The Return of the Escaping Gnome

Ok, I have to admit, the title is not very indicative of what I am going to say. In fact I am not sure what I am going to say. You see the last few weeks I've been thinking of writing up something in my blog, its been a while after all. But I always felt there is not much to say. As if the fun was drained out from both the game and the surrounding activities.

Yet the last few weeks Escape started assembling back from the holidays and begun raiding again. In order to do that we started recruiting once again, to fill in the gaps and form a raiders group around the veteran core. It a process, we have been accustomed to and it is probably an inherit feature of guilds with a more 'casual' approach like ours - although only our schedule is per se casual.

As with most guilds in our status the question was either push for more HMs or go straight for a Lich King kill to satisfy the popular demand. We kind of did both last week. This week, mostly because our seasoned drill Searg...er... raid leader and GM was not around we opted for a more "relaxed" approach. Get our usual HMs, do not try anything new and overall try to have fun.

Not sure what was the deal, I am not to fuzzed about the technicalities of WoW these days, but our DPS was excellent - think the Boomkin did work wonders there - and the raid was...dare I say it... fun! Even the voices of the raiders were sounding happy. Jokes flew over, our resident gnome got teased, the old-farts exchanged insults and as always I slacked trying to read a couple academic papers while raiding. Yes, I admit I do that during normal modes...

All in all it has been a while I had fun in a raid. But most importantly it brought as smile in my face as I saw Escape sound and healthy after another summer break. It seems Cataclysm - which I have been checking now and then through Beta - will include lots of opportunities to play around with guildmates and get some nice guild-rewards. This was enough to renew my interest to World of Warcraft for a while.

I feel I'll be updating this blog more often now...

On holidays, beta invitations and mental health

It is amazing what a few days of holidays can do. Relax you, give you some time to think ahead, catch up. I have to admit there have been lots going through my head as I was packing my mountain-bike and trying to keep the dog calm on the back seat, the day my wife and me started our holiday.

Little I knew these days would make a huge difference in my recent approach to World of Warcraft…

The few months before this break found me skeptical of my WoW involvement and the ‘keenness’ of experiencing what we call ‘the end game’. I spent some time getting the Loremaster achievement, the achievement that means most to me. You see I love Warcaft lore and getting it kinda felt… appropriate. But apart from that there have not been many things I truly went after. Maybe the ICC drake for the 10-player heroics, but I am close to it and I will have my chances.

So as I logged before the holidays I felt I would not… hunger for WoW for a while.

It took me a week…

I got a beta invitation for Cataclysm and, although I have no means of downloading the client etc in my holidays, that kinda stirred something. I went to see screenshots of Cataclysm on MMO-Champion. The guild forum became busier and people started assembling for those 25mans– slowly but it is happening. Holiday season seems to reach its end.
And once again I realized how happy I am with my enthusiastic yet reasonable approach towards the game. I do like World of Warcraft, but not at the expense of my other hobbies and leisure. I like schedules, sign-ups, programs and goals. Planning ahead.

And taking some time to… catch my breath.

Holidays are indeed over. But it looks once again that WoW is not…

Catch you on the flipside…

Lag, gear, raid fillers and poor performance

Its been a while since I posted here and the reason was once again too much work in the way. I have been travelling the last week and I have been having chain meetings the week before. Being exhausted from the whole thing had a sever impact in my performance in guild raids. Granted, I have never been our guilds best healer but sometimes I feel I am just not outputting enough and I am not helping my guild.



So, I have been thinking about what needs to be done, insight to my performance etc. My conclusions? As with anything in Warcraft I sometimes I feel I got the right excuses. Other times that I am just fooling myself, or simply trying to find excuses for being poor. But in any case here is my brainstorm...

Real Life tiredness:

Its probably the most important reason but raiding after a tiresome day or a trip in the Middle East definitely has an impact on performance. I have noticed that after some time my responses are much slower, my anticipation of incoming damage is crap and I generally make poor judgements. What I am optimistic about though is when I fuck up, I know what happened. I just need to fix it. And start getting some sleep before raids. After all I DO raid to relax and get my mind of things so I might as well be more... prepared for it.

