Have you recognized Jhordy Lapforge?

Sometimes it seems as if I’m playing WoW wearing an eye bindle. How else comes that I miss out all the cool features that are there just in front of me if I only other to look?

Even though I’m a dedicated Star Trek fan, I never noticed until now that there are two engineers in Booty Bay and Tanaris manning the teleporters named Jhordy Lapforge and Scooty, a homage to two prominent ST characters.

And that’s only one example among many. The game is literarily swamped with references to all sorts of culture – from classic theatre to pop music and celebrities.

As usual it’s Wowwiki, the eternal spring of knowledge that has come to my help. The other day I accidentally found the list that tells you all those things you didn’t know or see until now. It opens the window to a huge part of the game that I’ve missed.

Some of the references are beyond my comprehension, for instance those that are pointing to other games, since WoW is the only one I’ve played. But there are so many different sorts of associations, that there will be something “for everyone” in there.

Scooby Doo marks

I’ll just give you a few more samples from my new insights:

I always thought there was something familiar about the Alterac Valley Mark of Honors, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I know. It’s identical to the collar of Scooby Doo! If you look closely you even see the initials SD.

I’ve done the Triage Quest for Artisan First Aid a couple of times at Theramore. And I’ve heard the sad farewell of the soldiers I’ve failed to heal: "Goodbye cruel world...I'm leavin' you today...goodbye, goodbye, goodbye..." I feel like a fool not recognizing this as the opening lines from one of the songs at Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. My only excuse is that I’m sort of death and blind for everything, concentrating on completing that annoying quest.

Many of the references are in form of NPCs. A few of them are so obvious that even I have have managed to recognize them, like Harrison Jones, Dirty Larry and Haris Pilton. But I never realized that Farmer Kent, standing on the docks of Southshore, is a reference to 'Clark Kent' and his childhood of growing up on a farm with his adopted Earth parents, Ma and Pa Kent.

Classic authors

Now every thing isn’t about pop music, movies and comics. There are plenty of references to classic authors such as Shakespeare. Often they’re just small details, which only the true fans will notice.

I don’t think many will understand that when the butcher Dirge Quickcleave in Tanaris says “"Get thee to a cheesery!" when sending you on a quest to gather cheese and other cooking ingredients, it’s a reference to "Get thee to a nunnery", a line from Hamlet to Ophelia.

Those few who do see it will on the other hand get a nice feeling of being enlightened, better educated than others, sharing a little secret with the developers.

How many of the references have you kept track of and how many did you miss? Go and check out for yourself at the Wowwiki list!

The missing spice

Can you take down a boss too easily? No matter how strange it sounds, I think the answer is: yes.

Yesterday we did our debut run on Reliquary of Souls in Black Temple. As usually before a raid I prepared myself mentally, visualising our success. But to be honest I was prepared for a learning wipe night – and I think everybody else was as well. Even the strategy guide at Bosskillers claimed the same.

“For phase 3, you will need a Cauldron of Major Nature Protection for each serious attempt. Phases 1 and 2 are pretty tough, so you won’t need it on your first visit.”

The raid started unfortunate with people randomly dc:ing and I couldn’t help wondering if this was to be one of those cursed raids, when everything has a slight twitch of misfortune. But it turned out it wasn’t. Actually the boss went down on our 5th try. (And we didn’t have any cauldron.)

Of course we were happy and proud, no doubt about that. But you didn’t have to take off your headset not to get deafened by the joyful outcries on TS. It was pretty silent. Was this… it?

If you compare it to the relief we felt after the killing of Archimonde last week, this was nothing. A faint smile compared to a hysterical laughter.

Now, wiping isn’t anything to strive or wish for, but it certainly adds a special flavour. It builds up that craving for blood, which makes you feel the bosskill in every cell of your body. I guess to fully appreciate heaven you must have spent some time in hell.

After a moment of confusion we went on to say hello to Mother Shahraz, even though we didn’t have the shadow resist gear we needed. After all the trashmobs gave us a bunch of HoD, which we definitely need for next week.

