Wanted: protection against the lethargy from the veterans

The sun has passed zenith. I think we can agree on that one.

There are different opinions about how much longer WoW will shine. Most of us expect at least one or two more expansions (wouldn’t level 100 be a nice and even level to end the saga?) But there’s no doubt that the quality of light has changed. It’s older, warmer, and not glowing quite as intensely as it used to.

Still there are various perceptions of this light. Some players have gone further into the dusk. Those who have been around since WoW was launched are starting to look the same as they did when they tried to get from Stormwind to Ironforge swimming, so many years ago. They’ve got a fatigue debuff they just can’t get rid of, even if they try. They grump about how things were better in the old days, about the outrageous nerfs and about how bored they are, and how they can’t bring themselves to level yet another character.

Every time a possible replacement to WoW is launched (most recently Aion), there’s a big buzz going on. Maybe this will be THE one, who will cause the big exodus from Azeroth? But so far the seniors seem to keep hanging around as they always have. I guess it’s hard to break a habit, but they’re also wrapped up in social bonds, to guilds and to game friends. The community seems to be more important than the entertainment they actually get from the game itself.

Like an infectious disease
Since I’ve only played the game half as long as many others, I’m not really at the same level as they are if you look my WoW lifeline. The sun is still pretty high up in the air. It may have passed zenith, but there’s still a lot of power in it. I’m as passionate as ever, at least as long as I’m wise enough to stick to things that I like and skip stupid grinds such as dailies just for vanity purposes.

However, it isn’t entirely easy to always keep up your own enthusiasm when you’re surrounded by people who’re much further progressed on their wandering through Azeroth, people who have lost their hunger and mostly spend their time bitching about the changes and their lost paradise. There is a gloomy layer of dust covering more and more of the community – the blogs, the forums and the general chat channels online.

It’s like an infectious disease, which make you believe that the lethargy of the longtime players is your own, when you would in fact be as happy as ever playing your game, if you didn’t have to constantly inhale the toxic vapours from those “I’ve played the game too long” people.

Protected zones
Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t try to make some sort of protected zones for those who still enjoy the game. Imagine a special server entirely reserved for players who started to play in TBC or WotLK and still have sparkling eyes. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable?

And then we could make an equal server, like a home for elderly people, a place where they could bitch and long back to the old days as much as they like to, surrounded by other players who know exactly what they’re longing for. See it as a protection area for those who have played since the early days of vanilla WoW.

I’m not entirely serious about this suggestion, but I can’t help playing with the thought.

Somehow the situation of today reminds me of how some teachers deal with the trouble boys at school. They put quiet, shy girls between them, treating them as some sort of absorbing padding.

It’s a little bit like this with the newcomers to the game. They’re used as positive energy power field. The old, tired players are allowed to leech on their energy and enthusiasm for the game. (Yeah, Gevlon, there are different sorts of slackers when you think closely about it.)

Maybe we should put an end to this. Maybe it’s about time that we let the grumpy players care for themselves. Let them boil in their own stew and let them whine in company with each other.

Meanwhile, the people who still love the game can flourish and inspire each other in their upcoming adventures.

Of course the older players have a lot to offer to the community in the terms of knowledge and experience. But if this always comes with an equal amount of aoe lethargy, I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off without it.

Or at least we need some resistance gear so we don’t take so much damage.

A Pixelated Life

Have you ever wondered if what we call “real life” isn’t someone else’s World of Warcraft. Perhaps this material world, solid to us, is pixels on the computer screen of some alien creature. What if you are the avatar.

Recently one of my neighbors with several children got a puppy dog. And in that mysterious way that like knows like, the puppy dog wont pay attention to anyone but the young children. She’s so cute as she scrambles after them on her tiny legs and she whines piteously when they go indoors and she can’t get in. But as I stood there with this glow in my heart as she gamboled about it occurred to me that maybe there was some overweight alien with long fangs and two heads in his underwear eating Cheetos and mashing the keyboard, muttering, “God, who designed this stupid Pit Bull creature.”

