MMOs and bringing people together

Despite numerous RL distractions, I've realized over the last 12 months just how great of a benefit new technology can be.

Most prominently, since I graduated from high school, I'd lost touch with my best friend. First, he'd moved 2 towns away. Then, he moved to what may as well be ten towns away. It sucked. I went from having my best friend just a few minutes away to about an hour away.

Around that time, I picked myself up a cell phone. That allowed us to keep in touch relatively frequently. Even if I wasn't up to much, I could text my good buddy and see what was new in his world.

And then World of Warcraft came along.

We began talking in-game a lot.It was like a rejuvenation of sorts. We talked a lot. We quested and levelled together. Even though we were miles apart, WoW still brought us together.

It was a great thing. We still get together to this day to "WoW it up." Even despite that, the best part of it is getting to spend quality time with my best friend. We do lots outside of the game... don't get me wrong. It's some of my favorite time away from home; he's my best friend and always will be. He's going to be my best man for crying out loud.

In any event, it bridged the post-high school gap. It's what was needed to keep our friendship fresh.

Recently, my little brother decided to begin WoW. He lives away from home; our parents are separated. His joining up with the game is a wonderful thing.

With the VOIP recently integrated (and Vent if I can get him in my guild) I look forward to a lot of virtual time together. I know, it's not the same as RL, but what else do I have?

My little brother is far from home all but 6 days of the month. Now, I can get insight into what he's going through as an adolescent. I can talk to him as an equal and, in lieu of RL time, we get to be together online. It's not optimal but it's something.

I love my brother. If this is what I have instead of nothingness, I'll take WoW time any day of the week. He and I can have fun together here, despite age disparity.

Don't detract. Honestly, put youself in my scenario: you have a half brother with a different mother. They've separated 15 years ago but due to her issues (read: child support) she won't let him visit more than once every two weeks. He's growing into his own and it's different from how you grew up except for your interest in gaming. You love him and want to be there for him.

Would you do anything other than roll on the same server with him? Would you break away from him online even though it was one of your only ways to keep in contact with him?

Only gaming may lack in some ways but it lets me keep in contact with my kid brother. At this point, screw anything Blizzard does with WoW. It doesn't matter.
What I care about now is the communication and identifying medium their world represents.

For that, I am greatful.

Internet Bandwidth Plans

So, the internet blogs have been abuzz lately with opinions on many ISP's recent announcement about bandwidth pricing packages. To summarize, it goes like this: several popular ISPs, such as AT&T and Time Warner (my provider) are planning on releasing internet packages with prices based solely around bandwidth usage. For example, Time Warner's basic package provides 5Gb of bandwidth per month for $29.99 with a $1 fee for every Gb that goes beyond the customer's pricing plan.

While it may sound innocent to many, this is a topic of high debate. It flies in the face of digital distribution (ITunes, AmazonMP3, etc), not to mention may be limiting to those of us who are regular gamers and participate in high-download activities - i.e. betas. According to their press releases, this change is targeted towards those users who are p2p'ing and bittorrenting. These people, so the ISPs claim use approximately 40% of their bandwidth.

Those who took part in the Age of Conan beta know. During their testing period, those with faulty client downloads were subjected to 32Gb downloads per week. If these limits go into place, they would be paying overage charges out the yahoo. Rather than go into all of the details here, Keen and Graev, as well as The Greenskin, have made very thorough postings with a plethora of worthwhile comments to fuel your discussion.

Keen and Graev:

http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1095

The Greenskin:

http://thegreenskin.com/2008/06/19/my-take-on-isp-volume-caps-and-surcharges/

Please read them and comment here or there. It doesn't matter. This is something we all need to be aware of. It doesn't matter if you support it or you're against it; corporate is making a decision that is affecting our lives as internet users. All of us should know the precedent that this could state.

Take care all!

Raegn

Mage Madness!!

Did Raegn just make a play on his own blog name? I think he did. Well... maybe we should poach him. Raegn is in season. Too bad he's now trying his hand at the pew-pew! He may just shoot back.... with balls of ice and fire! Mwahaha!

Last night's events left me a little bit disheartened. As you know, I've been feeling the twangs of burn out a little bit, and that event didn't help.

