New Personal Blog

I love writing about stuff too much to give it up totally so I decided to create a personal blog. So as requested by Kimberly, here it is.

Be forewarned that it will be random stuff as I come up with it. It will not be about WoW although I’m sure I’ll write about it from time to time. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’d like feel free to drop by.

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish!

I’ve been fighting it for weeks now. Months really. End game has lost all interest for me. A very small part of me wants to down the Lich King, but the larger part couldn’t care less anymore.

I let the other officers know that I was going to take a raiding break. I decided that I would stick around to be a backup, but as long as any others were available, they should take them.

I?m not actually quitting the game yet. I?d still like to experience Cataclysm. But I also feel as if I?m done with the raiding scene. The inconsistent progression has left me wanting more than what Blizzard can offer there. Even sandbox video games (GTA anyone?) have some level of consistent progression, why shouldn?t WoW? I suppose it works for some, but not for me.

Because of that my interest in the endgame was lost. I stopped researching my classes. I stopped attempting to min-max my toons. I stopped gear research. I stopped boss research. I stopped all of the fun things that make the actual act of raiding fun. I really do believe that 75% of the fun in raiding is doing all the stuff to prepare before actually setting foot in the instance.

As for other aspects of the game, I still intend to finish leveling my toons to 80 if at all possible. But that too has lost some of its appeal as well. I get the feeling that Mach hopes dps’ing will get me back into raiding. And I suppose part of me hopes that as well, but I’m not too positive it will. On top of that my wife is pregnant with our third and should be due right around October. Given that Blizzcon will be in October and everyone’s expecting Cataclysm to immediately follow I won’t be available for raiding in the new expansion anyway.

I would like to experience PvP with a decent PvP class/spec, but I don?t know that I have the patience for that. I?ve always sucked at it and the only times I?ve truly enjoyed it was when it was going my way. 😛

I have a lot of emotional attachment to this blog. So it is with somewhat of a heavy heart that I close this one.

I’d like to thank the writers of all the blogs I’ve been following for some time now (all 141 of you!!!), most of whom don’t know I follow you because either work has blocked you or I’m just not that social of a person. You’ve saved me from many a boring day when work was slow.

I’d like to thank all of my readers! Every one of you! Even though few of you ever commented, the support I got from those of you that added me to your feed readers was absolutely great! It kept me going at times when I felt like quitting, but didn’t want to.

I’ll still be leaving this site up. I like to think there’s still some good information on it and with everything I invested in it I cannot bring myself to delete it. I’m especially proud of my Newbie Raider’s Guides and the whole Auction House Experiment. Regardless of how the game changes, a lot of the ideas there I believe will continue to be valid.

I’ll leave comments active for a time, but I’ll probably turn those off in a month to keep those damn spammers off of it! 🙂

So thanks again! And if there’s one thing I hope you went away with besides entertainment, I hope that you can strive to be a little nicer than however nice you were before. Just because someone’s a jerk, don’t let that ruin the experience for you by dragging you down too. Just remember it’s a game.

[Edit: I tried to leave a comment from my phone today and somehow lost half of my post. I’ve tried to recreate it here. I also didn’t realize it was April Fool’s when I posted this. Although that’s pretty hilarious, I did want to let you know that this isn’t a joke. My time blogging is over. Maybe someday I’ll pick it up again, but I doubt it.]

60 And Counting…

I Need Cataclysm

Man I need Cataclysm. I do. I caught myself double checking my account status just the other night. Apparently my six-month subscription terminates at the end of May. I found myself considering letting it expire.

So Cataclysm apparently is going to be released this year. Well, not to be pessimistic, but I’ll believe it when I see it. But I sure hope it does. I need it.

Why?

‘Cuz Cataclysm is gonna save the world by destroying the world!

Yeah OK, again I’ll believe it when I see it, but I do need some change.

I’m burned out. Recent guild drama drained me emotionally. It isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just part of the job we do. I signed up for it when I agreed to be an officer. I knew this would happen at times. But unfortunately it is not helping the burnout I’m feeling with raiding.

For me right now, raiding is about signing up, showing up, and downing bosses or pounding my head against a brick wall. I don’t read strats. I don’t read up on the latest glyphs, specs, enchants, gear, etc. I haven’t done a gear plan since Naxx.

In Burning Crusade I was all about reading boss strats, gear strategies, stat priorities, talents, etc. That was fun! I remember looking at Atlasloot and WoWHead on a daily basis trying to figure out the best way to plan my gear progression. I analyzed my gear constantly on websites. It was fun!

Why can’t I plan gear now? Well, I can but there isn’t any point to do so.

First, you can farm heroics for gear in the matter of a couple of days. In BC it took me weeks to farm one piece. Three hour heroics for three badges didn’t allow for quick gearing.

Second, because of limited time buying a piece of gear was a real investment. Sort of like how Frost Emblems are now to a certain extent. You were nearly guaranteed to get the drop you wanted the day after you spent your badges. And when you just spent 2-3 weeks farming the badges you really had to think about your choices.

But there was the fun! At least for me. Maybe not for everyone.

You can argue whatever position you want about gear progression in Wrath. Emblems are great! Emblems suck! Most of you know my position. It doesn’t mean that I disagree with those on the other side, it just means this is how the current gear system has affected my game.

Working my ass off to get one piece of badge gear was a feat! And no one can argue that I didn’t earn it! I remember that people were upset with badge gear when it came out. Supposedly it was just as good as T5 or better, although based on my own experiences I really didn’t think most of it was and still had to farm Kara for stuff.

The point is I had to research my gear. Plan the best course. Was it better to buy that badge gear or wait for the boss to drop loot? So researching and planning was an important part of the process. But even more importantly it was half the fun!

Gear in my opinion is messed up in more ways than I can count. It occurred to me that although I can reconcile my issue with quick gearing, what I can’t reconcile is my lack of interest.

Wednesday night I was bored out of my mind. I had no mana issues whatsoever and for you GearScore fanatics, I think my GS is around 5200. I don’t even have the best gear available to me.

So why bother? Why bother to do all that research in gear, talents, glyphs, gems, etc. to eek out a couple more points in spellpower, mp5, intellect, etc. when I’m just gonna faceroll my way through the content anyway?

Oh sure, there’s the argument that on the progression fights it’s important to get every last bit out of everyone and it is. Problem is our progression is never really an issue about gear, talents, gems, enchants, buffs, etc. It’s always about skill, paying attention, and fighting the lag boss. So again, why bother?

I miss the need to research boss fights. I miss the need to research specs. I miss the need to research gear. Maybe you don’t feel the same and think the way things are in end-game right now are great! Everyone’s seeing the content! And I agree that it’s great. I just disagree with how it’s been handled.

For light’s sake this is Casual Hardcore! Casual in play, but a hardcore attitude towards raiding and the endgame. I lost the drive that pushed me towards the hardcore. The game got too easy. And that’s why I need Cataclysm.  If for no other reason to have a solid breaking point where I can say I’m done with the endgame and just play to hang out.