After she had whipped us badly once half of the raid switched to their alts that wanted Magtheridon for various reasons. Don’t you think we wiped on the first try? Her swing knocked me for 14k and I spent the whole fight on my back. Then we killed her on the next try of course.

But it was a good reminder. Don’t get too cocky. Raiding means to stay alert at any time. Especially nights when the wipe spice is missing.

It’s time to shake the kaleidoscope

Even Larísa has had her share of the expansion blues. I’ve been struggling for a while to handle the fact that the game is about to change, no matter what I think about it or what I do.

For a long time I simply denied what was about to happen. I refused to admit that the game as I knew it was coming to an end. While some players have been counting the seconds until they may enter Northrend, I did the opposite. I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t ready.

Why denial?
I think one of the reasons for my denial that I’ve finally managed to climb a bit higher on the learning curve. Since I started playing in the beginning of 2007, it has been very steep and seemingly endless. It’s taken me hard work to reach, if not the highest tops, at least the middle high hills of raiding:

• I’ve found a spec that I understand and like to play
• I have gear that is good enough to raid any kind of content I could wish for and there’s no need for another grind for reputation or mats to enchant or gem it. It’s OK for now.
• I have a decent knowledge about the tactics for the encounters we’re up to.
• My interface is, if not perfect, at least OK, with a setup of appropriate addons, macros and keybindings.
• I don’t see myself as a stranger who accidentally ended up Azeroth. Most of the time I know what I’m doing and I enjoy the feeling of confidence.

Maybe it’s no wonder that I want to clinch to this state of the art as long as possible.

Fear of constant dying
Within a little more than a month I’ll step into the coldness and darkness in Northrend, into the unknown, where I once more will have to hesitate about what gear and stats to strive for, what strategic choices to make, where to go, what to do.

Larísa fears it, no doubt. But she’s wrong and I’ll tell you why.

I think that I’m unconsciously picturing that levelling in Northrend will resemble to my levelling in Outlands in the spring 2007.

I remember the beginning of it as a non-stop corpse run. When Larísa entered it at level 58 she was utterly badly geared, squishy and as good as powerless. The boars used me as a tooth picker and the first quest mobs I was supposed to take down (some elements and demons if I remember it right) resisted my fireballs. It was utterly depressing and I seriously doubted my ability to play this game at all. Maybe it wasn’t for me.

It certainly wouldn’t be fun to endure those hardships again in Northrend. The thing is though, that those pictures I have in my head are utterly nonsense. I will enter Northrend in full epic gear. Of course it will be replaced further on, but not for the first levels. And since they tune the place so that players can level 1-80, without gearing up at 70, at least the beginning should be smooth.

And there’s another huge difference: I’ve played the game for another year now. I’m not half as noobish as I was then. I’m surrounded by awesome fellow players in my guild who surely can give me advice if I’m looking for it. And I have access to a wealth of knowledge through forums and blogs, things I didn’t know existed a year ago.

This time I AM prepared.

Fear of being left behind
Another of then mental hang-ups I’m suffering from is that I’m afraid to be left behind when the race towards 80 starts. I can’t devote as much time to the game as some of my guildies, and I definitely won’t be able to take a week off to play 24/7 a week in November. I want to reach endgame as bad as any other raider, but it may take me a little longer than others.
Will there be a raid spot for me once I reach 80?

Of course this is nonsense too. There will be plenty of time for me to raid in WotLK. This time I’ll start from 70 in good gear, knowing the game. When I started to play in TBC I became from scratch at level 1. And still I could end up making T6 raids!

So I tell you Larísa: have no fear! There will be a place for you. You will raid again.

Moving forward
Now the 3.0 patch is approaching quickly, and I’m still clueless about what talent build to pick. But I think I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve left the phase of denial, moving into chaos. And I know I’ll come out pretty soon in a state of acceptance and new orientation. It’s no different to how I would deal with any kind of major change or crises.

