Sure has been quiet over here. What's the deal?
Maybe burnout.
Maybe spite.
Maybe summertime.
Maybe pressures of trying to help run a guild.
Maybe annoyances with impatient people.
Maybe jaded feeling from a few recent ship jumpers.
Maybe hatred for Blizzard's Arena queuing mechanism which still has me facing Hands of Adal and Challenger/Rival teams, 6 weeks into Season 4, rated at 1450.
Probably all of those.
I think summer and pre-expansion blues has hit my guild square in the nuts.
We've been raiding 10-man content since January 2008.
We just started raiding 25-man content a month ago.
Some people are adamant about getting their last piece or two from Kara.
Some people rather not visit Kara anymore.
Some people have been farming early ZA for months, and are itching to push further. This would require consolidating more of the Guild's talent onto that ZA progression team. Doing so would leave the remaining players without most of the leadership that keeps the raid together, so we haven't made that difficult decision yet.
Some people are still playing for gear. Gear that has a guaranteed shelf life of no longer than November 2008.
Some people are playing for content. Content that will be rendered obsolete in a few months, nothing more than a passing fancy to be visited by 15 level 80's sometime in mid 2009.
A week ago, we had the best-ever guild turnout of 23 raiders. We had a tough time in Gruul's Lair, but stuck together, tried some different strats tailored to the specific people in attendance. We got the job done and killed Gruul, starting only 15 minutes late, but ending 30 minutes past bedtime.
A week later, Magtheridon on the schedule, only 16 people show up. Combination of vacations, active military duty, ship jumping, new girlfriends who don't let their boys raid (lol, not mine, she's uber. And her Orc shammy is gettin pretty bad@ss), and I think that's it. So no raid. Amava went and grinded some Kuranei rep.
The night following the canceled Maggy, only enough show for a single 10-man upper Kara run. So Amava went and grinded some Consortium rep.
Sorta feels like we're a bit too late in the WoW lifecycle to make a serious push at 25'ers.
Seeing BRK's Aetherial Circle posting that even well established 25-person team is struggling, well, gives me minimal hope for our brandy-@ss new raid.
For the foreseeable future, I think my heart is in Zul'Aman, and I only hope I can convince the officers and members that consolidating talent into a progression team is the right thing to do, and is not meant to be elitist or arrogant or sticking with a clique.
Professional Hockey teams have four lines of offense. Only one group of three players gets to be on the starting line. Only a few players get picked to work on the power play, or to play shorthanded. The coach, with the help of his assistant coaches and team captain, is responsible for making that decision. The guys who don't get selected for the first line sometimes get upset at the choice, but in the end, they realize that on any line, they have an important role to play for the team. And if they truly desire a position on the starting team, they bust their tails during practice, watching game films, studying their opponents, working out between seasons, enchanting their gear lol.
When picking DPS for upper Zul'Aman, difficult choices have to be made. If half your team is only outputting 600 DPS on Nalorakk, Halazzi is simply not an option.
I guess I'm just ho hum at the concept of farming kara, farming early ZA, all the while, seeing that there's suitable talent in the guild to push further if the other officers would just agree that its OK for us to make the command decision to consolidate the highest performers and kill some progression bosses.
Nay, its not OK. Its our JOB to make command decisions.
Showing posts with label burnout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label burnout. Show all posts
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Lovin' the game and burned out at the same time
Strange emotional reaction to WoW over the past few days.
On the one hand, I'm having a great time. Some Kara, some ZA, lots of BG, a little fishing in hopes of Mr. Pinchy, a couple of random Heroics. Other than a short-lived spell of depression with WSG, it's been a very positive and fun time.
On the other hand, there's a little burn out going on.
I vunder vhere its coming from?
Edit: this post as originally written was a giant whiny rant. It's been boiled down to its essence, and is now a smallish whiny rant.
Edit to the edit: its still a long post, but seems more interesting than the first writing. Welcome to the insanity that is Amava's thought process.
I think the burnout stems from two places, both end-game raid oriented:
Consuming Your Will to Live
The first is consumables. For each raid, I use one of two types of agility food (Warp Burger or Grilled Mudfish), one type of +hit food (Spicy Hot Talbuk), two types of pet food (Kibler's Bits and Smoked Talbuk Venison), Superior Mana Oil, Flask of Relentless of Assault, Fel Mana Potions, Heavy Netherweave Bandages, projectiles (Mysterious Arrows), and Agility scrolls. The only thing I think I could be using, but I draw the line somewhere and don't actually do this, is Strength scrolls for my pet.
Of these mats, some I can farm for myself...