So, I took the opportunity to roll a character on a buddy of mine's server of choice, Cenarius. It's PVE, which is a little bothersome since I usually play PVP, but for a new mage, I think that it may actually prove beneficial.

After almost a year of solid Horde, I've made an Alliance. I was hesitant at first. My first few characters were Alliance but I left the faction because of a bunch of bad experiences in Goldshire.

Now though, I'm willing to brave the waters again just for the change of pace and scenery. So far, it's been great.

For the first five levels I've been in, that is.

I always wanted to roll a mage but I had only tried with my first and third characters; both were given up because I had a hard time mastering the class at that point. It should be noted that characters 1-3 only got up to a maximum of level 13. And they all died. A lot.

Anyways, now that I'm a bit more experienced with wow on the whole, and have read up on play strategies, I'm loving it.

The damage is great and, hell, who doesn't want to be a wizard?

Anyways, this should add a little spice to what has thus far been a WoW Warrior blog.

My intention right now is to document my 10-70 experience. I'm not planning on writing a guide; there's enough of those out there right now. But shoot, it might be fun and informational for some to learn from my blunders and... other blunders.

I'll keep you posted, loyal readers!

Until then, take care and do your best to solo Kazzak. He's a nice guy once you get to know him. Loves tea. And pie.

Long week, long night.

Raegn has been a busy bee this week, so he hasn't been able to make any new posts. Not only has he been a busy bee over the course of a week, he's been buzzing just about all night long. In fact, it's 4am right now, so he's about buzzed out! He'll try anyways though.

Greetings new readers!

Tonight was rough. As you know, I've been going back and forth between protection and fury trying to breathe new life into my gaming. Tonight, I was fury and set foot, for the first time, into heroic Mechanar.

Now, I was a good little DPSer and looked up the boss strats on wowhead during the flight out. I was ready and starting out, things went great. We kicked ass right through up until the bombers.

God I hate those guys.

Their incessant 1.2k'ish bombs, never ceasing, never fail to completely wipe me out. I was planning on hanging back to avoid wiping on them. Unfortunately, our tank, as good as he was, was getting pretty well trounced.

So in I went. On the last one, running away, down I went.

Lesson learned. Stay the fuck away from the bombers. Check.

Anyhow, apart from that one death on my part, we did well. I was disheartened to find that I was on the bottom of the DPS meter though. Before the first boss, I was at 389 DPS. For me, that's a little low. I'm at, buffed, 2200AP, so it really should have been a little higher. I chalked it up to the tank running from place to place though... odd for a paladin tank. The circumstances didn't necessarily call for it when he did it (which was often) and yet, still.

I was also comforted by the fact that I was the only one in the group still in blues. You all know, I'm not a raider, but I do my best.

Anyways, we positioned ourselves and pulled the first boss. Bad positioning of him. He was in the center of the room and not kited. Melee was moving, (meaning the rogue and I), but still got the crap bombed out of us a couple of times.

Then, came the polarity changes. I was negative. The rogue was positive. Both of us went boom in a spectacular display of blood, guts, shrapnel (bombs, don't you know), and curses.

"I need to mess with my xperl windows" he says. "I couldn't see my polarity."

So, I accepted it. I'm still learning too. Crap happens, it was cool.

Then, then tank asks for the damage meter and he sees me on the bottom. He very kindly ("Sorry bud") told me that I would be replaced because I wasn't ready.

I respect him for being cool about it, especially given plate repair costs. I was still a little taken back though. I mean, that was it? One group wipe, when the rogue admitted that his UI was messing up his game, and I'm the reason why we wiped?

I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I think that even with all my blues and blue quality dps, we probably could have made it through the rest of the instance. I know we could have gotten past that boss. Honest issues, right?

Here's the thing: shouldn't there be a little more acceptance of people needing to start somewhere? How did they get their first piece of badge gear? By people helping them learn. And hell, not to sound self righteous, but at least I looked up the strat and was ready going in.

Oh well. Another day, another instance.

I wished them luck and said good night; just as I do with you this eve... morning.

Talk to you soon.

TMI?!?

So, this evening, during a game of RL pool with a friend, and guildie, I was visiting, my GL started squealing over vent about a date she just landed. It hurt my ears, but that's not the point.