One of the toys that fascinated me most as a child was the kaleidoscope – you know that tube with mirrors and little plastic pieces that you look through and whenever you give it a shake you get new patterns.

That’s how we should look upon the expansion. The kaleidoscope wouldn’t be any fun if the pieces were glued and couldn’t move. The whole point of it is the changes. Now Blizzard is giving us a great shake-up; they may even put in a few coloured bits into the tube. We will recognize the game, no doubt. It will still be World of Warcraft. But with a twist.

It’s a new beginning and I’m finally looking forward to it.

Should you feel betrayed when a goblin leaves your guild?

When is it time to leave a guild? This question never seems to get out of fashion. Have a look at the guild relationship forums and I bet half of the posts are written by players asking for advice: “I don’t feel good about xx… Should I leave the guild?”

Sooner or later I think everyone in the game who has ever belonged to a guild will be confronted with the issue. How should you value friendship towards your personal goals of progression and other aspects of the game that makes it worth playing?

And there is no right or wrong answer, no universal truth that will fit everyone. We all have to find our own balance and take the responsibility our choices, with the pros and cons that come with them. There’s no way around it.

The Goblin way
The last few days I’ve seen two blogs touching on this issue, from different points of view.

First Gevlon of Greedy Goblin wrote an honest post about “how I missed the whole BC endgame raiding by not knowing the goblin philosophy”.

He has spend loads of time and effort learning others how to play their characters, only to see them guild quit and join a more progressed guild. The result is that even though he considers himself a serious and skilled player, he’s never gone any further than to the second boss in Mount Hyjal. Gevlon blames nobody but himself. He thinks he hang on too long to guilds that didn’t have the ability to progress. In the expansion he will follow the goblin way, cutting the endgame progress into smaller objectives.

“There are guilds working on the same objective. Join them, reach your objective! For example if your current objective is getting Kara gear, a Kara-guild is your place. When objective completed, move on! Don't blame them for not being able to kill anything behind Gruul, it's not your place to lecture them. Just /qguit, go to the next phase. Things won't get any better in your current guild! They will never-ever reach higher level content as a guild. Of course some of the current members will, but under a different name. The guild: never!”

The betrayed guildie
The day after, there was a post written from the other perspective, the guild that lost it’s goblin minded member. Mae of Electronic Escape wrote a post about anger, bitterness and friendship, sharing her pain and disappointment seeing a guildie leave for another guild at another server, in order to raid more frequently.

“When we join a guild, we put in the hands of our fellow guildies our raiding future. We put faith in others that they’ll pull through for us. Tonight, it’s never been more obvious to me that that faith is too easily given and too easily thrown away. We can’t make friends with people in game because tomorrow they could decide that purple is more important to them than your friendship. It’s bittersweet for me, especially because of the amount of time and effort I put into this game. It’s more than a game, the people I’ve met are more than pixels, but it may not go both ways.”

She thinks that the guildie that left, knowing that he’s putting the guild in a worse situation, missing their off-tank, should have stayed out of loyalty.

A little bit of both
So where does Larísa stand in this? Well, I can feel strongly with both writers.

I agree with the goblin. I think there are too many players who have stayed too long in their guilds, growing bitter and bored, and it’s a mystery to me why they don’t leave. Perhaps they’re too lazy or comfortable, since switching guilds or even servers takes an amount of courage.

Several bloggers have written about this in the past – one of them myself. It isn’t long since I took the chance to find new challenges and raiding of higher quality by switching guilds, rather than trying to change the one I was in. At that point I thought a lot about what Lassirra earlier wrote – that you shouldn’t hang around, waiting for your guild to change, since it won’t. The goblin philosophy.

Since I started playing I’ve been in five different guilds. The first one was small and didn’t raid at all; it barely made one five man instance a week. The second one was huge and did instances but couldn’t organize a Karazhan run. The third guild I cleared Kara with. The fourth guild I cleared Gruul, Mag and parts of SSC and TK with. And now in my fifth guild I’m raiding MH and BT. So I guess I’ve done exactly the kind of career Gevlon is talking about. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m a guild hopper. But yes, I’ve been a bit goblinish.