Then there's materials to buy from other players, especially when you're the saddest type of panda out there, a non-herbalist :-(
Then you gotta purchase some stuff from NPCs
And lastly, now that you've got the mats, for us non-alchemist/enchanters, you need to talk to some crafters
Now, granted, a stack of buff food or pet food might last more than one night of raiding, but the potions and flasks especially, those need continuous replenishing.
Oh, and I didn't mention that for any of the things you bought, or any tips you provide to your friendly crafters, you also need to spend time earning gold so you can pay for them. Plus make sure you have 30 or 40 gold left over for repairs each night.
So Blizzard tells us we're suppose have all this "fun" preparing for the raid, before we're allowed to have FUN actually in the raid.
But that's not all, folks....
You've got friends, but not enough
I'm blessed to be part of a 10-person raid team that's filled with friendly, mature, helpful, patient people, with two additional substitute players who fit right in. We have a great time playing in karazhan together, and we're all very happy with the pace at which we've cleared through the instance.
We've been visiting Zul'Aman for two weeks now and the very first boss in there is showing us that we're not quite geared up enough. Repeat runs through Kara will help somewhat as we each have one or two pieces we still want out of there. Other than that, we've got to grind out badges galore to gear ourselves up, but most of the pieces we need cost 100 badges, which is reasonably attainable in about 1 month for our rate of raiding and heroic'ing. Meaning, ain't gonna be none too soon that badges provide enough improvement for us to be comfortable in ZA.
Only other option is to look at 25-man stuff like Gruuls or the newly nerfed Maggy. Gear-wise and skill-wise, we're ready, definitely for Gruuls and maybe for new Maggy.
BUT, Blizzard says we can't do that. Blizzard tells us that unless we take the personal responsibility to include/entertain 15 or 20 more players, we can't do this. Rather than Blizzard providing a path suitable for our style and ability to coordinate schedule and personalities, Blizzard is making sure that the 10 of us take the responsibility for keeping a bunch of other players paying their monthly fees.
What choice is there?
Why are we forced into these decisions or activities? I can see why Blizz puts the people requirements in there. Its their way of using their motivated customers to take over the burden of entertaining their other customers. Smart business decision. I don't like how it impacts me as one of the semi-motivated customers, but I can see why they do it.
What about the consumables? I'd be paying my monthly fee just to raid, its not like farming for mats or ensuring I have all my stuff before a raid causes me to pay more. Maybe it forces the economy to be more active? Could be, and through that I further participate in the entertainment of Blizzard's other customers.
I love raiding. The 7-9 hours of raid time I do each week is lots of fun, and because of the nice schedule and organization we have among the 10 of us, there is little wasted time. Our first pull goes off within 5 minutes of scheduled start time, and we go to bed when its bed time, and in the middle, we're efficiently progressing through content.
Why can't Blizzard allow us to enjoy that time, pay for that time, and have that time, without all the other time and activities they force us into?
Do I want to farm for mats for all these consumables? No.
Do I enjoy the giant number of details that I need to run through prior to a raid? No.
Do I like the concept of organizing 10 people's schedules, needs, desires, performance? Eh, not so much, but its bearable.
Does my o-ring pucker at the thought of trying to do the same thing for 25 people? You bet.
I can easily see that another few months of this will burn me out pretty easily. I feel like I'm a bit "lucky" in how I came late to WoW. Hopefully I'll be just cresting the burnout curve when the expansion pack hits.
But if I were part of WoW from the beginning? In all likelihood I'd be out the door by now due to the forced time sinks in the game that then possibly permit you to enjoy the parts that you actually like, assuming you can find two dozen others that want to do the same thing, and play the right type of toons.
On the one hand, I'm having a great time. Some Kara, some ZA, lots of BG, a little fishing in hopes of Mr. Pinchy, a couple of random Heroics. Other than a short-lived spell of depression with WSG, it's been a very positive and fun time.
On the other hand, there's a little burn out going on.
I vunder vhere its coming from?
Edit: this post as originally written was a giant whiny rant. It's been boiled down to its essence, and is now a smallish whiny rant.
Edit to the edit: its still a long post, but seems more interesting than the first writing. Welcome to the insanity that is Amava's thought process.
I think the burnout stems from two places, both end-game raid oriented:
Consuming Your Will to Live
The first is consumables. For each raid, I use one of two types of agility food (Warp Burger or Grilled Mudfish), one type of +hit food (Spicy Hot Talbuk), two types of pet food (Kibler's Bits and Smoked Talbuk Venison), Superior Mana Oil, Flask of Relentless of Assault, Fel Mana Potions, Heavy Netherweave Bandages, projectiles (Mysterious Arrows), and Agility scrolls. The only thing I think I could be using, but I draw the line somewhere and don't actually do this, is Strength scrolls for my pet.
