Hard mode excitement and an “I’m a noob moment”

This weekend we finally killed Hodir. Or rather: brought him back to his senses, if I’ve got the story right. To be fair, we’ve done it many times before, but this was the first time we did it in hard mode. And that’s quite a different thing.

Level of happiness
I know the player base is split in their views about the concept of hard modes. Some players couldn’t care less, thinking that Blizzard is cheating. They would rather have new encounters, harder bosses which put up proper resistance from the beginning. Doing the same thing over again with just a bit more of health, more damage taken or lesser time available doesn’t give enough variety to be pleased.

Personally I’m of the opposite view though. It’s a cleaver way to make sure that most players have a fair chance to have a ride at most of the attractions in the amusement park, while at the same time offering some real challenge for players who enjoy the process and efforts of progressive raiding. There’s no way that Blizzard can keep every single player happy about their decisions, since our wishes are so disparate. Hard mode is a compromise, and a pretty good one.

So, “killing” a boss we’ve killed before, but in a new way, how does it count on the scale of experienced raiding pleasure? Very high actually, much higher than I would have expected. There is a distinct correlation between how much effort an encounter requires and what level of happiness I reach when we succeed.

The new bosses in ToC may offer better loot, but they won’t offer the same “kill kick”, at least not in normal mode. When we downed them as they arrived, one new every week, it didn’t feel much like progress, more like “meh”, was that all there was to it? They lacked the genuine flavour of a first kill, a flavour that Hodir had, even though this was far from the first time we saw him go down.

Mental blockage
Of course the sweetness of this kill was increased by the fact that I’ve had (and still have to be honest) so much trouble with the execution of this encounter for my own part. Moving around while casting has never been my strong side. I’ve got some seriously bad habits and badly chosen key bindings, which will take a long time to change, if it’s even doable at all.

Hodir is the ultimate moving fight, and there have been nights when I’ve literally been crying after the raid, shreading real tears out of pure frustration over my own shortcomings. There’s no way you can escape the hard facts from the wws chart, mercilessly showing that you’re doing about half the damage you’re supposed to do as a mage, barely above the tanks. “Will Adrenaline EVER be able to do this boss as long as they’re dragging around Larísa in the raid” is a question I’ve asked myself more than once. And obviously the answer was: Yes. And at least for the kill attempt, it seemed as if did a fair amount of damage and wasn’t dragged at all, if the Recount report someone whispered to me was correct. This gives me hope. Maybe I can finally overcome my mental blockage about this guy and move ahead from now?

The raid moved ahead anyway. Hodir is behind us and our eyes are now fixed on our next hard mode targets: Thorim and Freya. (Steelbreaker and XT already done). Once again we’re on a countdown timer, since the news arrived last week about Icecrown incoming in a not too far distant future. Will we be able to see Algalon before it arrives and our focus inevitably will be drawn towards the new raid content?

Still high on the spirit from a good progression night I can’t say anything but: yes!

Anything is possible.

PS The night wasn’t all about success. I also contained one of those “I’m a noob moments”, so embarrassing that I have to share it with you to get it out of my system. It was at 19.59, one minute from our official raid start and we were all assembled, just about to buff up. I hurried to throw up a mage table before my fellow mage had got a chance to do the same. After all my biscuits taste better than his, right? It was just this thing that I didn’t make any mage table at all. I did a portal to Dalaran, which looks exactly the same. A second later, there was a “WTF”, and a couple of players were FAR out of range for any buffing whatsoever. And of course we didn’t have any warlock in the raid. You could almost think that it was an evil prank from me, but I’m afraid it wasn’t. Just a miss click. A very unfortunate one.

/blush

A look at Blizzard’s new website

A couple of days ago Blizzard launched a new corporate website. While the looks are fine – bluish, shiny, polished, better looking than the WoW community site, I wasn’t equally impressed by the content. I don’t think it’s to ask too much to expect a website to be fresh and up-to-date at the point of its launch.

Take Blizzard Insider for instance, the official newsletter. The last issue published is from March. Not exactly what you could expect. The podcast is slightly better, but is still dated July, when the discussion was about the new Coliseum instance. You would have expected another one to come out by now, marketing Cataclysm.

The truth is that if you want to keep yourself updated about game changes you’re way better off listening to fan podcasts such as WoW Insider Show and Twisted Nether.

Another embarrassing corner of the site is the press center. The last press release is dated July 22. Seriously, hasn’t anything of importance happened since then? Like… Blizzcon? Expansion plans? There probably were press releases included in the mega sized press kit (300 mb), which I really don’t bother to upload to my computer. But those releases should have been published straight off as well, for easy access and the possibility to find it in searches.

Mission statement
However: there is one part of the corporate site that melts my heart and makes me forgive the flaws and that is the mission statement of Blizzard: “Dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences...ever.”

This beautiful declaration is followed by eight core values, the “principles and beliefs that have guided our company throughout the years. These values are reflected in employees' decisions and actions every day”, to use Blizzard’s words.