On the other hand, in opposition to Gevlon, I still believe progressing within a guild is doable, though it’s difficult and heavily depending on a huge effort from the officers. And I think there are advantages about it. By switching guilds every 4 or 5 months I’ve never got to know people the same way as you do in a guild that’s been raiding together since vanilla WoW and will keep raiding in WotLK. I’ll never get access to a huge chunk of the bank vault of shared memories and fun stories. I’m missing an aspect of the game that is about something else than collecting trophies.

My honest intention is to stay in my current guild as long as it lives and keeps raiding. I’m pretty sure we’ll all about to be shaken up a bit now, with the expansion upcoming. Heck, you even don’t know who’ll play the game at all and who’ll jump for Warhammer. Perhaps someone wishes to see a PvP server, others will want to switch mains. It will sure be a trial for everyone and a bit chaotic. But I sincerely hope that I’ll be one of those who stick around, even when things get a bit tough.

The compromise
So are the perspectives of the goblin and of Mae possible to unite? Yes I think they are. Krizzlybear did it in a comment:

It's possible to progress pretty far, but it's an inevitability that people will come and go in a guild, depending on the needs and wants of its members. But the guild that actually does progress does so because of a very strong core. That core is the sole factor in a guild's progression, not the goblins who stay for only a little while, but are a great help when they were there.

He’s right on the spot. We need the core players who ensure that the guild will live on. If it will progress or not depends entirely on the actions of those players. And their cause isn’t hopeless. There are guilds that manage to progress beyond Kara, under the same guild tag.

On the other hand we shouldn’t think about the goblin players as evil. We need them and they’re a valuable addition to any guild! They provide flesh blood, energy and ideas from other guilds. They prevent stagnation and a slow guild death.

Should you feel betrayed when the goblin leaves? If he steals the guildbank you should, but else – no. Let him go without any hard feelings. Be happy about what he gave you. Respect the choice he's made - probably it wasn't easy. And start looking for another goblin. Who knows, perhaps this one will eventually settle down and join your core. But don’t count on it.

WTB WoW cleaning service!

People are trying to make real life money on WoW in a few ways (all of them illegal). They sell gold for real money. They sell powerlevelling. And they sell accounts with toons they’ve lost their love for. Nothing of this attracts me the slightest, and I think those service providers seriously lack imagination and understanding of the customers.

They haven’t any idea about the real needs of the dedicated but disorganized WoW player. I can level the toons for myself and I can gather the gold I need. That’s part of what’s fun in the game. What a really hate though is cleaning up. That’s just a huge and boring grind to me. Give me a hand, please!

Reflects real life
The lack of order in my bags and bank is no coincidence. It reflects my real life perfectly; you just have to throw a glance at my desk or into my hand bag to get it confirmed. I hate sorting things, no matter if it concerns documents, computer files or newly washed clothes. So it’s no wonder I’ve brought this attitude into the game.

Of course I know cleaning up would make my playing a lot easier – but pure knowledge doesn’t help. I procrastinate it to the next day – and then to the next and the next, endlessly. Time passes and nothing happens. And the worst thing is that while the mess is growing I remember less and less about the items, which will make it harder to do anything about it. I don’t know anymore what’s junk that should be vendored and what things that could come handy one day. I would need to do some research to make sure I won’t throw away the wrong things.

Misusing ArkInventory
I’m a bit embarrassed about this evident flaw in my character. It gave me some comfort though to see that I’m not the only one to have problems with bank order. Pike of Aspect of the hare brought up the subject, urging us to post our banks a while ago, and Gnomeaggeddon followed.

So here I go myself, sharing my bank with you, following the Pink Pigtail Philosophy to never pretend to be any better than you are. We're here to be honest and relaxed, OK?