Of these mats, some I can farm for myself...
- Fish for Mudfish in Nagrand. Generally 20 or 30 minutes for a stack. Sometimes this overlaps with the daily fishing quest
- Kill Talbuks in Nagrand. About 20 minutes for a full stack. Typically overlaps with Nether Residue daily skinning quest
- Kill Buzzards in Hellfire. About 15 minutes for a full stack. Sometimes the daily fishing quest is in near proximity to the buzzards. Also, you fly over them en route to Hellfire SSO dailies
- Netherweave Cloth. Just pick this up as you go, not something you often need to specifically farm for, as its all over the place
- Scrolls. Sometimes fishing yields scrolls, but this is too unreliable to be considered "farming"
- Although not really farming, DE random greens you collect along the way for Arcane Dust.
Then there's materials to buy from other players, especially when you're the saddest type of panda out there, a non-herbalist :-(
- Netherbloom for the Superior Mana Oil (with farmed Arcane Dust)
- Fel Lotus, Terocones, and Mana Thistle for Flask of Relentless Assault
- Nightmare Vine and Mana Thistle for Fel Mana Pots
Then you gotta purchase some stuff from NPCs
- Imbued Vials - Lower City
- Smoked Talbuk Venison - a different, albiet adjacent, vendor in LC
- Hot Spices - yet a third, albiet also adjacent, vendor in LC
- Mysterious Arrows - Aldor Rise
And lastly, now that you've got the mats, for us non-alchemist/enchanters, you need to talk to some crafters
- Pick 1 of 3 enchanters you regularly hang out with who have recipe (which you gave to them, lol) for Superior Mana Oil
- Visit the only alchemist you know who can make Flask of Relentless Assault. Oh, and btw, make sure you can catch him still in shatt city because it requires an alchemy lab
- Visit the only alchemist you know (different than Flask guy) who can make Fel Mana Potion. Luckily, you can catch this guy right at the instance meeting stone, since no alchemy lab is needed
- Talk to/trade with other fishermen who might have scrolls available. You did keep those +int and +sta scrolls you fished up to trade, didn't you?
Now, granted, a stack of buff food or pet food might last more than one night of raiding, but the potions and flasks especially, those need continuous replenishing.
Oh, and I didn't mention that for any of the things you bought, or any tips you provide to your friendly crafters, you also need to spend time earning gold so you can pay for them. Plus make sure you have 30 or 40 gold left over for repairs each night.
So Blizzard tells us we're suppose have all this "fun" preparing for the raid, before we're allowed to have FUN actually in the raid.
But that's not all, folks....
You've got friends, but not enough
I'm blessed to be part of a 10-person raid team that's filled with friendly, mature, helpful, patient people, with two additional substitute players who fit right in. We have a great time playing in karazhan together, and we're all very happy with the pace at which we've cleared through the instance.
We've been visiting Zul'Aman for two weeks now and the very first boss in there is showing us that we're not quite geared up enough. Repeat runs through Kara will help somewhat as we each have one or two pieces we still want out of there. Other than that, we've got to grind out badges galore to gear ourselves up, but most of the pieces we need cost 100 badges, which is reasonably attainable in about 1 month for our rate of raiding and heroic'ing. Meaning, ain't gonna be none too soon that badges provide enough improvement for us to be comfortable in ZA.
Only other option is to look at 25-man stuff like Gruuls or the newly nerfed Maggy. Gear-wise and skill-wise, we're ready, definitely for Gruuls and maybe for new Maggy.
BUT, Blizzard says we can't do that. Blizzard tells us that unless we take the personal responsibility to include/entertain 15 or 20 more players, we can't do this. Rather than Blizzard providing a path suitable for our style and ability to coordinate schedule and personalities, Blizzard is making sure that the 10 of us take the responsibility for keeping a bunch of other players paying their monthly fees.
What choice is there?
Why are we forced into these decisions or activities? I can see why Blizz puts the people requirements in there. Its their way of using their motivated customers to take over the burden of entertaining their other customers. Smart business decision. I don't like how it impacts me as one of the semi-motivated customers, but I can see why they do it.
What about the consumables? I'd be paying my monthly fee just to raid, its not like farming for mats or ensuring I have all my stuff before a raid causes me to pay more. Maybe it forces the economy to be more active? Could be, and through that I further participate in the entertainment of Blizzard's other customers.
