I'm not sure why you still post here, shauk, but since you seem so intent to, let me respond to your blunt opinion of what wow is with an opinion of my own: whatever happened to you is a result of what you chose to do, not what wow made you do, since wow doesn't make anyone do anything. It's a game that people play in a thousand different ways, some more healthy than others. My comment about Rossi wasn't that he wrote what he wrote, but that it contradicts other things he has said very recently.

Wow is a big game and there is a lot to do. It sounds like what you want to do is raid, but you feel you can't both raid and maintain a healthy balance with the rest of your life. That's fine and I understand, but I don't think that means you need to come shit on the parade in a thread in which most people are relating their experiences or frustrations playing the game.

I'm on Garrosh, but I'm a Dwarf...

I suppose I might see you on the battlegrounds in a few more levels. =)

If its a PvE server you can make a horde toon.

It's funny how I was obsessed with the game like you were and played it for 40 hours a week for years, yet I came away with good memories, not bad. Yeah I missed out on a lot during those years but when I was having fun in WoW, I was having fun in WoW, and I don't regret it at all. I still miss it actually. If I were single I would still be playing it without a doubt.

Shauk it sounds like you're struggling with addiction. I dislike WoW now, but I have fond enough memories of it.

Really?

I thought you couldn't have an Alliance character and a Horde character on the same server.

Interesting...

EDIT: Thanks for the info Scorps.

I now have a Troll hunter in Garrosh =)

:eek: PoA is a carebear?! Fo shame! ;p

Look, attacking me makes you appear foolish and addicted yourself. Nothing I wrote had anything to do with me and had everything to do with the observational change in behavior from people I know.

I didn't come to shit on your parade frosty, this thread isn't a dedicated lovefest, I'm perfectly within my means to point out the negative elements of the MMO model and how it impacts people psychologically based on documentaries and polling data. People find it hard to give up something they worked on. It's the same mentality of gambling. Could you pay 150$ of your real money to walk in to a casino and up your bankroll to 1000$ and then just hand all the money back to the casino and quit gambling cold turkey? it's the same thing really, there is an assumed sense of real value in this fictitious NOTHING that keeps people addicted.

Feel free to disagree, but don't overstep your bounds and tell my that i'm wrong for sharing my opinion on the matter, just because you want to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes and "LALALALALALA" over it.

there is no restriction on any kind of server now, actually. Hasn't been that way for quite some time.



P.S. my account + authenticator is for sale if anyone is interested in a Original Collectors edition/glory of the raider (black proto drake) extremely overplayed account.

PM me with offers, 500$ minimum.

Really?? Just a slight observation here but complaining he's attacking you making him appear foolish and addicted is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Especially when you just attacked everyone in thread calling them mouth breathing retards in your previous post. I suggest you find a healthier way to deal with your issues with gaming then putting down the people you "used" to be like.

Think orchrist summed up my feelings on that response as well and politely as I could. Well said.

Is a carebear a troll hunter?

I'm still a n00b...

No, he's referring to the PvE nature of the server. Carebear is MMO terminology referring to players who avoid PvP.

---------- Post added at 11:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 PM ----------

It went from being an opinion to a personal attack when you called me a mouth breathing retard just because I play WoW, so nobody's overstepped their bounds here. Just remember that next time you decide to share your "opinion" with other WoW players in a public forum.

It's ok to hate on WoW, create a separate thread for that; you'll probably get a good discussion going. But to come into a WoW thread and start insulting everybody who plays WoW just because you've "seen the light" is a wee bit self-righteous and guaranteed to rub people the wrong way. Don't act all surprised at the reaction you got.

I think you guys need to learn to read.

Last I checked you aren't writing for wow.com


It's the "World of Warcraft" thread, not the "World of Warcraft lovefest egosucking" thread.

you're the 2nd person now to try and push and bully me out of this thread simply because you don't like what I have to say. lol. typical.


My opinion should be a non-issue for you. If you're so confident and secure in the fact that you're a model citizen who's not overindulging in to the whole MMO lifesink, then more power to you.

I know the problem is more based on the individuals approach to the game, but there are a lot of people who take it to unhealthy levels, and sure, while the best thing to do would be to probably figure out a way to address the psychological profile of 11m individuals, it's not going to happen, so the only thing *I* as a single person can do, is voice my concerns about the common denominator, which so happens to be WoW.

If you play and take care of yourself, and your social relationships are still strong, and you still prioritize reality over fantasy, great, you've proven yourself mentally fortified enough to avoid getting sucked in to the neverending meaningless money fleecing hamster wheel.

However, if you're one of those people who put in 6+ hrs a day, tell people you can't go out to dinner, hang out, watch a movie, go have a drink, are missing work, are regularly obsessed with the content of the game to the point that you're writing an article about it every day, while yes, it's the individuals problem, I just have to blame WoW for being the catalyst.

Oh. I don't avoid PvP. In fact, I enjoy PvP quite a bit...