Angela

For the sake of easy reference let’s call this creature playing your life your Guardian Angel. I’ve decided to call mine Angela. She’s the one that keeps me from running the red light when my mind is away in outer space. She’s the one makes the decisions I fain to call intuition. She’s also a leveling manic.

A few years ago a friend said to me that all parents should enjoy their kids before the age of five because after five all kids want to do is grow up and act like adults. That certainly was true of me. I never was the type to hang out with kids my own age; if adults were doing it that’s what I wanted to do too. I was in such a hurry: got to grow up, got to get that degree, got to get that wife, make those kids, buy that house. It came as quite a shock to hit level 40. What happened. Where did all the time go. Maybe that is the reason I remain opposed to this trend by Blizzard to make faster mounts available at lower levels. It seems the last thing we need today is for youth to be in more of a hurry.

I think this also explains the time period when my life went all haywire. It seemed like I had become another person. Not in a radical way but nothing went right. I was associating with people: who were they, where did they come from. Why was I doing this job. That instance called India; that wasn’t me. I am convinced that an entire ten year period of my life can be explained by the fact that my Guardian Angel loaned her account to a friend.

Here’s a humbling thought: what if I’m just an alt. What if I’m just that character that somebody rolled and played for a while and decided they liked a Ret Pally better. What if they play with me only when they get bored running President Obama. Heaven forbid, what if their main is a Warlock. I don’t think I could handle knowing that.

Here’s another humbling thought. Pride. Think about how poets and other creative people talk about their muse. Oh ha ha ha. What would you think if every time you crafted that bag or enchanted an item your Warcraft character said, “My genius at work.” It sounds silly put that way. Maybe it is silly.

It’s actually quite liberating to realize that you are not in control of your own life. How is it your fault that you crashed the car. It’s that idiot angel who is still using the damn arrow keys to move; that’s the problem. They have a freaking mouse but noooo that’s not the way God taught them to do it.

The Forums

Think about the forums. It must be awesome. All those angels up there complaining about the Business Conference in Brussels lockout timer and how the developers in patch 2009.07.01 in Life: Europe are nerfing the economy and making it so hard to mine holiday time.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find the forums to be basically the same as on earth.

* Why do races have to be pretty? 06/30/2009 10:11:30 AM PDT

I just saw the dumbest post from a "girl" or troll who wanted the prettiest race. Although that might not have been serious, there are plenty of people who won't roll a class based on their attractive factor. Why must our toons be beautiful? I personally wish I would've rolled Horde when I started playing just because sans blood elf, their characters look more realistic. (obviously in-game realistic, not IRL :P) Orcs in my opinion are the ugliest race, but I'd still roll one. Who cares? To themselves they are attractive. Must we really be so superficial?

I imagine that’s exactly the type of thing they talk about in the Guardian Angel’s forum of Life: The Carebear. ($29.99 today only on Cloud Nine!)

And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if customer support was just as bad. How would you like it if you kept dying in Rwanda and some blue angel told you the game was “working as intended.” Or imagine you were the angel responsible for Adolph Hitler and when you whined about a keylogger and a hacked account they told you to get an authenticator.

An RPG

There is a wise old saying that everything you play, plays you. I think it’s poignantly true. Perhaps this is the reason RPGs are popular. We want to run character’s lives because we grasp in some unconscious way that someone else is running our lives. Those pixilated characters are just the final installment of a chain of RPGs that go all the way up the seven levels of heaven and hell. We know that when we die someone out there somewhere is going to be wishing they had rolled a Tauren instead. So unconsciously we roll a Night Elf. Oh sweet revenge.

I realize of course that a game—perhaps the game—is only a metaphor. I don’t know if Angela is real. Sometimes I think she is. What I do know is if there is anyone out there clicking away, punching out the key strokes that are my life, this I know for certain. She makes me sweat.

