Reflections

One thing about Blaugust --and other prompt type events-- is that if you've been around long enough you've pretty much answered all the questions. 

PC is --by far-- not the longest running MMO blog out there, but even in it's almost 12 years of existence I've answered enough "About Me" questions that I'm tempted to just share links to previous times I've answered those particular prompts. In lieu of regurgitating things, some bloggers turn to unique methods of answering these questions.

I give props to Kaylriene to providing a unique, photo driven way of answering the About Me prompt with his Getting to Know You Round 2, showing off his "work" area and all the cool things inside.* I don't have such a cool spot to game, because sitting at an old dining room table in what would in past years been a formal Dining Room** isn't exactly that cool to look at. (Who wants to look at bills and notes scribbled on paper, anyway?)

And believe me, I've seen cool gaming rooms, because my sister-in-law's husband has one in their basement:

This is one end of the room....

...and the other end, complete with
a booze collection. I was told not to take
a pic of the gaming table because "it's a mess."

At one point I was attempting to put in a gaming area in our basement --where my "office" used to be, but it ran into one inevitable part of life with three kids: we needed a place to stick their stuff as they grew up, and the gaming area became that place.

Therefore, we game as we always have: boardgames/RPGs are played at the kitchen table, console games on the television in the room next to the kitchen, and PC games on laptops (kids) or the desktop (me and my wife) in their rooms or my "office".

***

It's not as if my entire gaming history has changed much, either. 

My tolerance toward my kids' activities has been driven by my own parents' lack of the same. I don't need to rehash this, but my surviving parent --my mother-- still thinks to this day that D&D is Satanic. She told me once a few years ago that she was glad my kids "never got into that Satanic role playing stuff" like I did. I kept my mouth shut, because that wasn't a hill to die on, but I had a good laugh with the kids afterward. 

This tolerance extended into the kids' real life as well. I was never allowed to be in my room with the door closed until my Senior year of high school, and even then that was because I would be working on my two term papers for English class until late into the night. The tapping of the typewriter was too loud to leave the door open, and so my parents relented only so that they could get some sleep. 

When I came back home from my Freshman year of college, I hoped that I would be given the latitude and freedom I felt back there, but I discovered that I was wrong. 

Oh, so very wrong. 

I was still required to be home by 10 PM and in bed by 10:30. I was still expected to be at dinner at 6 PM, no matter what, although in the unlikely event I was on a date there was a bit of flexibility.*** I was also expected to go to Church in spite of my own creeping dislike for organized religion, which was fueled by a slow burning fury how the Evangelical Christian movement --exemplified by television evangelists-- stoked the Satanic Panic over my music and my gaming activities. All of that fueled my desire to be back at college, even during the Summer, no matter what it took. 

Even after I was married, my dad tried to exert some measure of control over me but soon discovered that I wasn't having any of it. I was my own person, a grown adult without any financial debts to him, and he no longer had any say in how I conducted my business.

When I had kids of my own, I swore I'd not repeat the same mistakes my parents made, and gave my kids more latitude than I ever had. That didn't mean that I let them do whatever all the time, because I did intervene when grades started slipping or there were other issues that required parental involvement, but I wanted to make sure they were given enough freedom to find their own way rather than be sheltered from the world. I didn't force them into playing sports or any other activities; I merely provided the opportunities in athletics, music, nature programs, or whatnot, and let them discover if it was something they wanted to do. I was the one who introduced them to gaming and geekery, and I gave them the freedom to explore both without judgement. 

Have I succeeded in my approach? I'm not sure, because I don't know what's going on in their heads, but I think they're on the right track.

***

I guess that's more of an "about them" rather than "about me", but I suppose they are a reflection of me to an extent, whether I like it or not. It'll be some decades before I discover if I really did the right thing, but here's hoping.

*His Getting to Know You Round 1 is also worth reading, but is much more depressing.

**I converted this to my --sorta-- home office because my wife gave me an ultimatum to move out of the basement. I used to have an office in our unfinished basement, but every winter I would come down with a severe case of bronchitis, and she finally got tired of me getting sick when the weather turned cold.