When I started playing I didn't really know the difference between the servers and figured I'd be best off to start out on a normal server.

I now play my Dwarf on Garrosh most, because he's my favorite and highest level, but I also play a Tauren Druid on Agamaggan (PvP), a Blood Elf Mage on Boulderfist (PvP), and a Night Elf Rogue every once in a while on Blackwater Raiders (RP)

I play horde on a PvP server also (bonechewer) I got it on a sever my friends had horde on and it just happened to be in the same battle group as Windrunner my alliance server. now to just get my DK to 80 and PvP geared so I can kill some Windrunner alliance :D

Here's the GM of my server's "Number 2" guild ranting in vent while doing Freya Hardmode this week....


Took this screenshot today while playing around in Pit of Saron after clearing it.

Im Level 39 now. (elf hunter)

To be honest, since Ive been working away from home a lot the last 2 or 3 monthes I probably spend one night a week playing 3 or 4 hours (cos there's nothing else to do at the hotel but watch TV or sit in the bar drinkingO... and I still have no clue what most of the language in this thread means!

(I play a world where you just do missions and other players cant kill you)

We dropped Arthas tonight! Felt pretty fucking amazing. I don't think I've been that excited about a boss kill since Nefarian back in BWL. Only 10 man, but I have hopes that we'll be there in 25 soon enough (10/12 right now). We got the healing mace and the dagger.

congrats. we're still not getting past Putricide.

Grats on downing arthas, we been having issues with the blood queen, but I have been away for a week so I have no idea what are progress is, but we are doing good for a casual 3 raid nights a week guild.

I got my flying machine today!

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...ingmachine.png

I am now fully aware of why I went with engineering and not blacksmithing...

downed putricide last night for the first time.

That's a lot of heals...

I can't wait until my druid heals like that.

Trauma drops off Rotface.

It's absolutely nuts.

I miss this game bad. I miss having the time to raid bad.

my friend has been trying to convince me to play. I don't understand why people can't enjoy this game without trying to involve the people they know. Especially when I've made it clear that this kind of game isn't something I deal with well. It's funny because he claims to want to quit, and he hangs out with me to get back in to reality, but sometimes he just needs his fix I guess.

That's not much different then any other sort of activity that you'd find more fun when you get to enjoy it with your friends. I enjoy going to the movies and love getting my popcorn fix. However one of my friends doesn't enjoy crowds... Doesn't stop me from trying to convince him to go thought because going to the movies with friends is infinitely more enjoyable then going by yourself.

Nah it's just that I've expressed clearly that I have no interest in going back before cataclysm if I'm going to go back at all. Yet he tells me he'd like to quit. So I'm kind of his anchor to reality, if he gets me to play, he probably would just play even more.

Don't just tell him no, tell him to stop asking you to come back because the game is a serious problem for you. I understand where he's coming from. The game just isn't as fun when you not playing it with friends, actually I'd say the game isn't worth playing at all if you don't have friends to play it with. Every time I've quit the game is because my friends had, and every time I came back to the game is because my friends begged me.

My RL friends don't play WoW, but I have made lots of friends online which is great.

So, I finally hit 80 last week!

Decided to dual-spec prot (so I don't have to wait on tanks in dungeon queues anymore) and got my tier 9 tanking armor.

Working on my arena PvP gear now...

80 rocks!
________________

Jen and I being silly in Ramps...

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g.../girlieung.png

I just hit level 80 for the first time a few days ago: The World of Warcraft Armory - Elaric @ Warsong - Profile

Does that mean I win the game?

WoW Heroes - World of Warcraft PvE character info & ratings - Elaric @ Warsong - Profile

you've got to move from XP to getting higher gear levels.

Yeah, I've started using WoW Heroes. It's all very confusing to me about what direction to go.

I'm a holy/disc dual-spec'd priest with (essentially) no guild, and I'm pretty casual as a player. If you didn't notice, I'm currently wearing the Wyrmcrest tabard with hopes of getting some of their gear next. I just don't know the best way to tackle instances.

I'm assuming Heroics are still out of reach because of my gear. Does this tabard work in any instance? How does this work?

Any other tips for getting gear? The only two purples I have I bought from the AH, but that gets expensive, of course.

you're 80 you'll start on heroics. Wear your tabard for every heroic instance you are in so that you get the faction. Do the daily quests for that faction as well.

The random system will put you in Utgarde Keep initially and as you progress as far as gear level it will put you into the other ones appropriately.

So starting with Heroics should be fine even with the gear I have?

Remember, I play the crucial role of healer. :)

yeah you should be fine.

most people are well geared by now and you can consider that little bit of crutch. Skogafoss has always been undergeared as a healer and does fine.

Okay, cool.

I think I'm starting to get it. I see that the rewards for random dungeons lean towards emblems. I only started earning Emblems of Triumph recently, and so I only have about a dozen. But below level 80, I could only get 2 per day with normal random dungeons. Now I see I get 2 Emblems of Frost for the first heroic dungeon, and then 2 Emblems of Triumph for each one I do thereafter.