Reasons to share your failure stories

Only social people want to read confessions from other players about how their failures. If you blog about how you’re sucking at a certain aspect of the game, you’re just writing crap. No, the way to go if you’re the slightest serious about WoW is to share success stories, preferably including useful information about how to get there.

Well, as you probably suspect, those ideas aren’t my own. I’m trying to make a wrap-up of a recent post by Gevlon. Despite our differences in opinion, I happen to like him. Some bloggers find this affection of mine a bit strange, not to say incomprehensible. But Gevlon is one of my most loyal supporters, being one of the first in the community to read and comment on the PPI. I on the other hand gave him support and encouragement when he started to open his own business. This has created a bond between us, even though Gevlon maybe doesn't see it, since he doesn't believe in networking. And apart from everything else, I find it stimulating to get access to the minds of people who have a completely different view than my own. Sometimes they actually have some good points and if nothing else they force me to think and to find better arguments for my own beliefs.

Attacking I suck-stories

But let's end my defense speech about why I like Gevlon and go back to the topic:

For no apparent reason, Gevlon has suddenly decided to attack a funny little post written by one of my other favorite bloggers, Ixobelle, claiming that he’s writing about his shortcomings just in order to make the “socials” love him. Gevlon also promised in his post that for his own part, he will only share his success stories on his blog, supposedly at the dismay of the socials.

Actually I don’t think Ixobelle cares at all about Gevlon’s opinion on his blog (he would probably be slightly amused at the most if he read his post), so it really isn’t necessary that I pull my sword just to protect his honor. But I couldn’t refrain from picking up the topic anyway, since I'm passionate about how to write, how to communicate effectively and how to improve as an individual and as a group. And I don't share Gevlon's views on this at all.

If anything, I would rather take the opposite position:

I don’t care much about the success stories that are so common at WoW blogs these days. If you’ve manage to down whatever guy - from Hogger to Yogg-Saron - Big grats and good for you, but in 9 out of 10 cases it doesn’t make much of a good read and it’s quite rare that I learn much from it.

I’m more likely to read it and get inspiration from it if you before telling me about your success also share some tales about your less inspired moments. That will grab my attention and make you a trustworthy person.

How storytelling works
This is not rocket science. This is the way stories have been told for thousands of years. Look at the movies! Most of the successful ones, I would say, follow the same pattern. When you’re first introduced to the hero, you’ll probably see him in an everyday situation, which is far from perfect. You’ll see that he’s a human being just like you, and you’ll start to sympathize with him. AFTER this relationship is established, you’ll probably see him raising, being somewhat successful, and overcoming his sucking. Then there will be a little setback somehow, where everything doesn’t work as smoothly as it seemed to. But in the end the hero is likely to win.

There’s a reason why stories are told this way, Gevlon. It works. This actually goes back to my dear old rhetoric divinities, the Romans and the Greeks. They found that a good way to make the audience benevolent was start in a very humble way, pointing at your own weakness and flattering the audience for being bright and enlightened. “Humiliatio” as they called it. It’s still taught in speech classes as one of many tools to make sure that your message will come across. The most skilled speakers are actually the ones who while they’re sharing their fail stories, at the same time giving hints that will let the audience understand that the speaker in fact is awesome – he’s just too humble to notice it. This is a trick that takes a bit of skill. And of course it’s crucial that the audience don’t realize that it’s all a setup, intended to build up some credibility.

So Gevlon, if you want people to listen and learn from your FL+4 stories, you will probably be more likely to succeed if you can make them feel that you’re on the same side, that you’re humble and honest, and that you know what it’s like to fail. Once you’ve caught their attention, they’ll be much more interested to hear about your success, and actually maybe also follow your advice. You are like them. And you managed to overcome your weaknesses and win. There’s no reason that they couldn’t do it as well.

Different sorts of blogs
Another aspect of this is that Gevlon seems to forget that there’s a big diversity among bloggers. There are many sorts of blogs, just as books come in different genres. If you look at the shelves in a book store you’ll find that they offer books for any occasion. Some are for pure educational purposes. Learn to write Japanese in 30 days. 10 ways to become a better lover. How to get rich. Whatever.