Gear:

I must admit I have slacked in getting proper gear. Things of course did not improve by missing a few raids or working on my own on my toon but I have also been reluctant in mix-and-matching new items as they come. In other words I have not been bold enough and thought a bit too much on what items I should have. However, I started tweaking things yesterday and I feel this can be solved easily.

And my favourite subject of all, the grand excuse as I say...

Tech healing vs Nuke healing:

(Check here for differentiation, I often call tech-healing anything that does not involve an HL nuke)

Yes, I know its being used a lot as an excuse but in my case its probably very applicable. I have been closely monitoring my performance on 10-mans and I must admit I have no problems there. In fact I have been doing just fine. I always felt 10-mans are more challenging, there is a lot of player-intervention due to the smaller number of raiders. Simply put, there is more room to heal, dps and make a difference. Now, being a Technical healer since I remember myself I am used to having a `pace' in my healing rotations that accommodates the 10-man damage patterns more than anything. In those scenarios you do not only need to output more, but in the right time. And you need to do that along with your healing peer or peers. That is - in my humble opinion - the ultimate challenge. And I have been feeling that on the healing front 10-mans are much better tuned than 25-men. Or - if its not the raid mechanics themselves - two or three healers of different class work better together than a mixture of 6,7 or 8 classes .

Now, monitoring our raids for the last few days I noticed that nuking paladins make a huge impact. Granted, in some scenarios they can not keep up with aoe-healing classes. But generally speaking the Holy-Light splash seems to work just fine. Only recently I had to adjust my healing to err on that side after some... insight, former guild-mates. Now, call me stubborn or a dinosaur. I just can not do it to the max. I feel its immensely more fun to try to squeeze that Flash of light in the right time. Unfortunately I have to keep up with times. And I have always been a `mainstream' person, hence I am reluctant in going for a proper Flash of Heal build (which needs some fine gear to work properly). I have been therefore constantly trying to pick up my healing output, while not loosing much on awareness and mobility. Although I have had some silly deaths the few recent weeks - 90% of which where because I either tried to do too much of took calculated risks which obviously were not calculated properly :-p - I was always proud of my awareness. But check point 1 and you will see how it all comes together...

At the end of the day though, I have been wondering what is the importance of that person at the bottom of the healing meter list - where I have been ending up quite a bit. Could the raid do without? Well. Probably. But just to give myself a pat on the back - excuses excuses... - it you take that person, the filler as I like to call it - you will most probably crumble. Cause healing is not only about how much. Its also about when. And if that person at the bottom of the list heals in a timed manner, the odd heal might make a difference in dying or being repeatedly healed by different healers. In other words, I'd like to believe I am the one that prevents death, while others just fill up your healthpoints bar...

Unfortunately, Silvermoon server is in a very bad state and lag is more abundant than bones in Icecrown. Lag is definitely not helping us a lot and trying to Tech-heal in such an environment is just impossible. So I end up trying to nuke, which seems not to work as I'd like it to be.

All of the above might be simply an excuse and the real reason of my poor performance is not being able to cut it any more. But, one thing I've got is being stubborn. Extremely stubborn. And I still have not said my last word...

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.

Raiding, Marriage and tales from the crypt

I'll tell you one thing's for sure. Preparing for a wedding is like preparing for a raid. One, you need the proper gear. Two, you need consumables. Three, you got to do some reading beforehand. Four, you assemble a group and assign roles. Five, you wear rings...epic ones...and halos. And you videotape it and take screenshots for you to remember it. And people whisper...and behind your back. And you send invites! And people kinda sign-up and come over and eat consumables. And there are beasts and formidable creatures!! You know, ugly aunts and good looking females. And at the end of the day you are - hopefully - left with some extra gold and some loot. God dammit, getting married is like going into a fucking raid!!

I am sure you can appreciate that preparations are taking quite a bit of time and especialy hinder my blogging. But I have never been a very frequent blogger. Nonetheless... There is often something to write about. The wedding is one part. The waiting is the other...

Escape, has proven numerous times its very resilient. We had ups and downs, ins and outs. And we are kinda down these days. Many of our raiders are away for real life reasons. Some got tired of - what I consider the worst instance I have ever seen - ToC. Same place, no variety. Granted, the challenge is there but as far as I am concerned the scenery goes a long way. So we ended up loosing quite a few raid nights due to that. And we are not alone it seems...