Should I start building a shopping list?

I did not know people still played this game.

Baraka, it is insanely easy to gear up these days. Now only do you get 2 emblems of frost your first random and 2 emblems of triumph each thereafter, you get 1 emblem of triumph for every boss you down in heroics.

Tier 9 armor now sells for emblems of triumph. My t9 tanking set cost a total of 210 emblems of triumph. Considering you get from 5-8 emblems per random, depending on the dungeon, it's really not very hard to attain that many.

Oh, and your gear is fine for heroics. Wrath heroics are actually fairly easy. Especially, now that such good gear is available without much effort.
_______________________________

In case anybody's interested.

And check on the weekly dungeon. The guy is in Dal, by the violet hold. You can prob sneak in as #2 heals. 5 frost and 5 triumph upon completion, and if noone want the boss drop, you might even get some gear.

Just to be clear, by "weekly dungeon" he means "weekly raid." Dungeon means exclusively five mans in WoW parlance.

You probably already knew that, but just to make sure.

I'm having a hell of a time logging into WoW these days, even as a raid leader and guild master. i basically log on for my three or so raids a week and call it a whirl. I have killed Arthas on both my DK and my hunter, and just don't quite know what to do with myself. Given the option of leveling up my paladin or playing Eve, the sweet sounds of missiles firing into the dark void of space just keeps me more entertained at the moment.

Glad Cat testing finally started. Dare I hope for a September release?

I just took my first trip into Ulduar for the weekly "Flame Leviathan Must Die!" quest. It's my first step into an 80 raid...

I still have quite a bit to entertain me until Cataclysm comes out, I'm sure.

Check out my gear now, yo:
WoW Heroes - World of Warcraft PvE character info & ratings

I see the demand for these is high. The thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever do a raid—certainly not a 25-man. Raiding I think requires more of a commitment than I'm willing to give for this game. Unless there is a strong enough pug community of players doing 10-mans or something, I don't think it will happen.

I am, however, wondering about BGs. I've only entered a BG maybe 5 times total. I don't think my side has ever won. Are BGs worth it as a priest? I'm currently dual-spec'd as Disc/Shadow, but my gear is increasingly, uh, geared towards Disc/healing.

I suppose after I get the set I'm collecting, I could go after a shadow priest set as an alternative, but what's the best way to do this? Just run as Disc until I get a bunch of honor points to buy shadow gear? Or should I just keep running 5-man heroics and buy shadow gear until I feel happy enough to start running BGs? Is it better to run BGs as Disc and be a healer, or would it be more rewarding to go full-on PvP shadow facemelter?

I'm on the fence about this one. I can't see myself running 5-mans until Cataclysm. I think I'll do a cleanup on all the questing in Northrend, and then maybe Outland. There are entire zones I haven't even touched yet on each map. But beyond that, I'm not sure. I don't even know if I'll make it that far. I might go on hiatus again.

Unless, of course, I find a place in BGs. Or maybe arenas? What are arenas like? Do I need to be jacked up on Red Bull and have ADD to even make it worthwhile?

I'm not sure what server you're on BG, but on mine (Korgath) there is a thriving 10 and 25 man pug community that regularly does about everything in the game. Once you get yourself into mostly ICC5 man/toc badge gear, you should have little trouble finding your way into raids if it so interests you. I will hardly promise you that they'll be successful, but just keep at it and you should be able to see a pretty wide swath of content.

I had a dream about this game the other night. I miss it. :(

Haha, You should check out all the cataclysm screenshots going up on mmo-champion today. I can't wait to see it in action.

While you don't see yourself raiding 25 man try 10 man. The weekly raid has people looking for healers in Trade all day long. Jump on in!

There's something more interesting to me about the mechanics of the raid than a 5 man instance. Also, there's just a lot more content you're not getting to see, some of the most interesting and intricately drawn areas and stories unfold in the raid content.

Worldofwarcraft.com is doing a screenshot of the day of Cataclysm.

oh and the weekly raid, if done with a good group of folks isn't very painful. It is usually the first or second boss of a raid, and it gives a flavor of what raiding is like.

btw, nice gear.

I know...I see requests for healers all the time, but I fear the whole, "ur undergeared, lol!" or "u don't know the fights, lol!" But I should get over that. According to wow-heroes.com, my gear level makes Naxx 10-man "easy." Should I start with that? How long do raids take anyway?

I don't know the mechanics/stages of these things. How do they differ from 5-mans? It's not that I don't want to raid deep down inside; it's just that it seems like such a closed/exclusive community to me. I don't think I'm a bad healer; I just despise the attitudes of hardcore idiots who don't seem to know how the game works.

Here's an example: I did the Pit of Saron heroic for the first time recently. The tank we had dropped right away, and so another guy came on to fill in. He was an idiot. He ran ahead and did a pull, and it was fine, except he had three mobs on him and they were down to like 10% and he decided to just run ahead to the next 3-mob pull, and then another. Of course, we wipe.