I love raiding. The 7-9 hours of raid time I do each week is lots of fun, and because of the nice schedule and organization we have among the 10 of us, there is little wasted time. Our first pull goes off within 5 minutes of scheduled start time, and we go to bed when its bed time, and in the middle, we're efficiently progressing through content.
Why can't Blizzard allow us to enjoy that time, pay for that time, and have that time, without all the other time and activities they force us into?
Do I want to farm for mats for all these consumables? No.
Do I enjoy the giant number of details that I need to run through prior to a raid? No.
Do I like the concept of organizing 10 people's schedules, needs, desires, performance? Eh, not so much, but its bearable.
Does my o-ring pucker at the thought of trying to do the same thing for 25 people? You bet.
I can easily see that another few months of this will burn me out pretty easily. I feel like I'm a bit "lucky" in how I came late to WoW. Hopefully I'll be just cresting the burnout curve when the expansion pack hits.
But if I were part of WoW from the beginning? In all likelihood I'd be out the door by now due to the forced time sinks in the game that then possibly permit you to enjoy the parts that you actually like, assuming you can find two dozen others that want to do the same thing, and play the right type of toons.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
What's the opposite of Burnout?
Whatever the opposite of burnout is, I have it. All gung-ho for Amava. Probably because I spent a bunch of time away from WoW this weekend. Went on a road trip, saw Dane cook in concert, laughed my butt off. Totally forgot about WoW for 2 awesome days.
Just when I thought I had cleaned out Zangarmarsh of quests, I ran into the Orebore Harborage, and got a whole bunch of new quests. And a new flight path. Very cool.
Ding 65
Aimed Shot gets the talent point, so I took a quick portal to Stormwind to talk to the hunter trainer there so I could buy all the ranks of my new skill, plus an upgrade to immolation trap. That's the first hunter skill upgrade that came to me on an odd numbered level that I can remember.
So perhaps now I can consider Zangarmarsh done until I decide to do Sporegarr or Cenarion rep? Time will tell.
I then went on to some Shattrath City quests for the Aldors. I totally mis-read the clues in the quest, and also in the thottbot write up about the quest, and I navigated all over northern Nagrand. Just love the sky there. Outland in general has really cool looking skies. After a bit of grumbling because things just didn't look right, I realized that the quest took place in Terokkar Forest, and so my galavanting around Nagrand was not getting me anywhere.
BUT, my trip through Nagrand was so lucrative its not even funny. Dual Gatherer, FTW!!!! Lots of minerals, and herbs. And then the continuous drops of various Motes of whatever. And a couple of bonus Fel Lotus and Eternium Ores in the herb and mineral nodes I was getting. Love it.
Ding 2000g
Ended up getting 40% of the way through 65 also, and then my rested XP bonus dried up, and I feel normal.
Oh yeah, and I'm thinking the answer to the title question is motivation.
Just when I thought I had cleaned out Zangarmarsh of quests, I ran into the Orebore Harborage, and got a whole bunch of new quests. And a new flight path. Very cool.
Ding 65
Aimed Shot gets the talent point, so I took a quick portal to Stormwind to talk to the hunter trainer there so I could buy all the ranks of my new skill, plus an upgrade to immolation trap. That's the first hunter skill upgrade that came to me on an odd numbered level that I can remember.
So perhaps now I can consider Zangarmarsh done until I decide to do Sporegarr or Cenarion rep? Time will tell.
I then went on to some Shattrath City quests for the Aldors. I totally mis-read the clues in the quest, and also in the thottbot write up about the quest, and I navigated all over northern Nagrand. Just love the sky there. Outland in general has really cool looking skies. After a bit of grumbling because things just didn't look right, I realized that the quest took place in Terokkar Forest, and so my galavanting around Nagrand was not getting me anywhere.
BUT, my trip through Nagrand was so lucrative its not even funny. Dual Gatherer, FTW!!!! Lots of minerals, and herbs. And then the continuous drops of various Motes of whatever. And a couple of bonus Fel Lotus and Eternium Ores in the herb and mineral nodes I was getting. Love it.
Ding 2000g
Ended up getting 40% of the way through 65 also, and then my rested XP bonus dried up, and I feel normal.
Oh yeah, and I'm thinking the answer to the title question is motivation.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Alt-oids
Burned out on your main? Why not roll an alt? Or 8 alts?
That's what I figured I'd do. I do have an existing alt, a Dwarf Paladin. He normally serves as my AH mule and banker (he's actually the rich one, Amava only carries the petty cash). He's an enchanter for DE purposes on trash greens that wont sell on AH, so a month or so ago, I levelled him up to 20 to allow for expert training in enchanting. Really did not enjoy playing the Pally. Now its not a real fair sample, because when I did play him, it wasn't out of desire to play him, it was out of desire to have my enchanting skill bump from 150 to 225. Mostly solo work, which was really like watching paint dry.