Many guilds suffer from what I like to call a 'pre-patch trauma'. People for all sorts of reasons find excuses to stay out of the game. Contrary to after-patch times when people make time to be in-game and use excuses `out there', in the real world. I appreciate many people have ultra-valid real life reasons to stay out. But you can not change my view, we do make time to be in-game when we want. And at this time people do not want to be in-game. Simple as that.

Inevitably that leads people of no emotional attachment - or a weak one for that matter - to their guild to move to the... `upper echelons' of the guild hierarchy within a server. Its not the guilds that attract those raiders, that continue to raid no matter what. Its the raiders themselves that keep gathering up and forming such guilds.

The rest of us, those that have some attachments to the guild they are into await patiently for others to return. Hoping that when the time comes we will grab our axes and yell our battlecries.

I just hope this will take place before my wedding, otherwise I will miss a couple of weeks of the fun!

Quick 'n' Dirty - V

Its been a while since I updated my blog, once again being swamped with work and preparations for my wedding. Particularly the latter needs a bit of work :p. We are also planning slowly our Honeymoon on New York City! Exciting times! I think we are both much more thrilled for the trip than the wedding itself. But hey, we are in this together :p

Nonetheless, I did spent some time in WoW the last couple of weeks. Escape managed to slay Northrend Beasts in heroic mode and now we set our sites on the next hard-mode. Otherwise I spent some time to set up an inscription busyness to complement my herbalist/alchemist DK, manly created to supply Lance with consumables. The scribe is on my GFs account and his sole purpose is to put in the AH the leftovers of the DK. And its been doing well, I have more or less managed to level up inscription to 330 with minimal expenses, funding myself from AH sales.

I've got myself a copy of Windows 7. Ok, either Win7 are a massive improvement to Vista or my Vista install was pretty knackered. I am seeing an increase in FPS of over 300% in areas like Icecrown with full settings. I am pretty sure Win7 are NOT supposed to be that good (or better) and the never-underestimated power of a clean install worked like a dream. But hey, can't complain :p.

My dear friend Thoryel called me one day and informed me about Torchlight. Sounds and looks very promising and I am sure I will put my hands to it when time allows. I am also excited about patch 3.3 lore-wise but I wont even begin to comment on the Tier10 robes and the recent LoH Forbearance `band-aid'. I will be patient to comment on the 'final' version of things.

/Lance

Modern day heroes and growing older

Those of you, those precious few, that read my blog most probably have realised I am a wow lore aficionado. With a tiny obsession with Arthas. Granted, I am not as knowledgeable or imaginative as others, like Lorecrafted, but I am into it enough to provide myself a role-playing background to my involvement with the game.

World of Warcraft, is definitely not much of a role-players game. Or at least I do not feel like it is. Here we are in an epic turmoil, ready for the battle of our lives (or...this patch anyway), among heroes and villains of the past, yielding powerful artefacts... and we talk about talent specs, encounter logs, recruitment applications and various other mundane aspects using a language known as... leet.

Not very epic, I know. Add to that the ever-present teenagers that ruin the game of us mature (sic!), 'academic' players with their naive approach to the game (the correct vernacular term being "they act as noobs")... well the feeling of immersion goes out of the window...

Buuut...

We are still here, playing, filtering the people we hang out with on-line, trying to carve our ways into this colourful shared virtual environment. Why? Case we escape from our realities more often than not. Because after we stop thinking how moronic this 13year-old-tank-that-went-afk-to-have-lunch-cause-his-mother-yelled-at-him is, we start adoring our toons, admiring how heroic they look as they fly through the forests of Grizzly Hills, towards Icecrown, ready to do their part for peace, victory, judgement and honour.

Our toons have become our modern day heroes. No more Spiderman, Batman, James Bond or whatever we thought was cool when we were young. Or toons our our own personal heroes. Things are not 'awesome' any more... They are 'imba'...