So the tank says, "No wonder the other tank left. The heals can't take it."

One of the DPS replied, "Not with you doing all those pulls. He's undergeared."

While he was right about my being undergeared, I wasn't that undergeared. I found out later that, according to the Random Dungeon tool, I was adequately geared shortly thereafter with one or two fairly minor item upgrades. Plus, it wasn't the first time I was undergeared in a dungeon. I know my class.

So anyway, I said, "Fine, go find another healer," and I left the party without waiting for a reply. As a healer, I don't have to suffer players who don't know what they're doing.

This is the kind of thing I want to avoid. People going beyond the necessary threshold of difficulty and then blaming someone else when things go wrong. If I was indeed the weakest link, then damn well be a team player and make do. We could have beat the dungeon if he did one pull at a time; we only just barely failed on his pulling 3 groups at once. What does that say about an undergeared healer?

/rant

It's not the first time I've come across a tank who doesn't seem to understand that healers have to manage mana, consider their casting MP5, have to make decisions on spells, especially when DPS generates too much threat or if there's AoE damage coming in. I've also suffered DPS players who don't know how to keep their threat under the tank's.

But, of course, it's the healer who gets blamed. "Fucking heal me! You suck!" Um...I can't heal the entire party when it's getting shitstomped all at once. That's called a fucking free-for-all and it gets the party all killed every time.

/rant 2

Anyway, I think I know how to be an adequate healer. I just need to know how to be diplomatic when I find people don't know what the fuck they're doing or what they're talking about.

How is one to know they're ready for raids?

Maybe I'll start with this.

Thanks; it's a work in progress. I'm currently grinding reputation for some top-quality enchants for the key pieces.

first regarding your rant must read:

My new favorite hobby in WoW...not healing!

I know several healers that follow this including my wife. You talk smack to her like something about being undergeared etc. and you're not the tank, you better have bandages. I've been in a few runs with her and watched a DPSer die because he was an asshole. Standing in the fire or acid? You get a warning and then, no more heals if you keep doing it.

Good heroic runs can be done by geared folks in about 15 minutes, but that's with everyone being overgeared.

don't be discouraged, because there are a lot of selfish morons out there. How will you learn if no one goes? This is why the dungeon finder is good and bad. It gives you the opportunity to go but the bad is that morons have to be assholes. All i want to do when I get into a random is complete the thing with little to no conversation or drama. I thank the guys for playing at the end, that's about it.

As far as raiding is concerned. Full clear raids, hours upon hours. One Naxx wing should take about 1 hour to do all bosses. But the weekly raids, they can take about 30-45 minutes. Sometimes depending on the quest, it can be done in 15 minutes.

Ha, good read. I can't say I've ever considered doing that. If it's bad, I usually give the lecture: "Dude, you've got to watch your threat." I once even switched from Disc to Holy because the whole party didn't know how to mitigate their aggro, or maybe the tank just sucked. I don't tend to go out of my way to cover up bad playing.

A DPS player (a cloth or leather wearer, I think) once told me that I suck at healing because he kept dying. Now, I tried my best to keep him alive while not risking losing the tank at the same time.

I replied, "Well, why do you suck so much at tanking?"

"lol, I'm not the tank!" he said.

"Then stop fucking acting like one."

Overall, I need to stop being so nice and quiet. I'm the healer; I'm important, right? :)

Do full raids need to be completed all in one sitting, or can it be done in parts? Are the weekly raids like quests within regular raids, or are they separate things all together? Why are they so short?

Shadow priests massacre in PvP, usually. I consider myself a pretty damn good PvPer (Always in the top three in battlegrounds) and I have a guildie shadow priest who's been consistently about 10-12 levels under me and gives me a run for my money every time we duel.

You might be interested in doing something along the lines of what I'm doing. I'm a dual specced prot/fury warrior. I have my t9 protection gear and run heroics and (soon) raids as a tank. I've also glyphed and trained that spec to optimize my PvE capabilities. My fury spec is trained and glyphed to optimize my PvP capabilities. I'm working on this set of armor now.

That brings me to my next point. If you're planning to do PvP often, you'll want to invest into a PvP oriented set of gear rather than a PvE one, which is what that shadow priest set you're looking at is. The arena sets are currently the easiest way to achieve this. Season 3-7 sets are available for purchase in exchange for emblems. They are sold by the actual emblem vendors in Dalaran that are just up those stairs in the alliance building. The season 6 set is available for purchase with honor points from one of the goblins outside of the arena in Gadgetzan. The season 7 and 8 sets are also available in exchange for honor points and arena points from other goblins in Gadgetzan. The season 8 set does require you to be in a fairly high rated arena team, though, as it is the newest and best set. The earlier seasons can be purchased as well, but they are harder to attain (they require tier 4 armor tokens acquired in BC raids) and they are not really worth the effort, as they are level 70 items.