Other books are biographies, true stories about fascinating people, that you can get inspiration from, even though you’ll not explicitly learn anything. And yet other books aren’t informative at all, they’re just there for entertainment and relaxation, to make you laugh or cry, to give you stories that you can come back to in your mind and perhaps share with your friends when you come to think about them in a conversation.

If you’ve ever followed the links from my blogroll you’ll probably be somewhat puzzled. There isn’t any clear red thread in my pick of favorite blogs. I read a wide range of blogs for various reasons, just like I read different kinds of books.

For instance, I’ve got a weird fascination for books about climbers other adventurers who who have been dealing with extreme situations, getting stuck at the top of Mount Everest and such. (If anyone reading this shares this taste, I'd like to point you to Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. It stands out since it's not only a good story - the guy is a talented writer as well.)

I re-read The Lord of the Rings every three years or so, not to learn anything, but because I like to escape into the world.

I read educating books about management and communications, because it’s interesting and because it’s helps me in my job.

And I adore the humoristic self biographical books by James Herriot, about the life of some vets in Yorkshire in the 40s (including a lot of “I suck” stories, which really make a funny read). Can I say that one of those sorts of books is better than the other? Do I think that I’m just wasting my time when I read books that aren’t relevant for my career? Of course not!

In the same way I enjoy reading Ixobelle’s spicy recounts from things he has experienced recently (including moments of sucking), as well as I like Tobold’s more dry, intellectual analyzing posts and Gnomeaggedon’s sweet, giggle-provoking weekend reports. They’ve all got a well deserved spot in my heart. And not necessarily because they’re telling success stories or giving useful information. There is a raison d’être for entertainment as well!

You may consider spending time on Ixobelle as wasted, but I certainly don’t.

Sharing fail stories in game
A final thought on this: I seriously wish that more WoW players would share their fail stories, not only in their blogs, but also in the game.

If I meet a player who’s constantly sharing his success stories, never ever mentioning any errors he or she has made, I become suspicious. If I was recruiting for a raiding guild, I would see that kind of attitude as a sign that the player is insecure, lacks self-insight and is generally pretty immature. I would rather look for players who display a sound amount of self distance and don't mind sharing less flattering stories, since they’re confident in themselves and know that they’re in the end are decent players.

I know this is a lot to ask for, and how honest you want to be depends very much on the atmosphere in the group you belong to. In some guilds I can understand that you’d probably think twice before admitting that you suck at something. However I think that establishing such a climate that players feel confident to share stories about their sucking is a very good thing for a guild.

I don’t mean that you should just laugh about whatever error you make. “WTF it’s just a game” and the shrug at it. (I guess it’s OK in a very social guild without any ambitions whatsoever in successful raiding. )

What I’m suggesting is that normal raiding guilds should strive for their players to be confident enough to admit when they suck and then direct their focus and energy towards discussions about what to do about it. The discussion should be lighthearted and yet constructive, aiming for solutions rather than for blaming.

If you use “I suck” stories the right way, they can actually be the beginning of your future success. Share it and gain an audience. Laugh at it. Learn from it. And finally head forward, a little bit stronger and wiser than you were before. And maybe even entertained.

There are many good reasons to tell the world, not only about our glorious victories, but also about our humbling failures.

Sad and frustrated

Goddamn it, why can’t I just play the game like everyone else? Why do I have to spend so insanely much time into troubleshooting my constantly cranky computer? Is this my destiny? Am I somehow cursed? Those thoughts are currently whirling in my head.

I’m sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for a cheerful rant, giving you hope and energy to deal with your own challenges in WoW. In this post I’ll fail miserably to live up to the sweet link description that Hatch has given me on his blogroll “Larisa keeps me positive”. I hope you can forgive me. This isn’t exactly an ordinary post. I’m sharing and I’m ranting, because if I don’t get any outlet for the sadness and frustration that is boiling inside me, I’ll probably explode. So, if anyone is still reading, you can hereby consider yourself an appointed therapist, I hope it’s OK with you. I don’t ask for much. Just listen and give me a gentle pat if you want to.