P.S. And yes, it gets worse as we grow older... We have a saying in Ancient Greek... Τίμα το γήρας, ού γάρ έρχεται μόνον, meaning... fear old age, for it never comes alone (but along with its nasty side effects)...

Guts 'n' Balls

Ever though you got so many to say, so many things to curse for but you feel you must not do so? For `the greater good'?

Well, that is the spot I am into. Once again this week. A friend told me, when this game stops being fun its time to call it quits. Not sure if that time has come yet, I guess I have faith in some people and hope to see a change of things. So, I will pretend everything is fine and speak bout a subject in a `politically correct' manner, - whereas I would ideally like to be very non-PC...

I must admit, one of the hardest things in WoW is not to be included in your guild's raids. Even if they are just the non-scheduled ones. Granted, I have been fortunate enough to be a regular in the 25mans but 10mans are a often different story. And all that got me thinking of how tricky is for everyone, organisers and participants of such raids, to balance things out.

From the organisers point of view, there are two paths to follow. One is the `progressive' path where people pursue achievements, prestigious kills etc. I appreciate that its definitely better to go with a stable set-up to those encounters as the group gets more efficient with playing together for extended periods. Such raids offer good publicity to a guild when said progress is achieved. From the participants point of view they need to be punctual, follow the usually `internal' schedule (by internal I mean its often organised from raid to raid and not with the assistance of a raid subscription tool), come prepared to the max and do their best.

On the other hand, we have what I like to call `community' raids. Raids which offer a basic clear-out of instances or in the best case scenario some hard-modes AFTER having completed a basic set of goals. Their purpose is twofold. One is to mix and match the raid group and give the chance to more people to raid. Equally important - particularly with the current ToC badges - is the collection of a basic number of tokens for gear upgrades which ultimately lead to better gear for all guild functions. Unfortunately, such raids often have people that are either indifferent to hard modes or have been left out from `progressive' raids. Either way, such groups are trickier in achieving anything but normal clear-outs. Not impossible though, just trickier.

Naturally, those two groups often merge together, the progress raid being the predominant one. People have to adjust to this mentality, play their best even if in theory they come from the `casuals' pool. Note here that by casuals I do not mean in any extent less capable. I mean those that are not as often on-line as others. Because - in principle - if those players are much worse than their peers skill-wise, then they should not be in the guild in the first place.

Obviously, the problem is which path to take and how far you can merge these two groups. That is, if you can not afford two raids, one in the fast lane and one for the rest. To wrap it up, the advantages of those two categories are the following:

Progressive Raids

Pros

• Sought Achievements ontained
• Good guild PR when those achievments are obtained
• The joy of hard-modes challenge
• Progress, progress, progress
• Better gear for some

Cons

• Often, a seperation of a guild to `elite' and lesser groups occurs
• High concentration of gear to specific individuals - the rest get to be in guild functions in lesser gear compared to their 'elite' counterparts
• People of a casual raiding schedule can't follow - (although are often present when these raids take place...)
• Guild fragmentation and morale issues

Community Raids

Pros

• More people participate
• Gear is spread more evenly accross the available player pool, thus augmenting the whole groups capabilities (or potential)
• More people get the chance to participate in 10man content - and if the raid is good, get to complete hard modes
• Badges of more = more upgrades = better gear for more

Cons

• Rarely achieve well-sought progress
• Players often take their outcome for granted and underperform
• (Aledgedly) better players often disregard them for greater chalenges
• (Aledgedly) better players are unhappy with the non-take-no-prisoners attitude of the raids

I must admit that I am not sure which path I would follow. It is basically the very same reason why I stopped being a GM/officer etc. So that I wont have to decide such things. I have the utmost respect for those that take the effort to organise either of those types of raid. And to a great extent respect their choices.

But people suddenly loose that respect when they do not abide themselves to a few basic rules. Do not disregard people that have been with ya for a large period of time, do not `ninja' their raid IDs. Not when they are on-line at that time. At least have the courtesy to ASK them before you go and invite your out-of-the-guild buddies. Have the guts 'n' balls to tell people when you want to raid with one of your buddies, don't leave them waiting. Do not go behind their back...

Not when I respect you and the guild as much as I do...

