On marriage, honeymoon and Gearscore

After a brief break, involving a marriage, a honeymoon in NYC, lots of shopping, Rock of Ages, Nicks vs Bobcats, Nutcracker, Tavern on the Green, lots of walking around, Xmas, carols and a variety of greasy food I am back in the world of Azeroth and my not-so-frequent blogging. Catching up on Frost emblems and Ashen Verdict reputation naturally involved the odd PUG. And although the new LFG gimmick works quite nicely for my 5-man ventures I am still reluctant to join challenging runs of more than 5 toons.

Nonetheless, in an effort to overcome my fears, aided from missing all ICC guild raids this week, I was keeping an eye on the general chat. The debate was on Gearscore, the controversial add-on which you eventually (probably) end up hating. And it made me think...

Using the sum of a set of values and ending up with a scale is a fairly simple notion. Add-up all the item levels and there you go. You just compare sums between them, or categorise them.

Good? Well, not really. Bearing in mind having the best item level in our gear is not always the best option (considering class design, BiS items etc) the scale is not descriptive (or comparative) among classes. A GS of 5200 for a Paladin might effectively be worse than that of say 5165. Or 5200 for a DK is not the same as for a warrior for example. Moreover, its purely indicative of the gear a player has obtained. Which, granted, does say something about someone's experience/skill but can often conceal a lot. On the other hand, Blizz themselves use a similar approach in the achievements score. So as an approach is not necessarily flawed. People end up debating about GS, advocates claiming its a scale that does show effectively how far your toon has been in raiding, where as the opposition claims that it does not depict skill and it is a crude way of selecting people for a run.

I personally hate it for a number of reasons. One, its badly implemented (knocking the add-on, not the scaling method) due to the high lag it causes. Silvermoon EU is probably one of the laggiest servers around anyway. Using GS during raiding is a definitive nono and we often had trouble with it in the past.

Moreover, it definitely does not show how good/skilled one is but it does show how dependable one *might* be - kind of like minimising the risk by getting in a run someone who at least seems to have gone the extra mile. I personally still consider the Armoury as a whole to be more descriptive as its kind of like your toons Curriculum Vitae. Obviously using the Armoury in order to assemble a PUG is kind of an overkill but in my eyes its the only way to maximise the probability of ending up with a decent raid. And that is what handed us a descent run (5/12 and almost 6/12 10-player ICC) yesterday. Not bad for a PUG.

Last but not least, GS disrupts the flow of raiding within the community. The latter being because everyone and their mother is asking for a GS of 5xxx while their GS is crap. Only to be 'carried' on someone's back and get loot. People that have been away from the game for various reasons can not catch up, unless something gives. Bearing in mind people ask both GS and achievements in order to accept one in a run catching-up can be very frustrating.

To sum things up, I am now a married man, the honeymoon was lots of fun, Rock of Ages is wicked, Nicks won, Tavern on the Green was marvellous but stopped serving till God knows when, Xmas is over, greasy food out of the system and GearScore sucks.

Upgrades and Murlocs

So, amidst turmoil and introspection on my performance on recent raids, I got a few thingies that brought a smile on my head, whereas I am planning a few more.

I am now a happy owner of Grunty, the Murloc Marine marine... Yes, that is two 'marines' for achieving The Marine Marine achievement.... whatever. This is a funny pet. We went to get some Elementum ores for a guildmate's Thunderfury yesterday after out ToC tries. It was kinda late in Greece, around 01:00. My girlfriend was sleeping, dog was sleeping and even vent was boringly quiet. I think that is why I had left the speaker volume kinda high, trying to listen to my guildies... Suddenly....

...the murloc aims... AND STARTS SHOOTING... RATATATATATA!!!
(Check a vid here)

Ok, one of these days I am going to get a heart-attack from 'improper use of in-game sound mechanics...'.

Apart from Grunty, I got 3/5ths of the 245lvl Tyralyon set and an item from the 232 set. Things start to balance out on the gear front as I am trying to `up' my mana pool a bit more. ToC hard mode was not really forgiving for us this week, still a lot of things to tweak. But I think we can tackle the Northend Beasts soon.

Brewfest is the last achievements group towards What a Long, Strange Trip it's been - (notice the Grateful Dead reference there). At least I'll get my hands on a proto-drake, although I have been raiding for ages I still have not gotten my hands on any. Slacker... Not even the green one as I have been quite unlucky with luck-based rewards in WoW. Hopefuly, I'll find the time to do at least those Ulduar 10man hard modes.

Last but not least, its time to convert some accumulated badges to gems, both for sale and future upgrades. And start planning for non-armor items...

A deafening silence...