***When I graduated high school, I pretty much cut the cord from any real relationships from my classmates and those of the all girls Catholic high school next door. If you've ever been a non-conformist or a geek in a Catholic school environment that prized athletics more than anything else, you'd understand. Even those who I considered friends would attempt to use my friendship to get me to do things for them, as if friendship were a bargaining chip. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, given that most of my friends' dads were salesmen. (Cue Willie Loman references from Death of a Salesman.)

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT!

Saturday night was a stroll down memory lane.

We returned to Naxxramas to get enough splinters for our third guildie to get her Atiesh.

When TBC Classic dropped on June 1st, she was sitting at exactly 20/40 splinters, and enough people in guild made a commitment to try to get her Atiesh completed that we knew that once things settled down enough* we were going back there.

I got Brig attuned --only got her to Honored with the Argent Dawn, but that's the breaks-- and away she went on Saturday Night.

From the way back machine to 1975 (in the US).

Only 22 started out initially, but we eventually ended up with 26 as some people from the old raid team trickled in. It was a bit rough on Anub'Rekhan at first, as we had only one Mage, but we cleaned things up and got through it. We didn't hit any bumps at all on Patchwerk and Loatheb --the tank was hardly taking any damage at all-- but we did wipe on Noth due to a lack of decursers. So... I hopped on Card and swapped toons for Noth just for the extra decursing boost.**

We made it through three wings --I saw Midnight Haze drop-- and we reached the end of the night after Razuvius in the Military Wing. And that was with 15 people short of a full 40 person raid.

If we managed to get a full 40 person raid together, we could conceivably blitz through the entire instance in one 4 hour raid block. 

***

How'd it feel?

Weird.

Not that I'm not familiar with Naxx, but that I was on a melee DPS toon. The things such as positioning suddenly become much more important when I'm on Brig, and I was called out by somebody saying "Are you asking to be killed?"

"Oh, that's just Brig. It's pretty much his thing."

I couldn't argue with the call out, but the toon in front of me wasn't hitting me at all, sooo.....

But outside of that, and that the positioning on Razuvius was that the melee DPS were LOSing their healers, and the solution was to attack from the side, risking a parry haste to make sure I was left alive. And to be fair, the melee DPS who didn't move all died, so....

But still, I guess I'll get used to it, being down in the trenches in a raid where I'd previously only seen from distance. I am not looking forward to K'T, however, because there will be interrupts that have to go out, and I never had to worry about them on Card.

I might even just show up on Card on some of these runs, because they will need people to decurse and whatnot. But we'll see. I'm not even sure how this is gonna work out given that everybody has to get attunements done for Phase 2.

 

 

*HA! In TBC Classic, it seems that Blizz doesn't want you to settle down, so there's people running to and fro trying to get their attunements done before Phase 2 drops. In fact, that was a direct cause of at least one person having to pass on going back to Naxx. And really, I can't blame them. If the guild wants to commit to Naxx, something will have to be given up.

**She was not the lowest leveled toon in the raid at that point; there was one L60 who made it too. At one point he exclaimed "I've got 600 xp so far in Naxx tonight!"

Surrender, Briganaa!!

Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay
--Surrender by Cheap Trick*

 

The TBC Classic Phase 2 --which includes the Serpentshire Cavern and The Eye raids-- is in the WoW Classic PTR, which means that Phase 2 is right around the corner.

And while I've already expressed my opinion that it is far too soon to drop Phase 2 and that Blizzard is merely feeding the beast, the reality is that our raid team has to start getting ready for SSC and The Eye.

Which meant that I had to go and confront my resistance to running heroic dungeons.

I'm gonna get used to seeing that skull.

 

Part of work surrounding Phase 2 preparations involves resist gear sets for two of the tanks and one of the Warlocks. The tanks' resist gear comes from farming/buying materials and crafting the requisite set, but the majority of the Warlock's gear comes from items purchased by badges. 100 of them, to be precise.** With Phase 2 imminent, that means a lot of heroic dungeon runs in a (relatively) short amount of time. My Warlock friend took on the responsibility of the Warlock tanking gig, and I'm not about to abandon her when she needs people to help her get the badges she needs.

