 

And I have to wonder how much longer before we see the dreaded "I'm Bored" in Trade or LFG chat.

*Or were insane like me and devoted almost every non-working moment to WoW.

**Another side effect of the power leveling I did on Brig is that Brig is poor. I mean, "I could barely afford basic riding at L58" poor. Card was already poor due to the dynamics of keeping supplied with all of the Naxx consumables on twice a week basis, so my crack about Briganaa selling weed was only half joking.

***Depending on your guild, there may be profanity involved.

****I do know of one that kind of blew up when about half the guild just up and split to create their own version of their Retail guild on Myz. Not exactly the same, because it highlights tensions in place prior to TBC launching, but I'm sure I'll hear of more soon enough.