Looking back at Azeroth
Recently, I cancelled my World of Warcraft accounts. Accordingly, this site will probably not see much in the way of updates. If, in thef uture, I reactivate my accounts, or at least one of them, I may start this site back up. However it goes, this site isn’t going to vanish, but the accuracy of the information contained it is going to be shot to hell in a couple of weeks with the 3.0.whatever patch. Let me extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the time to stop by here and let me say that I hope I was able to useful to someone out there.
If you are curious about why I’ve stopped playing, that is going to be the rest of this post.
I started playing World of Warcraft about four years ago with my, at the time, fiancee. Having previously played single-player rpgs seprately and some coop games (mostly FPS), the mmorpg was the next evolution of playing video games together. We leveled together, we joined a guild together, we raided together, and it was good. Before too long, we had a small group that we hung around with and almost every night we’d be on teamspeak just screwing around. Sometimes we’d hit up BGs, sometimes run instances, sometimes level, just kinda whatever. I’ve run Scholomance sooooo many times, even tanking it on my shadow priest once, just for the fun, which is what playing a game should be about.
Shortly before Burning Crusade was released my fiancee became my wife and shortly after Burning Crusade was released she became my exc-wife and playing with her and our group of friends (which then became her group of friends) didn’t seem so appealing. I quit WoW then, for most of the year.
At the end of January I started playing again, because a lot of coworkers were playing and, you know, the game itself was still fun. And for a while I was having a good time playing the game, but the has lost its sparkle. I’ve pretty much done everything I can do many times over. Short of leveling a ton more alts, there isn’t much more for me. I never found the same social group that made the game so enjoyable the first time around.
And with the changes Wrath is bringing, alts becomes less enjoyable as classes become less unique and gameplay becomes even easier. Some things look interesting (the phasing technology) but on the whole it isn’t inspiring me. I have started playing Warhammer Online and finding that to be enjoyable and it has made PvP fun- we’ll see how well that lasts.
But good luck and many phat epix to everyone!
Quick Update
BRK is ruining my fun! All my character slots are full and Alliance. Boo! Perhaps there should be an alternate event. A world PvP event…
Also, the next part of the Shaman guid goes up sometime tomorrow. It’s all written, I just need to get some graphics to break up the text.
Meta-blogging
You know those days when you’re kinda hungry but nothing sounds good. Where any food at all sounds edible, but nothing to Wow you. That was my afternoon when I left work.
But you will never have that problem on my newly updated and somewhat organized Blogroll! Tons of links to satisfy any craving from RP stories, to humor, to intense theorycrafting. Enjoy!
And feel free to use this space to pimp your blog. There should be a box below for you to leave a comment. Impress us and we shall gift you with pageviews, and possibly a link (for anyone not already linked, that is).
Armored Bears!
I’m watching The Golden Compass right now, and I have two comments:
1. My bear should get armor, it’s just that cool.
2. We should get bear mounts on Northrend. It would be sooooo neat to ride a polar bear across a glaciar.
Links with commentary
Real content to come (sometime, perhaps later today) for now, links.
Guild Updates and Wrath News – Faithful Affliction
Of course the expansion will bring a reset for everyone and possible main character changes (possibly myself included). That plus the fact that we will be well into 25 man content by then may lead to us sticking to the 25 man versions. Of course with the announcement that the 10 mans will be on separate timers we will probably do both.
Preceding that we find out Thuenderman expects fairly quick progression into 25 man content. This is not hubris, he has the info to back it up, good luck. After that quoted section, he outlines some thoughts on raid progression in Wrath with its 10/25 split. They’re good ideas and something many guilds will need to think about.
Balancing the Spectrum – Chick GM
Every guild has an identity and goals. It’s what draws people to your guild over another. But, even within a guild there’s a spectrum. No matter how "hardcore" your guild is there is someone who is the most hardcore and someone who is the least hardcore. No matter how talented your guild is, someone out there is the most talented and someone is the least talented.
My job is to bridge the gap. How do I keep my hardest core and least skilled player working together? How do I drive policy and raid nights to cater to the majority while still keeping both my most skilled and least skilled players involved?
It’s very easy on teh intarwebs to forget there are real people at the other end of a blog site or ont he other side of an avatar. When you’re responsible for organizing them into an effective team, there are distinct issues due to the medium of communication at our disposal. Auzara shares some tips on herding cats
The Process – Two and a Half Orcs
Twitter scares me.
I don’t have twitter.
Twitter shouldn’t scare me.
Dammerung: Twitter is your friend, it is nothing to be scared of. Just make sure you can see it’s hands at all times. >.> <.< It’s only paranoia if you’re wrong.
/gasp /breathe – 4 Haelz
After the run, I thanked them all for the raid invite, and left the raid. Not more than fifteen seconds later, a box popped up over my head. I had been invited into Sunder.
Grats Bell, I hope it works out for you!
We Are Iron Man – BigRedKitty
In other news.
The next BRK Event is in pre-planning! You want a hint?
Well, you can’t have one.
BRK is such a tease. Just be sure you (and maybe four of your friends) are ready for this mysterious event July 5th, 7 pm.
Times they are a-changin’ – Tank Hard!