Its been while since I wrote anything in the blog. I can not help thinking that I often have so much things to say but for various reasons I do not. I used to be a GM in my previous guild, writing huge walls of text with directions for my officers but at some point I lost the plot, they did as well and we all followed separate paths.

Nonetheless, not being an officer - therefore someone who is 'entitled' to speak about certain affairs - sometimes stops me from saying those things I want to say. Other times I am thinking of the consequences of what I will say, which bearing in mind my understanding of social norms in the game, can be devastating for my image and... my peace. Besides, its not my place any more to give instructions and I am immensely happy of not having that `burden'.

I am really sorry for not updating this blog more frequently but its getting really hard some times to keep my cool and enthusiasm for the game. Hard not to cry out a hurricane of feelings, observations and remarks. People do not like it when someone `knocks' their reality, just as much as I do not. I just hope that soon, I wont have to feel that way and people will see what is wrong and sort it out. Its so easy and apparent...that it is hidden like the best kept secret in the world...

We visited Koralon on 10-man yesterday, cleared ToC and then attempted the hard modes. Bearing in mind our set-up was not the best possible since we spread people over two raids and used alts and off-specs to fill in blanks I must say I am not surprised we did not get that far. I know the group that in theory had more `main' specs and a tad better composition got at least the first two beasts by the time I logged off.

The heroic modes do indeed seem quite challenging but I must admit I am sceptical on who long this will last. 245 level gear are fairly easy to grab, are quite an improvement compared to out Ulduar bits and I think the heroic modes will soon be conquered. Still, I never considered anything but the hard modes as a challenge and its a good one.

Apparently paid transfers are coming soon (they are available it seems in the US) and I am thinking of transferring my `pet' rogue who is decked in heirlooms to a horde side and when Cataclysm comes, level a goblin rogue for the kicks of it. Anyone know if heirlooms transfer with a toon when you do a realm/faction change?

Last but not least I began writing Lance's story. I am not gonna go into details but I want to use it as an alibi for certain changes I am planing for him.

Till then, I'll keep my mouth shut and my hammer next to me...

Are achievements a virtual barrier for casuals?

Everybody these days is talking about Ferraro (or whoever he, she, they are) and the whole story of posing as another person - as far as the real life pictures are concerned. You probably have read it, you probably have an opinion as I do. But I'd rather not talk about it, I am just mentioning it so that I do not seem completely ignorant of what happens out there :p. I wanted to make a fun post, portraying myself as a blond bombshell but I think I'll stick to more serious matters...

While I was reading about the aforementioned `scandal' and doing my dailies an old friend from the past, recently transfered in Silvermoon, whispered me. He mentioned something that - what a coincidence - one of our council member mentioned a couple of days ago...

That achievements will eventualy be the downfall of the casual raider...

Both players touched this subject from a different angle. An observer and a victim. Our coucnil member mentioned that he felt that the current trend of being accepted into pugs only if you have completed the relative achievements cuts-off new players from the entry level instances. Likewise, my old friend mentioned exactly that. Not having the achievements does not help him much into participating in Naxx pugs. Mind you, I am talking about people that due to real life commitments are not in a guild, do not have a set playing schedule and try to do the odd instance now and then. People that have accepted that they can not be part of anything a tad more systematic than a mere casual presence into the game.

I must admit I have never thought of this virtual barier before but I do admit its there and its blocking people to catch up. Or even try to. Its perfectly acceptable in my book not to be able to raid as often as I do (which is not that often btw...). As it is perfectly reasonable to try to gauge the people that participate into a pug. But being blocked even out of pugs due to those ruddy achievements is...well, there is definitely something wrong here...

The only way I can imagine someone would `bypass' such virtual barriers is to have friends that are willing to go the extra mile, organize pugs and get that `slacker' the chance to get some descent gear. Of course for that to happen, that 'slacker' must have been a good and pleasant player to be with, someone on your `dearest friends/list'... and not someone that would fit Gevlon's M&S profile. And that is when the social norms of this game come into play...

Enter the Twilight Zone

It is amazing how sometimes things fall together and make a mere game encounter an epic moment. In the recent week my guild saw a couple of its `hardcore' members move to another guild, arguing they wanted a tighter raiding schedule, realm first etc. Many attributed a large portion of their decision on our inability to tackle Sart3D. The latter mostly because a spell of flaky attendance and some other coincidences.

Yet the guild was patient, did some clever recruiting, had the usual discussions that take place in such occurrences and remained faithful that even with our 3-day raiding schedule we can tackle the challenges ahead. Maybe a couple of weeks later than top guilds. But after all we are together in this guild cause we want balance and... moderation

Yesterday the guild was scheduled to raid Naxx for the weekly clear out. But the number 0f raiders present and the overall composition seemed quite promising for a few good tries on Sart3D. After a quick VoA, we moved to Sartharion's lair. A few slacky early tries showed once more that this would not be a walk in the park. But then again, we were not there to take a stroll either...