Now, let me say, first and foremost, my GL is a kind, fair, and all around pleasant lady. She runs the guild in a manner that benefits everyone as much as possible. She cares and does a great job.

Anyways, she was excited because it was her first date in a while. Her last relationship had ended because of WoW, she says, so beginning anew was exciting and understandably so. She was nervous though. Ready to back out actually. I'm in a guild with roughly 300 people in it and the 15 or so in the vent channel were all encouraging her to go for it. "Don't be nervous" we told her. "You're a beautiful girl, go for it."

Like most people in a comfortable atmosphere, she was talking a little bit about her past relationships and as loyal guildies and, dare I say, friends, we listened and responded. She was scared and hadn't had anything serious since her last relationship. Then she dropped the bomb. "Don't tell anyone," she says (who would we tell, I thought, we don't know you RL after all). "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I've messed around I just haven't had any real relationship. Last weekend I had two guys over."

... okay. That was when it got a little weird. As one of two women, out of 15 total players on vent, I think she said exactly the wrong thing. I got to see exactly how odd my guild could be. Immediately, she was begged for details on her MMF encounter. When she gave them in brief, guildies wanted more.

It was kind of... how do you say... creepy? Yes. It was creepy. I'm not the kind of guy who ever got off on watching porn with his friends or talking about sexual things. I didn't want to be around my friends when they were horned up. It was uncomfortable. On vent, I got to hear 13 people change from normal gamers into salivating horn dogs. Even though I couldn't see their faces, it still weirded me out enough to log off.

Which makes me wonder, was it really appropriate, or anything other than harmful to the guild for our GL to share that? She's a person and entitled to make her own decisions. Personally, I don't care what she does in her real life but I can't help but assume that she probably lost the respect of some of her followers. I mean, you know that kind of thing is going to circulate like wild fire.

So, how much is too much? I know that people get comfortable with their guildies. That's great and conducive to a pleasant guild experience but where is the line for that kind of thing?

Personally, there's no sex in WoW and I don't want to hear about it from other guildies. I don't know them RL and, even if I did, I don't care what they do in bed. It's their business and it doesn't affect me. Plus, I'd rather not hear a bunch of guys get all breathy through my headset. Has anyone else out there been in this situation? I know our readership is low, so even if there's no responses, I'd be a lot of you have. It's strange, right? Or am I the weird one?

Stance dance

I was set on respeccing back to Protection tonight as soon as I had the cash to do so.

But I didn't.

Instead, as I was grinding out said cash on the Isle of Quel'danas I was asked by a guildie to come DPS Steamvaults. It was a run I had needed for a while, so I agreed to come and push out as big of numbers as I could.

So, to start, I began the first pull in defensive stance. My bad, I said, and switched out. Force of habit.

We went another few pulls. The rogue pulled aggro and wiped us once and the tank, a druid, pulled four too many mobs another time.

It was a rough run.

On the eight mob pull, I did my duty and put on my tank gear, popped into defensive and tossed up a taunt.

Unfortunately, at that time the healer had just died and it was all me; 1v6 remaining mobs.

I was valiant! I was daring! I was hurting my durability! I was dead.

So, we rezzed and went back.

On the next pull, I found out my quick click equipment switch only replaced about half of my items. The 200ish DPS was my first clue. The erect nipples of the tantalized bog lord was the second. Anyways, we survived and made it to the first boss. We wiped once but downed the boss the second time.

Oh so puggishly, our healer and one dps had to leave right after getting the shard from the DE'd item drop. So, I took my leave.

Walking away, I have to say, I felt like a noob. I guess what I take away here, is not to get to comfortable in any one playstyle. I'm no raider, so it's easy for me to become complacent.

No matter what part of the game you're in, you have to be on task. I wasn't tonight and it showed; I was embarrassed. So it goes though. I am always open to learning and always subject to circumstance like every other player.

One of these days, I'll decide which spec I really want to be and then maybe I can at least afford complacency in rotations. Until then, I'm stance dancing and gear waltzing to my heroics.

/Gquit

Since I've started WoW almost a full year ago now, my main has been in a grand total of three guilds.

I'm a sucker for friendly people I guess.