Personally, I'm picking up the season 5 set for emblems of conquest because it's a bit cheaper and will be a good enough set of armor to get me through enough BG's and arena matches to be able to pick up a better set with honor points.

I put together this comparison of the armor you linked and the deadly gladiator set for shadow priests (I believe) to give you an idea of the differences. You'll notice the biggest difference is you're giving up intellect and spirit and gaining stamina and resilience. Basically you give up mana pool and regen for durability, because if you can't stay up in PvP, your mp5 doesn't matter anyway. The stamina increases your HP and the resilience (which is a moot stat against NPCs) reduces the damage you take from players and their pets/minions.


Arenas were actually designed to give people the ability to receive rewards for PvPing, but not have to dedicate their lives to it. Basically, you fight in 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 gladiator style matches. You do so with a team, and can only be in one team per bracket. At the end of each week you are awarded arena points based on your highest ranked teams performance. The only stipulation is you must participate in at least 10 matches throughout the week to receive any arena points.

Yeah, as a new tank I can sympathize with you. If the healer's not undergeared, it's the undergeared tank's fault we wipe. Couldn't possibly be the DPS death knight that keeps pulling mobs before I can establish any sort of threat, and there's no way it's the healer who's so overgeared for heroics that he thinks he can just sit back doing nothing until I'm dead and everybody's trying to compensate for the lack of a tank.

People are just assholes, sometimes. I actually got with a group last night, though, that was very understanding that I was a new tank, actually praised me for being new at it and doing as well as I did, and when one of us messed up, we figured out what happened, fixed it, and moved on without anybody getting angry or disrespectful. We ended up successfully doing five dungeons together, which rocked for all of us because we didn't have to wait for the queues.

Just goes to show that politeness and respect will really get you to your goals faster in the game. It's almost always much faster after a wipe to find out what happened respectfully and fix it, then just call someone an idiot, leave party, and queue for another dungeon.

Just look online for the minimum stat requirements for whatever raid you're looking toward. Look at a few of them and it will give you a general idea of what is expected of you.

For Naxx it looks like most people agree that you should be working with at least 1500 bonus healing, and 160 mp5.

Make sure you get your Sons of Hodir rep up. They have the best shoulder enchants.

---------- Post added at 01:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 PM ----------

Raids can be split up throughout the week. Once you go into a raid for the week, everything you kill stays dead until the next week.

Weekly raid quests are quests to kill a certain boss within a raid. I did "Flame Leviathan Must Die" this week. It had me kill Flame Leviathan and that's it. He's the very first boss in Ulduar and it took about 15-20 minutes maximum to down him from the moment we entered the instance.

The weekly raid quests are just designed to give people a few more emblems each week, I guess....

Yeah, I've heard good things about shadow PvP. I just need the gear, I guess.

Thanks for this. I probably would rather have PvP than PvE gear for my shadow spec, but now I'm considering respec'ing for PvP shadow, as my current talent spec is more PvE shadow (it's missing Silence, for example).

Maybe I'll consider this after getting some PvP gear.

I currently blow that away.

I'm currently working on my Kirin Tor rep to get a head enchant, and then I'm going to do Sons of Hodir for the shoulders.

Yeah, I'm gearing up before I start doing heavy PvP again as well. That's why I'm buying a cheaper set of gear. I figure it will get me by, and by going with the emblem of conquest purchased set rather than the triumph purchased one, I save like 70 emblems.

Yeah, it's not too hard to gear up for Naxx, but it is the easiest WotLK raid. The harder ones will have higher minimums.

One thing I might recommend if you're interested in looking into raiding is see if you can get a group together, or even just keep an eye out for people putting groups together, for some of the older raids. They're lower level and easier, but give you a bit of an idea on what raids are like.

Well, Kirin Tor rep is easy to get by wearing their tabard in heroics, but for Sons of Hodir rep you have to do a quest chain and do their daily quests. You can also turn in relics of Ulduar, but they don't have a tabard to wear in dungeons.

Here's a list of the quests that need to be completed.

Why limit yourself to 1 screenshot per day when mmo-champion has put up at least 400 screenshots in that last 12 hours.

Hey, thanks! This gives me something else to do. :thumbsup:

Well, just in case you don't want to miss anything. You never know. :)

Hahaha. That was an awesome exchange. I'm a Dps'er and my main job is to watch my aggro, #2 is doing damage. A lot of ppl go all out and rip aggro from the boss, then they die and the heals gets one-shot. Heals primary job is keeping themselves alive and then the tank. Helping out the dps is just icing, unless you are on raid heals, which is the next point..

Market yourself as a #2 healer for raids. If you dont wanna or dont know if you can keep the MT up, you can keep the rest of the raid up from random damage, and throw some HoTs on the tanks. By the time you know the fights, youll have better gear and can be the main healer. And believe me, knowing the fights in raids is 95% of getting it done.