So no playing the pally.
What to do? Something in my head snapped and I decided I wanted a whole sh!t house of alts. Lots of classes, both factions, more servers. I really went on a bender. You should have seen me, I'm sure it was a funny sight.
The first thing going through my head was that I want to get some exposure to other classes, or more importantly, party roles. That means I want a tank and a healer, since I've already got my hunter for DPS. So I whipped together a Draenei priest (more on that in the next post) and a Human warrior. Fell in love with the priest (like I said, more on that later). Kinda enjoyed the warrior. Granted, it was only from lvl 1-5, and there's only like 3 or 4 capabilities to use, but I did like getting exposed to the concept of Rage and holding a shield. Very unintuitive for someone who was born and raised a mana user who is squishy.
I also hate asking people to unlock boxes for me, so I rolled a Gnome rogue. She's so cute, looks like Punky Brewster (who by the way, I had a huge crush on when I was a little tike). So any strange childhood fantasy aside, I mostly plan to play her to get a feel for a rogue's combo moves, and also to level her lockpicking.
Then I thought some more for a little while. I've been having issues with my server. Not technical issues, but just the player base. Seems that there's always constant complaining on the general channel about the server. So to see if this is truely characteristic of my server, or if its just the normal venting of a ubiquitous disgruntled few, I figured I'd try another server.
The only RL friends I have who play WoW are on Kael'thas. And they play Horde. Tauren shammy and hunter.
Very cool. So I went over there and whipped out a Tauren Druid, to hopefully tank with my friends some day, if I ever decide to spend time on that user. Of course, they just hit 70 within the past few weeks, so it'll be a while before we actually play together, but such as it is. I intended only on creating the toon, and then getting into an Inn to start building up rested XP. On my way to Thunder Bluff, I died a few times, right outside the village that's near the Tauren start point. So I levelled him up to 6 and then made it safely to Thunder Bluff. Trained in Herbalism and Skinning. Never did skinning before, so that was kinda fun. Plus, a new faction on a new server meant that my Auctioneer had no data, so I had to do a scan to find out what the stack of light leather I gathered along the way was worth. 43 silvers. w00t. I'm off to a great start.
I also threw an Orc warrior, Troll Hunter, Blood Elf rogue, and Undead priest on there. Ran them each to an Inn without any real playing. Just to generate some rested XP for if and when I decide to play them. I LOVED seeing Orgrimmar for the first time, just looks so cool as you approach from the south.
You'll notice a pretty much total lack of any pure DPS casters. I dont know why, but I'm just not interested in that. At least for now. But I do want to try out a shammy, they seem pretty cool, but my friend is one, so I'll stick to the Druid first. Also, rogue. I dont know why, but I've no interest in rogues, other than for the lockpicking aspect.
So now, what ever mood I'm in, which faction I'm feeling like, what character style I want, I'll have someone with rested XP bonus to make the grind a drop less tedious. Add to that the 2.3 changes to XP between level 20-60, and we'll see where following my nose leads me.
That's what I figured I'd do. I do have an existing alt, a Dwarf Paladin. He normally serves as my AH mule and banker (he's actually the rich one, Amava only carries the petty cash). He's an enchanter for DE purposes on trash greens that wont sell on AH, so a month or so ago, I levelled him up to 20 to allow for expert training in enchanting. Really did not enjoy playing the Pally. Now its not a real fair sample, because when I did play him, it wasn't out of desire to play him, it was out of desire to have my enchanting skill bump from 150 to 225. Mostly solo work, which was really like watching paint dry.
So no playing the pally.
What to do? Something in my head snapped and I decided I wanted a whole sh!t house of alts. Lots of classes, both factions, more servers. I really went on a bender. You should have seen me, I'm sure it was a funny sight.
The first thing going through my head was that I want to get some exposure to other classes, or more importantly, party roles. That means I want a tank and a healer, since I've already got my hunter for DPS. So I whipped together a Draenei priest (more on that in the next post) and a Human warrior. Fell in love with the priest (like I said, more on that later). Kinda enjoyed the warrior. Granted, it was only from lvl 1-5, and there's only like 3 or 4 capabilities to use, but I did like getting exposed to the concept of Rage and holding a shield. Very unintuitive for someone who was born and raised a mana user who is squishy.
I also hate asking people to unlock boxes for me, so I rolled a Gnome rogue. She's so cute, looks like Punky Brewster (who by the way, I had a huge crush on when I was a little tike). So any strange childhood fantasy aside, I mostly plan to play her to get a feel for a rogue's combo moves, and also to level her lockpicking.