Therefore, I embraced the Heroic dungeon challenge to help her out.

The past four days I've run four heroic dungeons with her: two attempts at Arcatraz, and one attempt each at Slave Pens and Underbog. They're not exactly a representative sample, given that the first one is one of the hardest and the latter two are some of the easiest of the Heroic instances, but they're enough to have formed a few opinions on them.

• Most of the trash has an additional "trick" to them, and once you understand that they tend to go down fast.
  
  For example, in Arcatraz if you deal with the Arcatraz Sentinels, they have a little extra surprise for someone who is used to their Normal version: when they die, they emit an Arcane Explosion that will kill any nearby melee. Therefore, any melee --including the tank-- has to run out when the Sentinel's health is below 6%. If you have a location where you can hide out of line of sight, you're safe from the blast as well. In our first run, it took only one mass death from the melee for me to figure this out, but throughout the rest of the run the Rogue simply would not run away from the Sentinel and died every. single. time. That leads me to...
  
  
• Just because you know the trick doesn't mean that you won't wipe on the trash.
  
  This definitely applies to the Gargantuan Abyssals that you find in Arcatraz. With the Heroic version, there's a Fire Shield that it casts that if you're in melee you take some pretty substantial damage every few seconds. However, it also has that Meteor ability --just like that found in AQ20 and AQ40-- that you have to have everybody in the group stack so that you're not instantly killed. So the trick is to stand just outside of the range for the Fire Shield, but run into melee when the Meteor is cast. (Or have the tank run out to the stack.) The first Abyssal we tackled, it went down pretty quick with only one death (me). The second Abyssal, well.... It took us about 6-7 tries before we finally got it down, and even then it was a bit of luck.
  
  
• Sometimes the Normal version of the trash is bad enough.
  
  "Underbog... Calling Underbog.... White courtesy phone please...."
  
  If you knew that the Rays in the Underbog cast a Psychic Scream, and that a Tremor Totem is useless against them, then you knew this was coming. Yes, you can interrupt the cast. And yes, the fleeing in terror isn't typically that bad. However, when you've a pack of three of the Rays, unless you have exactly the right group composition you're going to have at least somebody running around like a chicken with their head cut off. And if they run the wrong way just long enough, you can aggro another trash mob.
  
  
• You can pug these, but nothing beats a group of friends/guildies. Especially if you're all in Discord.
  
  The first Arcatraz run, the Warlock and I pugged with a random Healer (can't remember), Tank (Warrior), and DPS (rogue). From the beginning, the tank behaved as if he were running a Normal version of Arcatraz, and then quickly discovered that wouldn't work. That first (optional) boss in Arcatraz, we simply could not bring it down. Eventually we moved on, but we ran into a wall with the room before the Abyssals, and that was that.
  
  The second Arcatraz run we had four friends/guildies together, and the exact same tank as the first try. The four of us were in Discord together, and we offered to have the tank join, but he refused. That would have probably shaved about 1/2 hour off of our run time, particularly when organizing strategy.
  
  The latter two runs, while admittedly on two of the easiest Heroics, were full guild/friend runs and everybody was in Discord. We could coordinate, discuss, and basically get the damn thing done. Throughout both runs everything ran smoothly, especially given that I'd never been in either Heroic and another person hadn't been to Underbog in TBC Classic at all until that moment. 

***

So.... What do I think?

I believe that if I'd gone into Heroics about 4 weeks ago, which was still behind all of the Meta followers but about the time I became attuned to all of the Heroics, I'd have gotten stomped. By comparison, Karazhan and Gruul's Lair are easier than the harder Heroics, and they yield better gear. Waiting a month and gathering some drops from the raids improved my survivability immensely. It did not make the instances a cakewalk, but it probably made the easier ones far less of a dirt eating competition. Heroic Arcatraz, on the other hand, was still very much a slave to knowing the trick on the enemy you faced. If you didn't know the trick, you couldn't simply outgear it at this time. Maybe after Phase 2 with Tier 5 gear you'll be able to, but not just yet. 