After a few good tries, a bio/drinks break and a couple of jokes that kept spirits high we were ready for one more try. A try that went smoothly up to the point our MT healers - yours truly and the iconic priest of the guild - went down like 'doofs' (guild term for silly I think :-p ) from a Tsunami, trying to keep the MT topped when the third Drake landed. Yet the rest of the raid performed remarkably. Healers stepped into to hold the MT up, people tackled the adds properly... Being there lying dead I was thinking how wonderful teamwork is. Granted, things can often go bad for various reasons - I miscalculated my Divine Guardian-specced bubble by a margin and thought I could endure the Tsunami while bubbled - but our guildmates stepped in with a top game. Teamwork often makes people cover each other and keep the group going.

All in all, the raid was extremely successful, nailing the Twilight Zone achievement and one of us got to show off in his brand new drake in Dalaran.

So, a few weeks later, a couple members less and a great deal of desire to prove we can do almost everything presented to us, we finally got the damn lizard. Now it is time to get those drakes and `normalize' those DKP pools for Ulduar :)

Quick 'n dirty

Work has been somewhat hectic the last few days and I am trying to fit everything in my schedule. I wanted to post about a few things here - after all as a new blogger I need to pick up pace :p - but things often get out of hand. Still, I had the time to follow my guilds schedule and the Sarth3D tries. Those went fairly well but we still need a few tweaks to nail that. In order not to loose the kill last Tuesday, after a fair amount of tries we decided to do the 2D flavour for a first time. Get the kill and have some challenge we thought. Still, after one failed try we pulled it through fairly easily. And that left a bitter taste. 3D is the challenge and we will be visiting again this week.

On a personal level I still need to catch up with some reputations and achievements. I have been fortunate enough to complete the 25-man content, complete my tier7 holy set and now shifting focus on the odd retry, in hope that the dual specs will crop soonish. Almost all my peripheral items (weapons, trinkets, shields etc) are of a good level (200-213 if I am not mistaken the numbers) and I'd rather allow other people in the guild get what they need. Still, I am going to be there if numbers allow because after all raiding is a relaxation for me (imagine that!)

Nonetheless, my achievements still lack (currently about 4.2K points) and there are things I still need. I became exalted with Kaluak and Sons for the fishing-pole and the shoulders enchants respectively, raised my rep with Kirin and Wyrmcrest for the head enchants and got the hog schematics. Now that the 1st tier of personal targets is complete, it is time to move to the next one. That includes:

• Become exalted with Kirin, Wyrmcrest and Ebon
• Start the Oracle dailies
• Complete some leftover achievements both for PvP (still got to kill 1-2 hordes in Silvermoon :p) and PvE (loads of instances to do there as well as complete Elder of the Dungeons)
• Try to save up some money in hope I will craft my own Lancey Davidson hog

The latter seems to be rather tricky with my playing schedule as most of my profits the last few weeks went to consumables/repairs for the Sarth3D tries. Still I managed to have some profit overall. A long way to go there, as I am not much of a trader and stand in awe on how adept some people are in such things.

All is well for my warrior of light, but like the real me, there is always something more to gain...

/Lance

P.S. I installed the Powered by Wowhead code but unfortuantely can not test it now as I am behind a company firewall. Will get to that tonight from home.

Sarth3D and assorted challenges

We started yesterday our first tries on Sarth3D. The server is very laggy since wotlk, possibly more than others as there are many guilds raiding everything but Malygos, as we are a fairly capable PvE realm. Yet we managed to do Naxx, Archavon and Malygos is one raid day and a half. In fact it could have been much faster if it was not for the lag. We now shifted focus on Sarth3D , looking for some real challenges.

Half a raid day was well used in seeing the fight. What I call the 'aquiantance with a boss'. The fight just needs to be decyphered. Although it seems overwhelming at start, in my opinion there is no fight in wow that does not have a trick. Position, damage, tanking, movement all in a nice chalenging mix.

We got one more raid day till reset and I hope we will make the most of it. Its time to read fora, watch videos and think the fight through. I am confindent that we can streamline the encounter and be successfull on what seems to be the ultimate raiding challenge (along with Immortal Naxx).

Whether it is worth it? Well - and that goes in conjunction with some of my previous thoughts - most guildies, including me, raid for the challenge. Overcoming a boss after a lot of effort gives a rise that can't be compared to anything else in game. I am a fool for these tricky raids, where the raid leader throws microphones here and there, silly gnomes scream in terror and people cheer when that carcass drops.