As you can see at my screenshot, I have done a small effort to sort things out by using the addon ArkInventory. I guess it would look a bit better if I had used it more properly, doing all of the necessary settings. Now I think it only makes it worse than if I had individual bags, assigned to different sorts of items. ArkInventory can help you sort things out, but it won’t take the decisions about vendoring or selling at AH. Those decisions you have to make for yourself.

My dream
I have a dream. One day when I logged into the game all the junk would be gone. Everything would be logically organized and I’d have some bank alts to help me out, all specialized in storing materials for different kind of tradeskills. I would have plenty of space not only in the bank, but in my bags. I wouldn’t have to refrain from taking four stocks of manna biscuits before the raid out of lack of space.

If I once for all could get it sorted out, I can’t help imagining I’d be so inspired that I’d keep that order for ever. Just give me a solid first-time-clean up, and then I’d continue doing it on my own. (At least that’s what I’m telling myself , I don’t deny there’s a risk I’m lying.)

I don’t know if this is legal to hire a cleaner or not. Probably it isn’t. But what if that person came to my home and sat by my side doing the organizing, while I still was the one logging into the game?

And while he was still at the organizing, he could help me sorting the mess on my action bars as well, making the UI a bit cleaner and more logical. It surely would need some polishing, as much as my bank does.

The other day my younger brother revealed to me that he paid a cleaning service company to keep his house tidy. It’s not a common thing to do in Sweden, and he almost seemed a bit ashamed about it. I didn’t say anything, but I thought: I wonder if you could ask them to clean your WoW bags, as well as the floor?

WTB WoW cleaning service.

The endgame hasn’t ended yet

There’s no better cure for the expansion blues than a guild first boss kill. Tuesday night this week Archimonde went down after months of trials. And the energy injection it gave us could have enlightened a metropolis, I swear.

The only thing I regret is that I can’t share the joy with someone outside of the game. To my family this was just another of those two nights a week when mom is online, speaking in a headset, staring into the multicoloured screen, refusing to watch TV like any normal woman at her age, hardly even replying if you say something to her.

How could I ever explain it to them?

“You see we have spent a number of nights in this place, and every one of those nights we have died like 25 times without killing the bad guy we wanted to kill. And now we finally did it”.

They’d stare at me with blank faces, wondering what’s so fun about dying 25 times a night in the first place, considering if they should book a time with a psychiatrist on my behalf.

So I don’t even try. Instead I share the joy with the guests of the inn, knowing you know what I’m talking about.

Lost in time and space
I’m afraid haven’t got any screenshot of my own of the event. The remains of the guy didn’t look too impressive, rather like a heap of junk than a trophy. And besides I still had a stupid diamond mark above my head, being one of the decursers in the raid. Not pretty. But there's a pic on our our website. Yeah, the tiny little gnome in the front is me, you can't miss the pigtails, can you? It will be an eternal reminder that it wasn’t a dream.

I was there and I’ll never forget it. It was the most intense fight I’ve done so far in the game. Always looking for people to decurse. Always looking out for fires and running away from them. Fast. Always being ready to make sure you land softly if you’re tossed up into the air. Always looking out for where you are when you can soon expect a fear and stay FAR away from the fires if the trinket is on cooldown.

I was completely lost in time and space, the world outside ceased to exist – it was so demanding that it swallowed me up completely. I’ve never ever experienced a fight in the game taking so much of concentration and putting so much pressure on every individual player not to make any mistake. We sure lived up to our guild name this night – Adrenaline.

I probably could have done a lot of things much better. I did die first of all in the raid once, because of a stupid mistake. And I’m pretty sure that I took some bad ways away from the fires a few times, putting my raid mates in awkward positions.

But still, I did what is most important of all – I managed to stay alive in the last, successful try. There’s no way to describe how happy and proud I was, standing on my feet as he entered the famous 10 % state, when he’s a sure kill, and we were realizing that this actually was going to happen.