Or ask the raid leader if you can roll on healing gear, and go in as shadow dps. No other clothies in the raid, or if they are overgeared, it shouldnt be a problem. Im doing this right now with my druid healer, im being carried thru the first wings of icecrown we have on farm, and getting all the cloth and leather we would be otherwise disenchanting.

---------- Post added at 01:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

Btw, if you have the cash or some enchanter friends, get your stuff enchanted. Check the little arrows next to the enchants on your wowheroes sheet. Prob dont need to bother with stuff under 219, as you will be replacing them, and dont need to go with the top enchants unless you have the money or its on a gear piece 232+

I know I'm all BLAAAH about this game but I know enough to say, You're a good healer if you're asking these kinds of questions. Really it just means you're willing to research being better instead of settling for adequate.


that said, given the announcements regarding how they plan on having one lockout and 10m being the same as 25, I might be able to handle this as a "game" again instead of lifestyle cuz right now, it's pretty expected of some of the guilds I've been in, in order to maximize potential gearing, to run

10/25 icc
10/25 Trials
10/25 Ulduar HM's

6 raids, something along the lines of 4 hours each, every week.

vs the cataclysm single lockout model, which at launch will be like 2 raids with 5 or 6 bosses each as opposed to the 10+ bosses in multi winged raids the game has now.

Hell even 40 man raids didn't take as long as they do now.


They really need to upgrade the old world textures to get me to want to play again though.

I was just having this convo yesterday

friend responds

Update:

Over the past few days, I've been getting decent (lucky) drops in heroic 5-mans....which is weird because I don't normally get drops like that so often. Plus I've nearly completed my conquest armour set: One more piece to go. I've also purchased some enchants for my existing pieces. I've still yet to max out my enchants, but I'm waiting for item upgrades/faction rep.

However, according to both Be Imba! and WoW Heroes, I have the gear to adequately run Ulduar 25-man hard mode. Yet, I still have reservations about asking to join a Naxx 10-man. Maybe I should read a walkthrough to it or something...watch some videos.

I recently joined a fairly casual guild; maybe I'll ask around.

10 minute video of Deepholm

45 minute tour of the alpha.

The granddaddy of MMOs is looking pretty damn good for his age.

They might still get another couple of years out of him yet.

UO? Everquest? huh? lol. I keed.

Wow still has 5-10 more years. Mark my words!!!!!!!!

reply is mostly to bakara guru,


I retired from WoW 6 months ago or so, and I went through a lot of the same stuff you did. I was a veteran player from the early days who quit then came back to all these new features. So after getting a couple 80's, I tried all the new "weekly raid", "pug raids" etc. I found that the biggest issue facing these raids is that since there are so many players out there, they are forced to base everything off of your gear and whether or not you have the achievement. Addons like "gearscore" make this easy for them to judge a player by. I found because of this, it was hard to get into the raids at first...

However, after you get all the gear you can from the 5 man heroic badges, you will be ready to go with any sort of raid. I would say, even ICC if you can find one. Then, your issue shifts from being "undergeared" to being "inexperienced", because a lot of times people want you to show you the achievement, proving you already did it. I found that silly, because it really limits the pool of people available, and when you finally get to run these raids, you'll see it isn't rocket science. You'll be like, wow, this is easier than everyone made it sound.

I guess people want a way of weeding out morons. I think showing achievement wasn't really a good way, but I guess it gives people peace of mind knowing that they won't have to explain everything.

You seem like a smart guy and you do your research on websites, which is more than the vast majority of these players do. I think you will be fine in any of these raids, as long you can are persistent enough to get into them. Finding a good guild that can run raids is an easier way to do it.

In the end, I think that running nothing but pugs was what made me quit again. I never really made many friends in the game the second time around, never got into a good guild, and I ended up quitting again. It's the friendships that kept me around for a long time when I played in the early days. However, the new mechanics of the game make it very easy to be successful without even trying to be social, which I feel lowered my desire to keep going in the end. Pretty sad that I need to be forced to be social, eh? :p

Anyway, good luck!

The whole GearScore/achievement bit is, pretty much, bullshit. GearScore is the most overrated mechanic of the game. No matter how much gear you have, it won't affect your intelligence, maturity, or grasp of strategy. I'll run with a person who can listen effectively and not be a dick long before I'll run with a pompous, incompetent dickhead who got hauled through raids for his gear and achievements even if the former has a 3kgs and the latter has a 6kgs.

Luckily, I'm part of a very casual guild. We have a fairly regular group that runs weekly raids every week and we get as far as we can into whichever raid we choose on Thursday nights. Lately we've been running mostly ICC10. Then those of us that are on more often and towards the later hours of the night will usually run raids such as Ony, ToC, and VoA throughout the week. With the casual way we run things, we never really have guild drama and I've never seen anyone that wasn't PUG'd in get angry or create drama in raids, and those people are quickly removed.

Anyone's best bet when starting to raid is to find a guild that's willing to leave some room for error as you learn and that can remember it's a game and it's supposed to be fun, especially when doing end-game content that you've worked so hard to get to.