Something I do remain adamant about is that chain running these things is the quickest way to experiencing burnout in game. I've a friend in game that I do care a lot about, and I'm really concerned for her getting burned out on TBC Classic.*** She'd done the Meta on one of her toons, and afterward she'd thrown up her hands and hasn't been in an instance since, even though she knows she has to do so to get attuned for Phase 2. I just wish I could help her out, but I think the best thing for her is to not spend so much time in game, so she can get that break she needs before pushing forward.

What I do wish is that people understand that there's more than one way to play the game, and that we shouldn't rush to fit everyone into the same slot. These Heroics are very much a good alternative to endgame at this point in the expac, but forcing people into them to perform attunements for raids is, in my opinion, a mistake on Blizz' part. Unlike Wrath Era Heroics, these should not be a stepping stone to raiding but instead their own separate entity. 

But yeah, I could do Heroics as an alternative to raiding. After all, some of them certainly take long enough to complete.

*Okay, I'm putting the version from Live at Budokan here....

 

**That number comes from two of the warlocks on the raid team, and I don't see any reason to challenge that assertion.

***No, she doesn't know this blog exists. So if you're one of the people in game and are thinking it applies to you, I'm actually talking about someone else. But yeah, I am concerned about everybody I know getting burned out, too.

Another Year, Another "Why do I do this to myself?"

A year ago, I participated (kinda) in Blapril, which was the Blaugust blogging event moved to what we considered then to be the height of the pandemic. It seemed a good idea at the time, and my goal was to blog about every other day or so. I managed 18 posts, but I also went kind of bonkers trying to keep up with it. Therefore, when 2020's Blaugust went around, I took a hard pass.

Well, here we are in August 2021, and Blaugust is once again upon us.

(Don't worry about the link, Wilhelm. I don't have that many readers, and most of them overlap between the two of us.)

I kind of hemmed and hawed about it, because I've got other things on my mind*, but I decided I'm going to participate in an informal manner. There are things on my mind, and some fiction to finish and get cleaned up for posting, so why not?

I'm not going to formally sign up or anything, and if nothing else I'll invoke my Rogue nature and just follow along in the shadows. That allows me to not worry so much about the 'formal' topics for each week, and instead talk about what I want to talk about. 

Such as laptops.

***

I've been doing my "second" job of being the IT resource for the family the past week or so, which has entailed looking for a replacement laptop for my mom's Mac. She only wants a laptop for basic finances, but she wants a fully functioning machine, so why spend money on an iPad or even a Macbook when an inexpensive Windows 10 laptop will do?

But I do draw the line at inexpensive vs. flimsy. (I'm looking at you, HP and Dell.) I can't believe I'm saying this, but Acer laptops feel more solid and less flimsy than either HP's or Dell's basic offerings. Of course, the Acer I wanted wasn't in stock at Microcenter, so I had to fall back on another laptop option, which ended up being a Lenovo. So I got the job of purchasing the thing, bringing it over to my mom's house, and spending the evening configuring it. 

I then turned my eye to her "other" laptop, the one that she does all of her other computer oriented stuff on, and... the thing crawled. I mean, really seriously crawled.

"Mom," I called to her, "you're going to need to replace this hard drive with an SSD."

"What's that?"

I groaned and spent a few minutes explaining the difference between an old style hard drive and an SSD.

"Okay," she replied. "How long will it take to replace?"

"I'll take this laptop home and get it done over the weekend."

So I did. I got a replacement SSD, the Samsung EVO 870, and installed it.

I thought that was that.

***

"Dad, my laptop is generating graphics errors."

Oh. Shit.

My son had come downstairs to inform me that his laptop, whose fan sounded like it was a jet engine chewing through ducks, had begun throwing graphics errors and crashing. Just what I didn't need.

I mean, I knew there was a likelihood that he was going to need a laptop before he went back to college, and I was moving in that direction, but I didn't need this just now.

So back to Microcenter we went.

The salesperson gave me a look and said "Didn't I just wait on you recently?" 

"Yep, for a laptop for my mom."

"Need another?"

"Yeah, for my son." Having spent the morning looking at options, I'd narrowed it down to an Asus based on its upgradability and spec sheet, but I wanted to actually see and feel the thing before we pulled the trigger.