Then I thought some more for a little while. I've been having issues with my server. Not technical issues, but just the player base. Seems that there's always constant complaining on the general channel about the server. So to see if this is truely characteristic of my server, or if its just the normal venting of a ubiquitous disgruntled few, I figured I'd try another server.
The only RL friends I have who play WoW are on Kael'thas. And they play Horde. Tauren shammy and hunter.
Very cool. So I went over there and whipped out a Tauren Druid, to hopefully tank with my friends some day, if I ever decide to spend time on that user. Of course, they just hit 70 within the past few weeks, so it'll be a while before we actually play together, but such as it is. I intended only on creating the toon, and then getting into an Inn to start building up rested XP. On my way to Thunder Bluff, I died a few times, right outside the village that's near the Tauren start point. So I levelled him up to 6 and then made it safely to Thunder Bluff. Trained in Herbalism and Skinning. Never did skinning before, so that was kinda fun. Plus, a new faction on a new server meant that my Auctioneer had no data, so I had to do a scan to find out what the stack of light leather I gathered along the way was worth. 43 silvers. w00t. I'm off to a great start.
I also threw an Orc warrior, Troll Hunter, Blood Elf rogue, and Undead priest on there. Ran them each to an Inn without any real playing. Just to generate some rested XP for if and when I decide to play them. I LOVED seeing Orgrimmar for the first time, just looks so cool as you approach from the south.
You'll notice a pretty much total lack of any pure DPS casters. I dont know why, but I'm just not interested in that. At least for now. But I do want to try out a shammy, they seem pretty cool, but my friend is one, so I'll stick to the Druid first. Also, rogue. I dont know why, but I've no interest in rogues, other than for the lockpicking aspect.
So now, what ever mood I'm in, which faction I'm feeling like, what character style I want, I'll have someone with rested XP bonus to make the grind a drop less tedious. Add to that the 2.3 changes to XP between level 20-60, and we'll see where following my nose leads me.
Burned out Main
Like I said earlier, Amava saw only a tiny bit of action this weekend. I logged in, and finished a few Sporegarr quests in Zangarmarsh. Then sat there wondering what to do. Literally, just sat there, totally stunned into inaction. I decided to go sniff around Shattrath City for a little bit. Stumbled upon a gem vendor, and bought 3 gems for my leggings. 6 gold well spent. I think. Wandered around Shattrath some more, getting lost and trying to find my way randomly around. Got bored.
I know I need to just abandon a bunch of my old Azeroth quests to make room for a new zone like Terokkar Forest or some such, but I just had zero motivation to play Amava.
Why not try to get a run through Blood Furnace? I've got 2 quests in there and I've never been inside. 5 people from the guild were running BRD, and there was a couple of guildies on who weren't in there. So I threw the idea out to the rest.
Immediate response from a Holy Priest, which makes my day. Then a warrior responds. Outstanding. In my experience, getting the tank and healer are the tough parts. I was in the fortunate position of now needing just 2 DPS'ers. Not usually tough to find. And I'm excited to run with at least 3 of us from the guild. One of the guys knew a rogue who wanted in. Then I used the LFM thing and found exactly 1 person who wanted any of the level 60-65 outlands instances. Only 1. And this is in a pretty prime time for playing. Shadow priest. Had a bit of a discussion with the Holy priest who didn't want the other priest, but I was able to parley it into an invite. And we made the roles clear that the Shadow guy was here for DPS and the Holy guy was here for tanking.
Ok, kidding, but I think you know what the holy priest was here for. Shadow guy was totally on board with the idea.
How pathetic am I (rhetorical, no need to answer)? I was so excited to even find 4 others who wanted to run. I think either me or my server must be messed up. Maybe its me, who knows. But on the general channel, there were people complaining all weekend about how messed up the server is, whether about the economy being screwy, or the lack of good guilds (besides the hardcore raiding guilds), or the lack of people wanting to group up. Oh well, more about that on my alt-itis post to come later.
The holy priest says he's been through blood furnace lots of times, so I make him leader so he can mark the targets.
Basic plan is to use rogue sap where possible, with my freezer traps as necessary. Icons are assigned and communicated out by the leader.
That's cool so far. I'm glad to just be around a few other people who consider it important to talk about even this tiny bit of strategy before entering. Rock n Roll!! I did ask about pulling, but there was no real plan there. Hmmm?
We enter the instance.
Upon entering, you've got two relatively closely packed groups of humanoids. Icons go up for the pack to the right. Rogue stealths and starts to approach...WHAM...warrior charges and starts the fight, before the sap. 3 wipe and 2 of us leave the instance.