Fps problems
So, what’s up? Well, this isn’t the first time I’m dealing with technical problems. I’ve written about my constantly bad fps before.

This problem remains and is an eternal source of annoyance. If you see it from the positive side, it makes raiding more challenging than it already is. “Move out of fire! – What fire! Oh, that fire, now it appeared on my screen. Let’s move then… am I moving? No idea… yeah, apparently I did, it finally responded to my hammering on the buttons, Larisa took a big jump forward.”

I’ve sort of become used to it and normally I get along decently well, even though I’m pretty sure that I would perform better with a smoother gaming experience. So this isn’t my major problem this time.

And it isn’t the vent hiccups that sometimes hit me, making it lag for short moments, where the ping rushes up to never-seen heights, the chat goes silent for a few seconds, and the all voices come at the same time. After all, this phenomenon doesn’t appear every night, most of the time I’m fine.

Computer shutting down
No, this time it’s worse, much worse. The computer has started to suddenly shut itself down completely, without any previous warning, as I’m playing WoW. It can happen once or several times in a raid. I can’t predict it and I get no warning about it whatsoever. Of course it’s not recommendable to raid under such conditions.

I’ve done the basic work… opening the pc, blowing away the dust, making sure that the fans work and running a program to check the temperature. So far no luck. Heating still is what comes first into mind, since we’ve had extremely high outdoor temperatures the last couple of weeks, affecting the indoor climate as well. But since the fans work I’m not entirely sure about it.

Yesterday night I finally had to give up and leave the raid after hours of unwelcome shutdowns. There was a stand in raider available and I was only a burden, not an asset, so there was no question about it. Still I felt smashed. I just couldn’t help it, but I cried out of sadness and frustration. Silent tears ran down my cheek as I tried to feel any joy in levelling my druid, something I can do without causing any harm to anyone else.

I cried, feeling hopeless and lonely, since I’m more or less helpless when it comes to technical matters. I’m like Elnia, who wanted a car that just works and doesn’t constant fixing and repairs. I want a computer that just works. I want to put my effort and energy into learning how to become a better WoW player, not into trying to figure out what’s up with the intestines of my machine.

The end?
Tonight I’m supposed to participate in the Twisted Nether Podcast. As I’m writing this I can’t guarantee it will happen. Since the computer seems to restrict its shutdowns to my WoW gaming sessions, I nourish a hope that it will work anyway. Skype and an Internet reader hopefully don’t put that much strain on the system, as long as I’m not playing. So hopefully I'll make it after all.

But in the long run. What will happen? Will I pull myself together once again, sorting this out, leaving the pc to some people trying to repair it once again (how many times is it worth keeping doing this)? Or will I even manage to persuade my family that it’s OK that I spend a fortune on a new computer, letting go of this wreck?

It’s not that I don’t have the means to buy a gaming computer, I’m a grown up and have a good income; it’s just that the difficulty of balancing family interests with my own interests once again will be spotlighted and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take the discussion this time.

Will the lack of a reliable, good-enough computer be what puts and end to Larísa’s fantastic adventure in Azeroth earlier than I had though or wanted? It’s a worst-case scenario, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come true. The future will tell.

So… this was the end of my sad rant. I’m rising up from the therapy bed, moving away to the armchair in front of the fireplace, where I’ll sit and sulk a bit until it the tears will stop falling altogether and I’m back to my normal self again.

I’m sure I’ll be able to write something positive next week. Just not right now.

Are you feeling guilty for not doing dailies?

First of all I want to state clearly that I don’t intend to name and shame anyone in this post. So please don’t take offence, Anea at Holy Discipline!

I don’t want to point you out as particularly strange or stupid; it’s just that your post hit something within me that put me on fire. It’s not that I’m anywhere different or better than you are. Probably I’m without knowing about it just as guilty of this kind of behaviour as you, and that’s why I’m so touchy about it.