Of course I might be exaggerating a bit. After all these raids are not a primary guild function and could be treated simply as someone else's raid. He or she leads, its their raid, their choice who they take and their choice who to talk to. Their rules, their game.

Lancebit the Paly and Lance the Dog

This week I got some real-life news...

A few days ago while returning home from an errand I was followed by a puppy. The place where I live is full of houses with fairly big gardens where most dog owners have their dogs running loose, pooping all over the place. Our municipality even has a playground for dogs, something not often encountered in hardcore-urban Athens. I expected the dog to belong to someone but nobody ever asked for it and there were no labels or a microchip on him.

So... the puppy followed my up to my parents house and back. He seemed relaxed, coping with my walking pace. As I walked back home, my girlfriend was on the garden, tiding up. When she saw the puppy she became ecstatic, making funny joyful noises. One thing lead to an other and now the puppy is under our protection for the last week or so. We took him to the Vet, did all the necessary check-ups, got some instructions and we are training him (and ourselves I might add...). And now Lancebit and Erlune have a real pet...

His name? Well, Lance ofc...

Lance 'in da house'

As for WoW? We cleared ToC10 and ToC25, starting on hard-modes, I got two 245level set items and some other assorted upgrades, got epic gems and planning further upgrades. I also upgraded my PvP gear and hoping to a rewarding Arena season. Arf!

Lance, Daiske and a hot mid-summer's dream

Its been quite a few days since I blogged, manly because I was up to my neck - once again - with work. But... I also tried a little wow experiment. After 4 years (I am not sure how long its been, I feel I have been referring to those `4 years' for ages) I managed to put myself in a mental state to level an alt. Granted, its a death knight and it feels like I am cheating :p. However, bearing in mind the whole `slackness' of the summer-time, I felt its a good opportunity to level up Daiske, my human (yes I can be really boring..) death knight. And level up alchemy on the side, to have one more useful profession available to me, as Lance is a miner and an engineer (as is yours truly... the engineer part, not the miner...).

I must admit that death knights are fun to play and sure as hell are a quick level-up. I am half-way to 68 and my plan is to hit Borean Tundra once I become 68. Contrary to Lance's path, Daiske will enter Northrend in BT and maybe, just maybe go to Howling Fjord once I get a couple of levels. Truth be told, the whole experiment is primarily done for the herbs and the flasks. That is why I am eager to enter Northrend. On the other hand, I must admit that gearing up in a relaxed manner a character, often checking the Auction House, drooling over gear I have never looked at and feeling that itchy hand caressing my wallet is... refreshing (ok ok, I am just trying to sound poetic, don't laugh). Yes, levelling Daiske brought some nice memories of the past, when I was levelling Lance to 60. When gear was out of reach and raiders seemed like semi-gods. Now things are different. So, going back, even if its for a few precious `virtual' moments... its sure is refreshing. If Daiske hits 80 then the next bit will be to get my `pet' rogue levelled up. Now that will be truly hard...

Lance is there though, going to the guild's raids - which by the way have not suffered from attendance that much - definitely much less than last year. I am still doing those AT dailies for the gold and the tokens. After all, that AT tabard and the new Charger are essential for a true paladin...

P.S. I also got season tickets for my favorite football team - (soccer to my US friends) which might result in me loosing a couple of raids in the future. But at the end of the day skipping a few raids has always been the trick to the longevity of my playtime in Wow. I still enjoy it a lot and those precious breaks now and then - or slowdown of gaming pace to be precise - kept me going.

P.S. Holidays are coming... Swimming with the missus under the hot Hellenic (correct term for Greek) sun... who cares about Arthas...

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...

On the highway to hell

ACDC in Athens 28/05/09 - Black Ice Tour

Nothing much to blog about WoW these days, everything revolved around the first ever ACDC concert in Athens. I have been a fan for years. I am utterly thunderstruck... a childhood dream came true, I haven't had the chance to see them live before.

Rosie on the Rock 'n' Roll Train

They were f@king awesome!

What do you remember...

Averna tagged me with her meme and I must say, its a nice subject, brought a smile on my face after thinking of the past... Apologies for being late, work was rather hectic.


What do you remember about being a newbie... The good old days, indeed.