More epic nights
The reactions after the kill have been mixed. I and a few other fellows thought: “Wow, this was fun, let’s do it again!”. But I think the majority, who’ve enjoyed a few more wipe nights than I have, feel that they need a break from Mount Hyjal. “I’m afraid I’ll get little red spots all over if I have to do any more waves”, as one of the mage veterans put it. So in the next few weeks we’ll probably focus on Black Temple again and see how far we can progress there before the 13th November.

There are yet another 16 scheduled raids to take off, the last one of them planned to November 11. I bet we’ll run every single one of them, according to plan. We should be able to do some more first kills before there’s a new game to deal with. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have any more epic nights this autumn.

My conclusion is that the endgame of The Burning Crusade doesn’t end unless you decide you’ve had enough. The thrill and adventure is still there, waiting for us.

When did you last tell a fellow player that he’s great?

Have you ever met someone in the game who excelled in some aspect? I bet you have.

Maybe it was that frost mage who could kite a mob around all of Azeroth if you asked him to. Maybe it was that officer who stepped up and saved the guild when it seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. Maybe it was that guy who made the guild chat into stand up comedy scene and could turn a dull grinding session into pure entertainment.

Did you ever tell them how much you appreciated what they did? Maybe you didn’t?

Speaking for myself I know that I walk around in Azeroth taking too many people for granted. All those nice things I think about them for some reason stay in my head, unspoken.

What it means
A few words of appreciation can mean much more than you could imagine. Here’s an example from my own life.

A few days ago I received an e-mail. It was just a few lines, but I all but cried when I read it:

Your articles are consistently great, and I'm always looking forward to reading what you write. I guess the acid test is that when I see you pop up in google reader, I stop what I'm doing and get reading. Just wanted to pass that on. :)

A fan mail. Have you any idea how happy I was? Well, at least I think my fellow bloggers out there have. This letter should be framed and put up on the wall.

Sometimes blogging is easy, the posts sort of write themselves. Sometimes it’s not and you struggle a bit and wonder why you’re doing this and how long you will last as a blogger. How long can you really write about a single game? Getting close to 200 posts… at some point you should probably run out of things to say? In those times, when the blog feels a bit fading greyish, rather than shining pinkish, I can just throw an eye on this letter. My blogging means something to someone else. Suddenly I’m filled with energy and lust and this will keep me blogging for a long time to come.

Look around in your surroundings. Look at the people you love to play with, the ones that make this game worth playing. Your guild master, your main healer, your arena partner, your pug friend – don’t you think they could need a bit fuel too, to keep doing what they do so good?

Feedback as a tool
Now, giving feedback can be more than just being nice and friendly to people. If you’re in a leading position, it’s one of your best tools to move the guild in the direction you want. If you want a player to develop in a certain direction – start to recognize the things he does right.

I’ll give you an example: let’s say you have a mage that often is slacking on sheeping, not being on his toes when there’s a pull. Don’t just complain about the slow sheeping. Try to find the moments when he does it right (hopefully it happens at least sometimes) and then give praise: “Nice sheeping!” I can assure you this mage will feel motivated to try to do it right again. It’s pretty basic, an instinct to please others that I think we carry along since we were children.

Of course you could – and should – give “negative” feedback as well – or rather suggestions how things can be improved. After all it’s a gift. If no one tells you about your faults, there isn’t much of a chance that you’ll develop. But you should make sure that you have built a foundation of trust before you give it. If you’ve given generous (but honest, no flattering lies please!) positive feedback, you can feel confident in giving suggestions. It will neither break your relationship, nor the self confidence of your guildie. The ground is solid.

A waste
A final thought about this topic. I wonder how it comes that we sometimes are quick to complain and point out how others could improve, and so slow to praise.

Are we shy? Are we envious? Are we so self centred that we simply don’t notice what good the other players do? Or maybe we’re afraid to be misinterpreted as we’re making a pass or just flattering them to get some kind of advantage?

I don’t know. But it’s silly and it’s a waste. So why don’t we just change it?