Ok, perhaps it was an accident, or maybe the tank just doesn't know that sap has to happen before the target mob is in combat. So we politely let him know.
Back into the instance. Icons go up, rogue stealths...WHAM...warrior charge. We wipe.
Now the party chat is a drop less polite.
Attempt 3. Icons go up, rogue stealths....WHAM...charge. Walk back from grave again (perhaps the only time that I'm glad I'm a night elf, as I run past all my party mates and get to my corpse fastest).
This time the leader is pretty far from polite. Ok, we're going to try 1 more time...don't charge until you see "PULL" in party chat.
You can see where this is going. 4th wipe and disband group. But not until after the Holy and Shadow priests give the tank a 15 minute text beating. Really unfortunate, but this guy had no clue, either about WoW, or about basic listening skills. I can forgive the WoW knowledge part, perhaps he just didn't know. But the listening part, well, that wasted 45 minutes of my time.
On the lighter side of things, I did spend a while after that questing with the shadow priest and rogue. I had already completed all those quests (pretty much done with non-instance quests on Hellfire Peninsula), but I was trying a new philosophy of just being self-lessly helpful for these guys. Had some fun, and got on the friends list of another healer, which is always good in my mind. Also learned who NOT to go into an instance with, which is also good. Too bad he's in my guild.
I know I need to just abandon a bunch of my old Azeroth quests to make room for a new zone like Terokkar Forest or some such, but I just had zero motivation to play Amava.
Why not try to get a run through Blood Furnace? I've got 2 quests in there and I've never been inside. 5 people from the guild were running BRD, and there was a couple of guildies on who weren't in there. So I threw the idea out to the rest.
Immediate response from a Holy Priest, which makes my day. Then a warrior responds. Outstanding. In my experience, getting the tank and healer are the tough parts. I was in the fortunate position of now needing just 2 DPS'ers. Not usually tough to find. And I'm excited to run with at least 3 of us from the guild. One of the guys knew a rogue who wanted in. Then I used the LFM thing and found exactly 1 person who wanted any of the level 60-65 outlands instances. Only 1. And this is in a pretty prime time for playing. Shadow priest. Had a bit of a discussion with the Holy priest who didn't want the other priest, but I was able to parley it into an invite. And we made the roles clear that the Shadow guy was here for DPS and the Holy guy was here for tanking.
Ok, kidding, but I think you know what the holy priest was here for. Shadow guy was totally on board with the idea.
How pathetic am I (rhetorical, no need to answer)? I was so excited to even find 4 others who wanted to run. I think either me or my server must be messed up. Maybe its me, who knows. But on the general channel, there were people complaining all weekend about how messed up the server is, whether about the economy being screwy, or the lack of good guilds (besides the hardcore raiding guilds), or the lack of people wanting to group up. Oh well, more about that on my alt-itis post to come later.
The holy priest says he's been through blood furnace lots of times, so I make him leader so he can mark the targets.
Basic plan is to use rogue sap where possible, with my freezer traps as necessary. Icons are assigned and communicated out by the leader.
That's cool so far. I'm glad to just be around a few other people who consider it important to talk about even this tiny bit of strategy before entering. Rock n Roll!! I did ask about pulling, but there was no real plan there. Hmmm?
We enter the instance.
Upon entering, you've got two relatively closely packed groups of humanoids. Icons go up for the pack to the right. Rogue stealths and starts to approach...WHAM...warrior charges and starts the fight, before the sap. 3 wipe and 2 of us leave the instance.
Ok, perhaps it was an accident, or maybe the tank just doesn't know that sap has to happen before the target mob is in combat. So we politely let him know.
Back into the instance. Icons go up, rogue stealths...WHAM...warrior charge. We wipe.
Now the party chat is a drop less polite.
Attempt 3. Icons go up, rogue stealths....WHAM...charge. Walk back from grave again (perhaps the only time that I'm glad I'm a night elf, as I run past all my party mates and get to my corpse fastest).
This time the leader is pretty far from polite. Ok, we're going to try 1 more time...don't charge until you see "PULL" in party chat.
You can see where this is going. 4th wipe and disband group. But not until after the Holy and Shadow priests give the tank a 15 minute text beating. Really unfortunate, but this guy had no clue, either about WoW, or about basic listening skills. I can forgive the WoW knowledge part, perhaps he just didn't know. But the listening part, well, that wasted 45 minutes of my time.