Thanks for the feedback, Tactix. I've pretty much found out as much. My gear right now isn't bad. I bet I can do most of the "entry-level" raids. The issue for me is that I don't think I want to get into it. It's too involved. I'm more of a casual player, I guess.

But the whole thing is a bit ridiculous. People take it too seriously. If you need the gearscore, the achievements, and whatever, it pretty much means they're looking for people who've already completed the raid before, right? So they're looking for people to go for another lap? Lap 10, 20, 30, or whatever, right? Well, whatever. People can have fun with their repetition. I, on the other hand, have grown too bored with the game to get into it that far just to do it over and over again.

Even outside of raiding, I've run into people who lose it when someone doesn't quite have everything up to speed. You know, they act as though it were a job, and not a game. It's like they're afraid of the additional challenge. It's like too many players prefer a sure thing. Because it's about the loot. Because it's about the achievement.

No thanks. If I wanted a game for that reason, I'd play Progress Quest, or many of the fine games available on Facebook.

Anyway, my account's not even active at the moment. I've been filling my time up with reading science-fiction and fantasy novels and designing a D&D campaign. I've forgotten how awesome these things are. You don't even need a computer. I'm even planning on writing a book soon, maybe plumb another aspect of this next-to-useless English degree.

im what's called an avid "twinker". i like to max out characters at sub endgame levels and park them for battlegrounds. i used to do it to play capture the flag without mounts but now it's just a matter of enjoying the building process without wanting to re gear once im done.

our niche suffered from no Q's when they segregated us from xp added. we ended up setting up seperate battlegroups for each bracket (19, 29, etc.).

but they're merging battlegroups for north america's entirety in cata, and that should support constant bg's for xp off.

i highly reccomend it for any casual or part time wow'er.

Do you guys get angry when we call you "twinkies"?

I have a level 19 rogue with xp off. I like to PvP with him, but I cannot stand the levelling process with a rogue, so I got him all the BiS stuff and now fight him against all the other twinks in Warsong Gulch.

actually, the word "twink" has a much worse kind of creme-filled connotation in the real world. i just take it with a grain of salt and hope it helps people who care too much about "skill" in game to nerd rage more when i keyboard turn over their corpse.

Well, I have been playing a while, and my character reached lvl 70

Then they made me buy an upgrade so I could keep getting stronger till lvl 80, but also I had the opportunity to make a new character called a death knight.

So, I made one to see what skills they had etc, a night elf like most my other characters I tried... so I should be in the alliance right?

Well.. imagine how I feel then that this death knight is some kind of snivelling pervert, who is ordered about by a lowly dog called "lich king" and they send me on missions that I am supposed to slaughter innocent women and children in the village and so on. As if I would find any pleasure in playing such revolting missions. I deleted the character of course. Sometimes it is unavoidable to do a certain mission that you have to kill a female character, but on the whole I avoid it... I certainly dont want to do missions killing female villagers just to please this disgusting wretch the lich king. In my opinion he should have his throat slit.

Shame, what a grand story line you are missing by giving that up.

It is one of the better stories next to the Deadmines quest line.

and eventually you do get to kill the lich king in the final instance of Ice Crown Citadel.

yup. You are supposed to feel revolted, that starts you on you path of redemption (of sorts).

BTW, I turned Arthas into a pincushion a few months back, so feel free to re-roll that DK, you are revenged.

I agree. The story behind death knights is pretty epic.

You have to take into account that as a death knight you are under the Lich King's complete control. Whether you like it or not, you do revolting things because the Lich King tells you to. It is a role playing game after all.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I think you'd be quite happy with the way things turn out at the end of the death knight quest line. Plus, death knight is a pretty fun and cool class if you can learn how to play them the right way. I just started an unholy death knight tank and I'm having a blast with it. Not quite as fun as my warrior, but still a pretty cool class.

Ive tried most of the character types, but I cant really get used to playing any of them other than hunter because I cant see the enemies on my map and people keep creeping on me, but I thought once the hunter is lvl 80 I'd try a druid

this is my character btw

http://www.wow-heroes.com/index.php?...me=aleshiastar

Yeah, everyone has a class that fits their style best. I'm all about warrior. It's a fun and challenging class that allows me some diversity (With it's DPS and Tanking capabilities). Be sure, though, that you're not giving up on a class too soon. Getting to level 10 and calling it quits is the easiest way to miss out on a potentially fun character.

I recommend that you get that hunter to 80 before you seriously consider an alt, though. Firstly, you'll eventually reach a point where you just don't have a lot to do with that character anymore. Secondly, when you hit 80 you have access to heirloom items, which you can give to your alt character. They boost the amount of experience you get and make levelling go a bit faster.

well, maybe I will try to play a Death Knight again, but to be honest this Lich King guy has been taking some diabolical liberties with the missions he has ordered me on... I do want to learn how to play another character than hunter though.