The first guild I was in was the Blackmoon Tribe, an RPPVP guild comprised of some really great, friendly, and helpful people. The vast majority of my playtime was in this guild and for the most part, I had a lot of fun with them. Many players came and went but the core group remained. Up until a raiding dispute.

BMT was running a single Karazhan group and teaming up with a couple other guilds to begin 25 mans. Technically, according to WoWJutsu.com, we were into the Black Temple kicking some demon ass, but the cold truth of this was only about 2 members of were able to make those runs. We were teamed up with Shattered Oath, one of the servers higher achieving guilds. Unfortunately, they weren't willing to take more of us along. I didn't care though, personally. I'm a casual. Shitty Fraps vids are about as close as I'm getting to Illidan, purples oozing from my mouth from a recent koolaid excursion. Damn, you've gotta love the purp.

So, some of my best friends split. I stayed out of loyalty but soon, I found out that I was all alone. So, I wrote a painful goodbye on the forums and got a single positive response. I hated it. As Bart Simpson once said, "I didn't think it was possible for something to suck and blow at the same time." But it did.

Immediately after, I talked with some of the people who'd left before me and, sure enough, they'd started their own guild and wanted me in it. It was supposed to be everything we wanted it to be. Within a couple of weeks, we were into Karazhan again. It was going great. Even as a casual, I was able to make it in for a run. It was not to last. Some of our members got poached. Correction, ALL of our raiding members got poached.

So, I was asked to step up and help out recruiting which I was glad to do. The GM and remaining officer were great, and so were the other remaining members. It was not to be.

Within a week, my offer to help made me the main recruiter. It made me the website administrator (co-admin technically, but I was the only one doing it). It made me the forum mod. And, not surprisingly, the GM's activity dropped. The other officer, as nice as she was, was recruiting level 18 members, new to the game. I was fine with that but our goal was to get into Kara again as soon as possible to rebound and it wasn't happening.

I stayed, pained, for the sake of the friends I had there. I recruited, I admin'd, I moderated. I wasn't even considered for an officer role but I didn't care nor ever think to as for one. It was something I was doing to help friends.

Within a month, I was burned out. The guild had turned into a job and I wasn't even the one in charge. I was suffering in LFG, still Fury at this time, and spending my little free time in-game in the battlegrounds. I was ready to leave WoW, that was it. I bought a lifetime subscription to Lord of the Rings Online and started visiting there more.

Around that time, it hit me. It wasn't WoW that I was burning out on. It was the "job" aspect of it. As much as I wanted to keep the loyalties I felt, I knew that it was change I needed or else I was done for. The next day, I pulled the officer and a good friend into a party to talk.

I was optimistic that they would understand. Surprisingly enough, my fellow guildie did. The officer, someone who once said "friendships don't end with a guild tag" did not. She was hurt and showed it. Never rude, but wholly un-understanding. *sigh* Bad times.

So, I booked and respecc'd tank. Since then, I've joined one of the better raiding guilds on the server. I don't raid due to conflicting timeframes but it's nice to have a lot of other people on to quest, BG, grind, and, most of all, chat with.

Things were not fixed because I left but the changes I made did help.

I guess the moral of this post is that if you're quick to form friendships and loyalties, you should be very careful in your guild choice. I don't regret joining BMT or the following guild, or the one I am currently part of. I have a lot of great memories and I think it was worth it. Some time though, you very well may have to leave them or have them do the same to you. It should be met with understanding and well wishes but, more often then not, you're sent off with a wave of drama the size of Maui. Take WoW for what it is and keep your options open. People are great and are the reason we play MMO's but always remember, it's your $15 and it's your time. Make the most of it and tread softly, for the waters can be deep.

Fury or Prot: that is the question...

Well friends, I'm in a conundrum.

As you know, my main is a 70 warrior. I levelled him from 1-55 as Arms and 56-70 as Fury. Never prot. I didn't tank once. Yeah, smart move, I know.

Consequently, I got to 70 and hadn't practiced tanking at all and was a complete noob at it. Despite this, I was happy not tanking. I had geared up through all of the Outlands instances to maximize my DPS and was happy to see those big numbers fly. I was effective. I was eager. I was always in LFG.