• As soon as I logged in, my dear friend Elisdav invited me to my first guild Maza of Crushridge. Elisdav was at the time studying for his PhD along with me in the University of Essex. So, truth be told, I was never guildless. Well, a few sec maybe :p

• I started going around smacking things. I do not remember using any of my abilities to start with, just auto-attack everything. I almost got a stroke when I died for the first time...
  

• I was immediately called 'Lance'. My toon's original name is Lancebit (derived from Lancelot) but I do not think I have been called Lancebit more than a couple of times during my 4 year career as a Paladin...

• Elisdav chipped in and bought me a Searing Blade. I was the most fearsome paladin ever... withing two yards of my standing point...

• I was dragged into Deadmines with Pizzaman and Maluska (or something...). People I did not know. People I eventualy met and hang out with...
  

• I thought at the time those lvl 60 players were Gods!!

• I once say Blessing of Kings casted on me during a 'rumble' in Southsore (brings a tear in my eye... world PvP at its best)... and SoC on a fellow paladin. I started looking where they got these toys... Talents... that figures... so that's what that menu is for!!!
  

• I was then praying for a Soc Proc just to see Lance jump in fury and slam that two-hander. At least I got the two-hander part right...
  

• I had no idea what a tank is. Why the hell they call it a tank. Is it a vehicle?
  

• I remember standing thunderstruck when my friend Dentrag used Buff-ahoy to buff in Uldaman. It had a 'say'-bubble confirmation that you were about to buff. An add-on... what the hell is an add-on...

• And then came level 60. That's when things started falling into place... I went with Elisdav and some other friends in Dire Maul. Apparently... I was one of the healers. Yes, we had two, don't ask me why, it was 4 years ago :p. At the time I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do. And that became quite apparent. The other healer, a druid named Debran went ballistic with me. And there I am, ruining their instance...

• Eventually I caught up with times. I was thrilled when I completed my 1st 5man, along with one of Escape's current MTs. Yes, we go a loooong way back. I remember it was Stratholme, both sides. Till now, I consider it the most entertaining instance ever.

• I went ballistic when another Paladin casted DI on me in a UBRS run. I had no idea what it was. You can imagine... I though my keyboard was dead... (naab...)
  

• I used to see paladins wearing Lighforge and thought it was cool. Then I say Lawbringer and said to myself that's impossible for me to get... (I got the shoulders, the only piece missing a few months ago in an MC achievement run! ha! gotcha!)

Now I am wearing a purple-red brown skirt those people in game call tier8.5 or sumthin... I still visit Stratholme, thinking of my old team-mates / friends. Good thing I'll meet them for coffee this or the next weekend to talk about Guitar Hero... Elisdav, I know you read this from time to time... I blame you for everything...

Now, lets tag Jong , Firelight , Vaadren and Jesper in his personal blog.

Guild recruitment and Tiers of capabilities

One of my observations, related to the current state of things in WoW concerns the quality of applications for recruitment. It seems that the level of those seeking guilds, in terms of quality, has degraded a lot. At least in our realm - allegedly the top PvE realm in EU - and regarding our own applicants. So, I could not help thinking that the easier content essentially hurts mid-range guilds and eventually will hurt top guilds. Now, here is my reasoning.

We got three tiers of guilds. Tier One (T1) is the `hardcore' top guilds of a realm where the 'cream of the crop' finds home to satisfy the desire total annihilation of bosses-targets within the smallest amount of time possible, after their introduction. Tags like, realm-firsts, rankings etc go in this category.

The second tier (T2) is mid-range guilds which are usually slower than the top ones, either due to schedule (like my guild which raids 3 days per week just for its members to keep their sanity, their spouses and their RL in order) or due to `lesser' skill.

The third tier (T3) is the entry level guilds wich range from `social' doing-nothingness, to clearin a fragment of the content or just not attaining the top achievements.

Since the content is easier these three tiers are more distinct than ever. Those who can do things fast, efficiently or what I like to call `punchy'. Those that can do the same things more or less but require a bit more time. And those that for a variety of reasons can not do all, some or most.

Although my tier model is crude, its adequate to demonstrate my point. Each tier mostly replenishes itself from its immediate lower.