Righteous indignation. ugh.

Well, like was said - its a role playing game.

I could just sit there and think every enemy is just a collection of stats, and I just treadmill through killing them, getting stronger, killing stronger enemies that happen to be embedded in a different graphic...

For me, I have to get into the story to enjoy it.

Give the death knight story a chance because it really is something that if you didn't roll a DK you don't know what good story telling you're missing. We all know that Blizzard does a great job with their lore and story telling, this does not disappoint at all, you'll know what I'm talking about after you leave the phased zone, and get out into Light's Hope Chapel... it's totally epic. Makes me want to roll a DK again just to see it unfold again.

I think it's clear that I'm not a fan of the game but yes, the story telling was great.

the voice acted sections and scripted events were nice, the thing I hated was being unceremoniously dumped in to outland like "hur, thanks for joining the horde/alliance, go kill space orcs/draenei now k?

I had such a hard time initially with the "connection" of Outland. I don't think it became apparent to me until I was in Caverns of Time Opening the Dark Portal which I thought was too disconnected to me, especially when playing Karazahn.

Once that story came to light I got it, but until them I didn't get why or what was going on.

Been playing World of Warcraft for a while now and leveled a DK up to 77, almost 78 then quit (a couple months ago), but I go on every couple weeks.

I just don't feel like leveling my DK to 80 even though i know having an 80 and doing pvp and raids is fun.

I dont even know what a raid is.

Is that what replaces the dungeon finder after lvl 80?

dungeons are 5 man content. Raids are 10 or 25 man, with some old existing 40 man.

Raids are dungeons that require more than five people to complete. There are raid dungeons from the classic game when level 60 was the cap. Most of those required 40 level 60 characters to do. There are raid dungeons from the Burning Crusades expansion. Most of those required 25 level 70 characters to complete. Those are all obsolete, though. Most of them can be single manned to three manned by level 80 characters, but don't have anything in them to make them really worth the trouble. Unless, you want the achievement, a mount one of the bosses drops, or just to experience the story behind the dungeon.

With Wrath of the Lich King they started allowing you to choose between a 25 man version and a 10 man version of any raid dungeon. Level 80 raids are where you will find all the best gear in the game that you need to progress your character.

The level 80 raid dungeons are (From easiest to hardest) Naxxramus, Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Onyxia's Lair, Trial of the Crusader, Icecrown Citadel, and Ruby Sanctum.

There is little reason (other than weekly raid quests) to go to any of the raids under Onyxia's Lair at this point as you can get better gear than what you would get from Naxx, OS, EoE, or Uld from the emblems you pick up while doing heroic dungeons at level 80.

LOL

http://maldy.net/wp-content/plugins/...s/22489us0.png

http://maldy.net/wp-content/plugins/...s/14676us0.png

I'm not worth as much as you Cynth...

http://maldy.net/wp-content/plugins/...s/15682us0.png

LOL, 5200GS hunter is worth about 600 more than my 5850gs Feral Tank...

http://maldy.net/wp-content/plugins/...s/16882us0.png

this is how much of a no-life my ex roommate is

I wonder how they come up with their values. My hunter's GS is well over 6200 and was valued less than Reese's 5200 hunter.

Based on that, I have to assume it's arbitrary.

I feel so cheap....

http://maldy.net/wp-content/plugins/...s/20998us0.png

raid achievements, guild rank, etc.. probably to find out if you're actually hot shit or just shit.

I know my ex roomie is in one of the top guilds so... that and my old raiding characters are worth more than my crappy ones I just decked out in t9/frost+icc stuffs.

Black Proto drake = $$$

I have two theories...

A) They don't just take into account equipped gear, but all gear possessed by the character. Also, they probably take into account rare mounts possessed, non-combat pets, and other such things.

...or...

B) It's random and they're full of shit.

The site definitely puts more value on Achievements. I don't blame them really. Gear is so easy to get up til heroic 25 stuff. My hunter has a lot of stuff that's just not available anymore. He's got 2x 310% speed protodrakes, He's got a brewfest ram on horde side; tons of Titles and tabards, some of which are no longer available; 100 vanity pets; 75+ mounts lots of old world exalted factions; 7500 achievement points and 15+ feats of strength. There was A LOT of work put into that character. I doubt I'll ever play another character as much as I played him. There's just no point to those achievements when you log on to another character and have to do them all over again.

Ah, yes, you're right. Value is based almost entirely on the number of achievements you have. My wife's character has almost 10k achievement points and is worth more than double what my character is worth, despite having worse gear. Not a particularly meaningful metric.

anyways, cataclysm is looking so so thus far. Been watching TotalHalibut's channel on youtube (dude's a riot.)

Like always, i'll probably play it, burn out, bitch, move on to something else until the next xpac, yeah... makes sense I know.

I figure I'll do the same with a little less bitching. If Cataclysm retail doesn't have full time 24 hour commentary by TotalBiscuit, I'm going to be upset.