What made me upset
People who haven’t read Anea’s post may wonder what’s up. What’s all this about?

Well, in this post Anea writes about how she feels guilty when she logs in and doesn't grind dailies, in this case the Argent Tournament amongst others. She obviously doesn’t enjoy them, particularly not the mounted ones. She keeps telling herself she’ll do it next day, then she ends up not doing them, and then she gets annoyed with herself for escaping from her duties.

And this makes me shake my head in disbelief. What IS this, really? Feeling guilty, over what? Feeling guilty over doing something else in the game which you probably thought was more fun and enjoyable? Aren’t we escaping into the game to get AWAY from the real life duties, chores, burdens and tedious work? Isn’t the workload in real life enough, do we have to throw ourselves into things that we hate online and then blame ourselves when we do something else?

Seriously, being disciplined is a good thing, probably even in WoW, but save it for good reasons!

Turning my back to it
A little while ago I suddenly realized that I didn’t enjoy the Argent Tournament dailies and turned my back to it. I haven’t looked back yet. Even the information that there will be dailies in the next patch that I can’t do unless I have the crusader title is enough to pull me back to it on a regular basis.

Why? Because for me those vanity items like titles, mounts and pets are what it says: vanity. They’re optional. Not something I MUST have to feel happy about my character progression.

Admittedly Blizzard is planning to add a little bit of usability to one of the pets. He will be upgraded to a portable post box every so and so hour. But seriously, how often do I need that on my mage, which I don’t play much outside of raiding? It would be useful for my druid alt, questing in remote areas, bags about to explode with all those quest items, extra healing gear, cloth from drops and leather from skinning. But for my mage? Not very often.

So unless I’ll find something else that shows that I a crusader title is crucial to me to perform as a raider, I’ll stick to my promise to myself: to only do those dailies when I feel up for it. And I don’t feel guilty about it for a second.

Of course you can set up goals for yourself, goals that sometimes include a bit of grinding, that you’re willing to go through because the sweetness of the reward. But feeling guilty if you're not sticking to the original plan? Isn’t that way out of proportion?

Reasons for feeling guilt
The only reason I can see for feeling guilt is if you’re breaking the social contract you’ve made with other people in game. If I would turn up to raids in last minute, demanding a summon, without being repaired, without having flasks and proper gear, without knowing the tactics. Or even worse, if I’d stand people up, not coming to an appointment, without giving any explanation or making efforts to get in touch with them. If that would happen I’d rightfully feel ashamed at myself.

But feeling guilt over not throwing yourself into the time sinks handed out by the developers to keep us occupied until the next patch? No, just no.

Dear Anea, dear Larisa and dear anyone else who has a tendency to fall into the guilt trap: Get out of there immediately! Enjoy whatever activity you’ve picked instead of the daily grind. Be stronger! You deserve to be happy, whatever you’ve chosen to do with your game time.

Twisted again!

It looks as if Larísa is about to be twisted again.

This Friday, July 3, I’ve been invited to participate in a round table discussion at the Twisted Nether Blogcast Show, which will be sent in a live transmission.

We’ll be discussing the noble art of class balancing, but also pondering upon the news about the upcoming 3.2 patch. This will indeed be an interesting exercise, since it’s normally not the kind of topics I think or rant very much about at the PPI.

Hopefully I’ll have something to say about it anyway, and if not, you can at least enjoy the wisdom and wits of the other guests: Patrick Beja from How I WoW, Big Bear Butt from the blog with the same name and Bre, former hostess of TN and keeper of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick.

The show is scheduled at a “Euro-friendly” hour, which means that it will be sent at 9 PM European game time. For US people this equivalence to noon PST or 3 PM EST.

If you want to listen to the show live and participate with questions from the chat room, you can check out the details about what to do and where to go here.

If you can’t attend the show but want to listen afterwards, you’ll be able to do so the following week, when the recording will be released.