The first thing you should do when trying to gear a tank is get enough stamina AND avoidance. If you don’t have a baseline level of each, you are going to run into trouble….
So all the Sunwell tanks are realizing that 22k fully buffed is enough and are now gemming for avoidance. There are still a few die hards out there that are clinging to all stam all the time, but most have made the shift.
Personally, I couldn’t be happier. I finally get to use my socket bonuses and I get to think before numbly sticking 15 stamina in every socket. So, shortly after I hopped on the Effective Health Bandwagon, I get to hop right off again. Now my biggest challenge is to loosen the guild bank’s vice-like grip on the crimson spinel supply.
What’s key is the "enough stamina AND avoidance" before jumping onto the effective health bandwagon. Not getting hit is a very goof thing, but if you do get hit, you’d better be able to survive it. Now give my bear a shield, rawr!
What Do You Need From A Guild? – Lady Jess
I often see posts in various communities about guild moves, server changes, and the like to suit that particular players needs. To be honest the thought of starting over terrifies me, but I suppose if my needs weren’t being met I’d have no choice. This got me to thinking “Jess, what do YOU need from a guild”. I tried to ignore myself, however the voice of Lady Jess can be very convincing. Again she says “You KNOW it would make a good topic for my blog!”. Ok, Ok, I get it.
It is a two-way street. The Guild gets players working together for common goals, the individuals get… loots, funs, etcs. Aswaith Auzara’s post above, sometimes The Guild’s goals won’t match yours or the loots and the funs aren’t. Lady Jess shares some of the things she feels are important in a guild. They sure sound good to me, but probably not hardcore enough for some.
Fel Forge Romance – Unbearbly HoT
I still get a little googly eyed around Fel Forges. Maybe it’s just all the smoke.
Aww…
Wow, well, not WoW, just wow
This is what happens when you get linked to by BigRedKitty:
Thanks, BRK!
And, for the person who searched for "define mqosrdps"- go here, it’s at the end of the post.
Fill in the
While I was writing the previous post, Matticus posted a… question:
Now that my plug has finished, here’s a “finish the sentence” question I want to post to everyone.
Raiding is like…
To me, raiding is like dating. When it’s new and exciting you’re on cloud nine, and when it’s rough you have to decide (and it’s an anxiety filled decision) whether you need to break up and move on, or if there are problems that can be solved and the future will be even better.
Link! Tank Shortage: Do You Believe? – The Rambling Bear
Even though The Rambling Bear probably gets tons upon tons more traffic than I do, I think this is worth sharing.
Tank Shortage: Do You Believe?
Today’s post isn’t really a blog post at all. I just got done with a forum post in the Prophecy boards discussing what seems to be a growing problem: the dreaded tanking shortage. I used to not believe there was a shortage, but since I started playing level 70 alts, I’ve gotten to see things from a different perspective. In fact, I think the existance of alts, itself, is perhaps the biggest contributor to the problem. . . but I’ll explain that later. So, here in its entirety, the seven reasons I see for the apparent tank shortage in Prophecy, on Steamwheedle Cartel, and I suspect in general.
Temporarily smote, smited, w/e
Life has been keeping me a bit busy (acting responsibly sucks most of the time), but I have gotten Rylande to 18. I have real posts being written, but I need to get the pretty pictures for them, so hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have two or three for you. And I’m wondering if I should roll on Kael’thas and hang with BBB and CassieAnn… Once the semester ends, I really would have time to level characters on multiple servers.
The Obligatory Introduction Post*
*Which may also be called “Yay! I need not provide content yet!”
Welcome to Mostly Kaldorei! I started building this site just before 2.4 was released, and now, shortly after, you’re all getting a chance to see what hard work and dedication can achieve (by their absence, in large part). Over time, things will get more fleshed out, the sidebars created, full blogrolls added and periodically updated, and all the usual blog-stuff will be going on behind the scenes.
You can expect to find occasional ranting, perhaps some theorycrafting, discussion of gear, raid roles, group roles, guild roles, and role-playing (well, probably not). While this collection of content will likely trend toward the experience of a level 70 Night Elf Feral Druid searching for a place as a main tank, that will not be the end of it, not by a long shot. I have 9 played characters on Argent Dawn spanning levels 10 to 70 and find things to complain about on all of them. I don’t have alts, I have characters and I love them all equally (except the paladin, must write post about that), though some do get more play time than others. This predilection for variety in characters has not found itself mirrored in all of my choices. Most of my characters are Night Elves, hence the blog name, except for the classes the required a different race. My plan is to introduce them individually, and not in a large lump here. Time for a new paragraph-this wall of text is getting too heavy.
I cannot call myself ‘casual’ in terms of World of Warcraft, I spend too much time playing and following along with serious theorycrafters for that. But I’m not a hardcore raider. For most of my WoW experience (almost 3 years), I raided minimally. The guild I am in now is struggling to get a second team running Karazhan and is just starting to poke their noses into Zul Aman. Not this bear’s nose, unfortunately, I’m marooned, landlocked, shipwrecked in a land of no progression. Probably more to come on that later. Now, I’m going to go write a post with some real content-maybe fluffy cotton candy content, but real content-and I hope what few people as may stumble across this stop back from time to time and join in the conversation. Please, I talk to myself enough without needing a blog to do it.