So we pounded on the laptop for a bit, kicked the tires, that sort of thing, and then nodded and went ahead and bought it. I then got the job of configuring THAT one too, which wasn't too bad. It's now busy downloading FF XIV, which will be an all night affair. The only drawback is that the thing will need another m.2 drive added, as the primary drive is only 500 GB.

Oy.

***

After this week, I'm significantly poorer, but at least I have some happy (?) customers. Now, please, no more IT surprises.

 

 

*Including two kids to send to college, resist set creation for SSC to organize and farm badges for --"Hi, Zargala!!" ::wave::-- and spreadsheets to keep track of. And that's not counting all the documents at work I have to look over. But I'll be frank, the latter isn't that thrilling, while blogging is a lot more fun. And the former, well, I'm seriously invested in getting my friends' geared up for SSC.

Can It Be Done?

In the middle of all the Blizzard lawsuit controversy, the TBC Classic Fire Festival event is in full swing.

The Fire Festival was delayed by a month, mainly because TBC Classic dropped June 1st*, but since it showed up now I took advantage of it to play around with Card. 

She already had 4 bars' worth of XP from farming Felcloth --yes, Felcloth and Mooncloth still sell on the AH-- so when I saw a couple of quests registering an entire bar of XP, I decided I was going to have her do all the quests that she can in the Old World, just to see how much XP she could get.

This should give you an idea.

This has inspired me to do something with Card I'd never have considered even a week ago: to find out just how far I can level a toon in the Old World without having set foot in Outland. 

My first instinct is that as a practical matter, I could probably hit L64 or L65 given all of the quests remaining in max-level zones such as Silithus. However, the mobs in Silithus reach up to L58-L59, so it's conceivable with enough grinding I could possibly get Cardwyn to L68 by the time Wrath Classic drops, and she could just go straight to Northrend without having set foot in Outland at all.

Now that's a challenge I'd be interested in. 

Before anybody asks why, my response is "Why not? I have no desire to overdo it or get spellcloth factories going or raiding with a ton of toons. I want to just screw around in game rather than get caught up in the Meta, and this is just one way of doing that."

***

And given the news that Phase 2 is now in the Public Test Realm, the rumor that Phase 2 will drop in mid-August is starting to sound more and more likely.

Which gives me heartburn.

Maybe it's time someone finally told Blizz what's what:

Blizz, stop this rushing to get the Phases out. Just because the Top 5 guilds on each server have been clearing since Week One doesn't mean you have to feed the beast and encourage the Meta any further. There are still plenty of guilds out there that aren't even close to getting properly geared up, much less downing all of the Phase One bosses, and if you ratchet up the arms race I believe you're more likely to have people simply jump ship from Classic into something else rather than push harder. It is not the Classic Community's fault that Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands have proven to be duds, so artificially trying to keep subscriptions up by pumping out the content faster than necessary only serves to exacerbate the problems that exist in TBC Classic. 

And given the disproportionate rate healing gear has been dropping relative to everything else --it's pervasive enough on Myz-US that it's practically its own meme-- I doubt that most average raiding guilds will be truly ready for a Phase 2 release in mid-August. Oh, and let's talk about the elephant in the room: the mitigation gear needed for Phase 2. Auction House prices will spike once news of an impending Phase 2 drop is on the way, and guilds will be hard pressed to get ready in time.

Blizz, don't give me the BS that people don't have to start raiding SSC and The Eye when Phase 2 drops. You know as well as I that your player base is conditioned to jump after the latest and greatest, and pretending otherwise is being disingenuous (at least).

My concern, Blizz, is that if you push too hard, enough people will vote with their wallets and jump to another MMO instead of WoW Classic. And if a Top 5 guild moves on, so what? There are a lot fewer of them than there are the "filthy casuals", so maybe slowing things down a touch isn't necessarily a bad idea. And extra month or two between phases isn't a bad thing, as it allows the majority of the server population to see the content without feeling like they're missing out. 