On the lighter side of things, I did spend a while after that questing with the shadow priest and rogue. I had already completed all those quests (pretty much done with non-instance quests on Hellfire Peninsula), but I was trying a new philosophy of just being self-lessly helpful for these guys. Had some fun, and got on the friends list of another healer, which is always good in my mind. Also learned who NOT to go into an instance with, which is also good. Too bad he's in my guild.
Continuity Problems
What a weekend!
I'm thinking that a "nutshell" post is in order, and then as my mood suits me, details on some of the more interesting parts.
Ok, firstly, Amava only saw a little action. She's at 63, about 75% of the way to 64. I'm suffering from burnout on her. I've completed pretty much all of the quests in Zangarmarsh that I can, I've reached honored with Cenarion Expedition, and also got some decent rep with Sporegarr. I found myself on friday night sitting in Shattrath City, actually stunned into inaction. I have no idea what I want to do next. I know a bit about the things that are available, but I'm just burned out on driving Amava to 70. So she'll sit for a few days, building up rested XP bonus, and then I'm sure I'll be gung-ho about her again.
Next on the list...How does Amava write and post these blog entries? I'm glad you asked. Its funny actually, but I'll try to keep this nutshell-ish rather than go on and on. I work a normal office job roughly 9:00-5:00, and my employer has various firewalls and proxies to limit where you can surf. Probably a good idea, because even with that in place, I can still find a way to burn the hours :-).
Either way, before starting this blog, I tested it out to be sure I could do it from work. You know...while I'm on a "break". Right! Cool, the blogspot thing is accessible, so I start up the blog. Literally the next day, the login to any of the blogspot sites is blocked, so I can read them, but not post. I work in a HUGE company, so there's no way they were looking at my activity and blocked it the day after I accessed it. Must be coincidence that they just applied a new update to the proxy blacklist or something. I rarely believe in coincidence, but I'll go with that theory for now.
So continuing on, I read blogs in my random spare time during the day, and then write up my responses to other people's blogs and my own postings and email them home. Then at home, post them. That works ok, unless I forget to email them home. Or if I email them home and then get too excited about actually playing wow, and forget to do my postings.
Long story short, I had like 6 responses and 3 postings ready to post on friday, but forgot to mail them home. So there might be some continuity issues with my postings over the next few days. Please feel free to point them out, and I'll dodge with an excuse or two.
The last bit to talk about is my huge case of alt-itis that I came down with this weekend. I think that'll get its own post, because it was a really intense case of the disease, but I had a ton of fun.
I think I'll just leave it there and go ahead and write up what I consider to be the more interesting tidbits.
I'm thinking that a "nutshell" post is in order, and then as my mood suits me, details on some of the more interesting parts.
Ok, firstly, Amava only saw a little action. She's at 63, about 75% of the way to 64. I'm suffering from burnout on her. I've completed pretty much all of the quests in Zangarmarsh that I can, I've reached honored with Cenarion Expedition, and also got some decent rep with Sporegarr. I found myself on friday night sitting in Shattrath City, actually stunned into inaction. I have no idea what I want to do next. I know a bit about the things that are available, but I'm just burned out on driving Amava to 70. So she'll sit for a few days, building up rested XP bonus, and then I'm sure I'll be gung-ho about her again.
Next on the list...How does Amava write and post these blog entries? I'm glad you asked. Its funny actually, but I'll try to keep this nutshell-ish rather than go on and on. I work a normal office job roughly 9:00-5:00, and my employer has various firewalls and proxies to limit where you can surf. Probably a good idea, because even with that in place, I can still find a way to burn the hours :-).
Either way, before starting this blog, I tested it out to be sure I could do it from work. You know...while I'm on a "break". Right! Cool, the blogspot thing is accessible, so I start up the blog. Literally the next day, the login to any of the blogspot sites is blocked, so I can read them, but not post. I work in a HUGE company, so there's no way they were looking at my activity and blocked it the day after I accessed it. Must be coincidence that they just applied a new update to the proxy blacklist or something. I rarely believe in coincidence, but I'll go with that theory for now.
So continuing on, I read blogs in my random spare time during the day, and then write up my responses to other people's blogs and my own postings and email them home. Then at home, post them. That works ok, unless I forget to email them home. Or if I email them home and then get too excited about actually playing wow, and forget to do my postings.
Long story short, I had like 6 responses and 3 postings ready to post on friday, but forgot to mail them home. So there might be some continuity issues with my postings over the next few days. Please feel free to point them out, and I'll dodge with an excuse or two.
The last bit to talk about is my huge case of alt-itis that I came down with this weekend. I think that'll get its own post, because it was a really intense case of the disease, but I had a ton of fun.
I think I'll just leave it there and go ahead and write up what I consider to be the more interesting tidbits.
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