Unfortunately, my server, Emerald Dream, has a major tank shortage.I was stuck sitting in LFG for several hours at a pop at times. Needless to say, even though I was ready to run heroics, and had done several, as Fury, I didn't want to wait for hours on end to do it.

So, I specced Protection. It was rough going at first. There were wipes. And more wipes; but so it goes when you're learning a new skill set. After a bit of practice, and studying up, I got my rotations down and was able to hold my own for the most part. I still had issues but it was better than just starting out.

What I found though, is that tanking is stressful business! I had expected it to a degree; I mean, you're the front runner: the guy who takes the hits for the team, and if you go down, everyone else will likely follow. I wasn't sitting in LFG for hours though. I could run when I wanted mostly and I ran more often. And so, I discovered the horrors of PuG's I'd never seen before.

Arrogant raiders; hunters not following kill order; immature rogues; mages who won't CC in lieu of "burning them down" (seriously). In a way, it's worth it; in another, it's not. Trying to run Magisters' Terrace with a group who insists on killing X before Skull is a pain. Same thing with groups who won't let you gain aggro before going all out on DPS.

But I wasn't waiting in LFG anymore.

I thought of running with my guild, who I recently joined, but was a little ashamed at my noobishness with tanking. So I went it alone. I mean, they'd be cool but I just assumed learn with people I didn't know than those whose opinion may have a lasting impression.

Tonight, I was asked to DPS normal Mechanar for a group with a learning tank. Since I empathized with this person, a pally, I was happy to go along. I respecced Fury and honestly felt refreshed. Sure, we wiped about 4 times before downing the first boss but, hell, like I said, I empathized. Seeing the 1.4k bloodthirst crits and 2.4k executes was nice and I felt more in more element.

Now, I'm torn. Do I stay Fury or go back to Prot to gear up for Karazhan? Prot will get me the groups and experience; Fury will get me an easier ride doing what is, currently, more fun. I like tanking and I plan to do it full time eventually. I'd like to lead a normal group for the guild once I get it down. But shoot, for so many reasons, (grinding, questing, helping friends) Fury has definite appeal.

I'll have to decide tomorrow and, right now, I'm leaning towards Protection. I need a few more instance drops to finish my protection set and I don't want to wait forever to get a group going. We will surely see though.

Now to get questing for the money to respec.... so I have a choice.

MMO Madness: A WoW and Greater MMO Blog; who we are

Hello new readers!

So, if you've stumbled across this site, the title tells it all, right? I suppose so, but who am I to discuss such things? Well, at the current time, I'm a dedicated WoW player, slightly bored, slightly enticed, and highly interested in all things MMO. I began my online RPG experiences with a MUD called The Final Challenge in 1998.

MUD's were nothing like MMO's for population but it definitely started a definitive trend for me. I moved from the MUD phase into Neverwinter Nights in mid 2004. I'm a late bloomer, I know. I played the single player game for a bit and quickly moved to the persistent worlds. And so it began.

Now, I'm a level 70 warrior on World of Warcraft. It's a great game. It's supplied me with hundreds of hours of entertainment, but, I'm a bit too casual for the end game raiding. Hence, the only raiding purple I ever got was Malchazeen on my warrior. A dagger. On a warrior. Yeah, but so it goes; I took what I could get.

I've gone between protection and fury a few times now, sampling what WoW has to offer to me. I've levelled a few alts but somehow, over an entire year, I've only been able to get that one warrior to 70. To that, I let loose a resounding "Meh." I like my warrior. I think I'd like a lock more but what can you do? So, yes, meh it is then. Maybe in time.

So what can you expect from this blog? Currently, I'd say it will primarily consist of the thoughts, speculations, and sexulations (intrigued, no? Orcs have naughty naughty thoughts in private... mostly about boars and very ugly women) of a humble protury, yes protury, warrior. On the other hand, I also have a lifetime LotRO membership and am eagerly anticipating Warhammer Online, so expect a few non-WoW posts from time to time.

For the most part, become a loyal reader because, hell, who doesn't want sexualtions from some faceless blogger on the internet? Am I right?

Seriously though, I hope you continue on. I'll do my best to update frequently and keep you informed and entertained. I'll compete with the paid bloggers as much as anyone can and maybe you'll get a couple laughs or maybe even be spurred to think with me.