Okay, Blizzard isn't going to read this blog; I'm quite aware of that. But perhaps it's cathartic to get my opinion out there, because I doubt that Blizz is going to listen to people anyway. If anything, they listen to only a few people, typically those that share their own viewpoint on the game. That makes a certain amount of sense, as a more casual player isn't going to write a "Dear Blizz" post, in spite of there being far more of them than the hardcore raiders. Oh well. It was worth a try.

***

I do have one piece of sad news to report: WoW YouTuber MadSeasonShow is leaving WoW behind. Yes, both Retail and Classic. 

His second last video, provided below, makes it plain it was made prior to the A-B lawsuit being filed by the State of California. He outlines why he is leaving, and provided an ending video that... well... hit kind of hard.

*That's the official reason, but I'd have honestly preferred to have gotten it over with back in June because the lure of easy gold would have thrown a monkey wrench into the Meta.

A Past That Never Was

Judge Drayton: See, I tried to make it... ALL... right. I tried to right ALL wrongs; reverse ALL of the injustices. I... I... I guess I was wrong, it's impossible.
Judge Harry T. Stone: Even a fool knows we can't reach out and touch the stars but that does not stop the wise man from trying.
Judge Drayton: I like that... Who said that?
Judge Harry T. Stone: You did. It was in a speech to the bar association.
--From Night Court, Season 3, Episode 13

I have started this post a couple of times. Each time I get partway through, and end up deleting it.

Words pretty much fail me when I consider the allegations brought against Activision-Blizzard.

Every time I look at the allegations, the angrier I get.

Every time I see the crap foisted on people such as Christie Golden, who were never part of any of this, the angrier I get.

And every time I read some comment about "it's no big deal" or "boys will be boys" or "it's all in the past", the angrier I get.

And in a weird state of suspended disbelief, all people are talking about in guild is the volume of gold you can make in the Fire Festival event in TBC Classic.*

I feel like I'm in some bizarro world bubble, where people are willfully ignoring the obvious, pretending it doesn't exist, because they don't want to rock the boat. Or let justice take its course. Or something. 

***

And here I am, playing WoW Classic too, because I know that if I unsubscribed it would be a useless gesture. I am just one person among millions, and I've already paid for my WoW time, so there won't be any reason other than symbolic to stop playing. I am not a tastemaker, a WoW celebrity, or even well known on the server I play on, so it would only be just for my purposes only if I unsubscribed.

And I can't even bring myself to unsubscribe just for myself, because other people are depending on me. 

But I feel like I have to be doing something. I mean, how can I look at my kids and think that I am setting a good example when I ought to be doing more than what I always have been doing?

Sigh.

These are the sort of questions that have been weighing on my mind lately. 

***

Ever since the news broke about the lawsuit, I have logged in and done what I usually have been doing these days: farm a bit, maybe do a few other things, and help out some of our last levelers get to where they need to be. My questing buddy has been doing other things, such as running heroics or targeting quests for specific gear she needs, so we haven't done any real questing in Shadowmoon Valley or Netherstorm. (I continue to honor my commitment there.) If someone asks for help on a quest in General, I go to help out. And there's the Monday raid night I'm Loot Master on, and we've now added a Friday Kara run which will go on until we get Gruul/Mags on farm so we can throw Kara back into Monday.

So... I don't do much. 

It gives me time to think about how the community should be better than what we are. In game are a pale reflection of our real society, molded and shaped by our shared experiences and the game rules. There will always be asshats and dickheads, but I guess the best thing to say is to not let them win. Not let them dictate how things should be done. Call them out when you encounter it. And to be proactive in reaching out to people beyond our limited friend groups, to let them know they aren't alone.

Maybe that's what I can do to respond to my sense of rage at how badly Activision Blizzard has failed as a corporate culture: to do the things they would not and did not do to their employees. But.... it just feels so inadequate a response to do the things I already have been doing.

I alone can't change things, but enough people acting together can. And setting a good example is paramount, because that is the one thing you have complete control over. You can pontificate all you want, but if you don't walk the walk, what's the point?

There are plenty of times I wish I had all the answers, and there are plenty more when I did know and wished I didn't. I'm not exactly sure which scenario this is.