And now I’d better go back to updating myself on the patch notes...

A flood of epics doesn’t make up for lack of content

I like sweets. Salt liquorice, chocolate, fudge, I’m all in for it – as long as there’s about a handful or two of it. Then I hit a wall and my pleasure is suddenly turned into nausea.

I wonder if it isn’t a bit like that with epic loot. Don’t we eventually reach a point, when the abundance of it is about as sickening as spending too long time in a toy store and you desperately long for some fresh air?

Badge changes
I come to think of this as we’re approaching the 3.2 patch. The player community is eagerly waiting to see what Blizzard has in mind for us this time. It’s like an extra visit from Santa Claus coming in the middle of summer. The real Christmas gifts won’t come until the next expansion, but knowing that we’ll get cranky if he keeps us waiting too long, he drops by to give us some presents for consolation.

This time the bag of Santa Claus seems to be filled with sweet purple delights. He has sprinkled every heroic instance with badges that can be converted into shiny epic gear. Some players get a bit grumpy about it, others will cheer since they’ll finally be able to sparkle (or at least they think they will, how little do they know!)

I look at it and I shrug a bit. As far as I can tell it doesn’t change much to my gameplay. My motivation for raiding has very little to do with loot. It’s all about the challenge and experience, about seeing development and improvement, for myself and for my group. And I think I share that philosophy with most of my fellow raiders. I don’t think anyone of us would be interested in swapping one of our 25 man raids for a night of farming 5-man heroics for badges, even though it would give more gear return compared to the time investment we’ve made. Raiding is simply more fun than farming heroics. And we’ll also get a new raid instance that will take over now that we’re about to finish Ulduar. So basically it’s business as usual.

Lack of content
But at the same time I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for the “casual” players, who are supposed to be the ones that will benefit most from this change. Yeah, I feel sorry for them. Even if the sweets, the easy-attainable epics – may seem nice at a first glance, they’ll just give you a bad stomach and leave you with a feeling of emptiness after a while.

What players want most of all isn’t purples. It’s content. If you’re a somewhat serious player, but have with real life obligations and priorities which prevent you from joining a raiding guild, your options are rather limited to say the least, especially if you prefer group PvE to PvP or the chase for vanity items and achievements.

You can’t run the current five-man instances more than every so many times before they turn into a boring grind. The achievement versions can keep up your interest and challenge for a while, but at least the harder ones can be something of a pain to find a pug for.

It doesn’t take too long at level 80 before you’re basically overgeared for all Northrend instances. The only exception is Occulus, where gear didn’t matter, but that’s about to change as well.

This isn’t exactly new; it has been the state of the game for a while, but with the improved badge loot the situation will become even worse. Running the 5-mans is about as exciting as to grind elementals, pick herbs or solo Deadmines.

The better gear you get the less excitement will you get from the process of obtaining this gear. You’re eating candy but all you get is pain in your stomach.

New content
Admittedly, some new content will be offered in the patch. We’ll get one new five man instance, and one new instance is certainly better than none. But still – the “new car scent” in it will wear off pretty quickly, and definitely not last us until the next expansion.

So is there anything good in the upcoming changes for the serious player with casual playtime? Well, I’ve spotted one thing so far. I think the findings from wow.com about the possibility of prolonging the raid lockout up to two weeks are interesting.

Provided that you can make the concept work practically (so you for instance don’t risk to get locked into a failed pug-save longer than necessary), it opens new possibilities for all players who can’t raid more than one night a week. They can form decent guilds with likeminded and have a chance to make progress in raid instances in their own pace, thus getting access to new content.

This is really a good thing. Blizzard has moved from the “none-or-everything” philosophy, making it possible for raiders to come in different shapes. There’s certainly something for everyone.

Still: I would have preferred to see more carrots and fewer sweets in 3.2. It would make me a happier player in the long run. We’ll see what the future will show. Maybe all gifts from Santa Claus haven’t been revealed yet?