Now, I believe that in the past where the content was harder people often transferred to guilds within their tier. Top guilds were off limits, mid range guilds were much more and casual guilds quite fewer cause there was not much `casualness' in the game (I am excluding PvP from this ofc).

Whereas some players sleeked for more and jumped tiers, many stayed with in their tier - mostly T2 - and tried to find more satisfying raid environments. Nowadays things are a bit different. Since content is easier people can jump to the tier above with greater ease. That means that T2 which has capable players looses quite a few to T1. Unfortunately those from T3 who wish to go to T2 and who for a variety of reason could not complete certain (if not many) elements of an overall easier content are usually not good enough for T2.

In other words those that have not done basic things in this content (and wish to do more, hence its not a matter of commitments/time etc) are not good enough for many T2 guilds.

Of course, these are just observations. I may be way off there. Do I make sense or this sounds like a phd thesis...?

Metron Ariston

The ancient Greeks had a recipe for long, happy life: "Metron Ariston" roughly translated: good things in moderation. The emphasis of this quote is in the word moderation. Why on earth he talks about this, you might wonder. Well, even Blizzard uses a paraphrase of this quote in its loading screens with 'Take all things in moderation, even world of Warcraft'.

Many people flamed this quote as the epitome of 'mediocre' in warcraft. Reminded me of the time people flamed Richard Bartle, saying who the hell he is to be talking about Warcraft. Being a researcher myself I am alway suspicious. What is said, by whom, why, how and where. I listen, I think, I accept, I defy.

So, that old quote came to haunt me the last few days. You see we had a few people leaving the guild in order to seek even more competitive guilds that would allow them to do realm first, or a higher number of raids, or possibly what in their eyes is a higher level of player ability - which alone in my eyes is a subject of great debate and analysis. Now, I am not knocking their decision, everyone is entitled to play the game however they want. I wish them good luck in their search. But in the same time I am going to defend my decision - which was taken a loooong time ago - to take WoW in moderation. And the fact I am done searching.

I am in a relationship that leading to marriage, and like all my close friends I decided to take that step by the end of the year. I am blessed to have a beautiful, considerate and extremely fun person next to me that puts up with my nerdiness and love for virtual dwarfs, swords, spells and dragons. I am working in the Telecoms industry and I get to socialise with my friends in coffee-shops (not the ones in Amsterdam, the ones in Athens where we only drink coffee in various flavours and gossip about politics, football and celebrities - so much for the ancient Hellenic civilization), bars, cinemas and our ultra-comfortable couches watching Champions League (soccer to my friends from the US), NBA and Euroleague basketball games, the national tournaments and quite a few HD movies. But more than anything else spend time with my GF and wife to be.

At the same time I am keen on seeing the content through, in Warcraft, gearing up my paladin with whatever I get my hands on, eager to experience fully another spec (being Holy for a loooong time), but most important feel that sense of accomplishment when my team hammers that dragon boss down. I consider my guild as a very capable bunch that has gone very far, albeit with a moderate 3-day raiding schedule.

But I will do all of the above in moderation. I will not loose my head over some achievement that I can not have now, but I will do my best to obtain it. In the mean time I will explore the content as much as possible, but I will be patient and take it one step at a time.

Why? Because I want all of the above. I do not want to sacrifice anything, I want everything to be part of my life, my leisure time. It keeps me sane, reduces my stress and allows me to keep a brave face when something awkward crops up.

Moderation ladies and gents is what keeps our lives full. I am not a sports champion, I am not a politician (OK that's a bad example), I am not someone who has to sacrifice a great deal to achieve something. I am the average punter, a bloke in his 30ies that likes what he does, how he does it and when.

Excuse the tone of the post, but there is one point on has to stand up to all the 'opposition' that claims its seeking more and more, whether that's justifiable or not.

No, I will stick to my decision. Wow is and will be one of my hobbies for as long as my relationship and future family allows me. It will be my Escape from my real life. I will try to go as far as possible, for as long as possible, doing as much as possible. But I will not replace my real life with that of my toons.

My opinion is simple. Sacrificing something should be done only for life-changing, life-defining actions and decisions. Otherwise, as Frankie said... Relax.