*Card completed two intro quests and got a bar's worth of XP at L60. I could theoretically do this and level Card to at least L61 this way. Throw in some occasional farming into the mix, and I could probably get her to L63 or L64 without having to set foot in Outland at all.

The Wandering Eye

Unlike his big sister, my son plays Final Fantasy XIV these days. Part of the attraction is his love of the FF series, which he's played every iteration (as far as I know), and the other part is that all of his friends play FFXIV. I've walked by his room --door shut, naturally-- hearing him working out an instance with his friends, all the while smiling to myself. 

So when he mentioned to me that yeah, they've been seeing a big influx of WoW refugees lately, that intrigued me.

I'd bought the game during the Steam Summer Sale --there ya go, Syl!-- so it's been sitting there, waiting for me to download, but that interest in FFXIV far predates the current issues with WoW. As my son pointed out, I'd had it on my Steam Wishlist for several years now. So when I began to pay attention to all of the posts and videos about people leaving for FFXIV I felt simultaneously ahead and behind the curve.

But this particular video attracted my attention, because it was done by Jesse Cox, whom (along with WoWCrendor) at one time I'd linked to over in the links section of the blog.*

Yes, it really did attract my attention.
Be warned, it's 1/2 hour long.

I knew Retail was in trouble, but not to this extent. 

***

The thing is, I can see the origin story of a lot of Retail WoW's current problems in TBC Classic.

Just look at the endless grinding of dailies --normal and heroic instances-- for badges, for rep, to unlock said heroics, and to unlock the various attunements. Were it not for the retail inspired Meta of chain running instances, rushing to max level, and total grinding to get all the attunements and rep grinds done ASAP, I'd likely have never noticed the obvious connection between TBC and Shadowlands' rep grinds and gated content. The emphasis on spreading out and making people grind to get the mats to craft gear --particularly in Tailoring-- has created an environment where people would find grinding anything preferable to the crafting grind.** The grind and the speed of leveling has encouraged and/or required the leveling of alts so you can do all the things, and alts are still very much a huge part of Shadowlands today.

And I haven't even touched on the reputation of the player base either. 

Even some of Retail's narrative problems can be traced to TBC era WoW, as the WoW comics began publication during TBC, and their storyline directly contributed to the TBC storyline. That last part is critically important as Blizzard had published novels before, but until that point these non-video game publications hadn't become required reading to figure out what's going on in the current WoW story. This effectively offloaded a significant portion of the narrative, which meant that the WoW devs could spend more time working on what became the holy trinity of WoW: raids, dungeons, and PvP.***

***

Are other MMOs a panacea to the problems WoW has? That is a question I can't answer. I haven't played FFXIV (yet), and the single player centric nature of Elder Scrolls Online won't necessarily appeal to everybody. SWTOR continues to hang on with their niche audience, as does LOTRO, and the original storylines for both continue to impress me the longer time has gone on. There are other new MMOs on the horizon, most notably (for me) New World, and they will have their time to shine too.

But all good things do come to an end, and right now WoW is more vulnerable than at any other time in their past. I'd never count them out, but outside of deliberate scheduling tricks --something WoW has done in the past on a fairly frequent basis-- their well of goodwill is currently dry. They've got their endgame raids, dungeons, and PvP, but I don't think that's enough to keep a decent portion of the player base. Maybe that's the portion of the player base that the WoW leadership cares about, but that alone isn't enough to keep WoW viable for the long haul.

*I swear, Blogger, get yer act together and support more native controls for other Google applications. This isn't hard, people. If Wordpress can do it, surely one of the largest corporations on the planet can do it. And if they need programmers, I happen to know one who's pretty damn good at her job.

**Enter LFR in a later expac, after crafted gear became less important in Wrath and Cata. There were times in both expacs where I felt that I was the only one who even bothered with crafting gear in those two expacs, particularly with the introduction of Heirloom gear in Wrath. 

***I could add a fourth pillar to that trinity: the rush to max level. Sometimes I wonder why WoW devs even bother with the leveling process if the whole point is to just raid, run dungeons, or do PvP.

 

EtA: Corrected some grammar mistakes.