I’ve seen quite a few documents of this kind during my years as employed in different organisations. Usually I find them boring, vague and so unspecific that they could relate to any kind of business. Because of this they’re rather useless. There’s nothing that connects them to your work day and the different sorts of issues you come across in your job. You know the drill. “Service”. “Trust”. “Innovation”. “Responsibility”. Yada, yada, yada.

The core values of Blizzard are a bit different. They’re more direct and I could vividly imagine that they actually have an influence on the company culture and eventually also at the direction they’re taking in their decision making.

I like every one of those values and I suggest you read it for yourself. I’ll give two of my favourites as a sample.

”Commit To Quality

“Blizzard polish” doesn’t just refer to our gameplay experiences, but to every aspect of our jobs. We approach each task carefully and seriously. We seek honest feedback and use it to improve the quality of our work. At the end of the day, most players won’t remember whether the game was late -- only whether it was great.”

Reading this I feel bad about the constant craving for patches from the community: “OMFG why don’t they give us Icecrown NOW, we’re bored!” Actually I’m rather happy if they’re a bit slow and take their time to finish new content. I really don’t want Blizzard to compromise with this core value – which actually is rather brave and unusual in a world where the product lifecycles seem to spin faster and faster.

And here is my number one:

“Embrace your inner geek

Everyone here is a geek at heart. Cutting-edge technology, comic books, science fiction, top-end video cards, action figures with the kung-fu grip…. Whatever it is they’re passionate about, it matters that each employee embraces it! Their unique enthusiasm helps to shape the fun, creative culture that is Blizzard Entertainment.”

Seriously. A company which encourages geekiness and expects their employees to be “geeks at heart”, can you do anything but love it?

Dear Blizzard. Your corporate website definitely has some flaws, but as long as you keep embracing your inner geeks you can rest assured that I’ll remain a fan girl.

Tickled Pink: Should Ghostcrawler become a ghost?

As you probably know, the Lead Systems Designer for Warcraft has been a regular presence on the forums for at least a year. Recently, he stated he was going to leave the forums because he felt that his active participation was doing more harm than good. Even more recently, he wrote to make it clear that he wasn't leaving entirely, only being more choosy about his participation. Are you Tickled Pink with this situation? Tell us in the comments.

Elnia

Frankly, the whole situation has developed into a negative public relations experience for Blizzard. I agree that Ghostcrawler has done a great job of acting as liaison for the company. But the hue and cry that greeted his initial announcement reveals the chaos going on at Blizzard.

One of the most fundamental principles of management is that you never let a person become identified with or essential to a position. Everyone is replaceable. Effective organizations are run as systems. That doesn't mean that they are uncaring or unfeeling; it doesn't mean inflexibility. But it does mean that if someone dropped dead tomorrow someone else should be able to step in and take over with little or no loss of core performance. Actors know well how being identified with a famous role can destroy their career; it's called being typecast. When an employee becomes closely identified with a position it came be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to replace them. Experience shows that whatever the short term benefit of having that "special person" in a job it's not worth the long-run damage.

The real problem is that Ghostcrawler has done his job too well. There was such a hunger among the fan base for someone, anyone, to communicate to them the underlying rationale and philosophies of the developers that Ghostcrawler has become a celebrity. When WoW.com did their tee shirt spoof "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony" the demand for the shirts was so heavy they simply posted the graphics file online so that people could make their own. One only needs to do a Google Image search for 'Ghostcrawler' to see the problem.

He's an employee. It's very bad when you middle management employees are showing up in Google search results.

If I were Ghostcrawler's boss at Blizzard I'd pull out the ban hammer and use it on him. The role of being the developer spokesman has turned into a role much larger than what anybody thought. Right now, intentional or not, this has become a situation about Ghostcrawler. The focus should be on Blizzard. It needs to be clear that while a developer liaison speaks for the developers it's Blizzard the company that is doing it as part of its customer service and/or community relations effort. This perspective has been lost.

Once a situation becomes about what's best for one person and not what's best for the team something has gone seriously awry. Someone high in the company needs to step in and clean up. It's time for someone else to do the job.

Larisa:

Oh, I’m tickled by Ghostcrawler. But my position is quite the opposite of Elnia’s.

In my view this guy, or should I rather say phenomena, is everything a PR manager could wish for. How many companies and organizations don’t try to give their brand a human face, to reach out to the audience, to communicate? And how many of those don’t fail since the assigned person clearly lacks charisma, talent and a genuine interest for the task?

Ghostcrawler has all of this – and above all – he’s got a persona that the audience can identify with. While the costume dressed top-managers of Blizzard-Activision would turn off the target audience whenever they appeared (everyone thinking: “they’re only in it for the profit”), Ghostcrawler has the opposite effect. He shows up slightly overweight, a little bit geeky, in some badly fitting out-of-fashion t-shirt. He could easily come up in the how-I-look-in-real-life thread on our guild forum. There’s no doubt that he’s “one of us”.

What adds to his credibility is his writing style, which has a flavour of authenticity. Even if his texts may have passed under the eyes of a PR person, it isn’t obvious; they aren’t overly polished or diplomatic until boredom. You get the feeling that he writes whatever comes to his mind. He’s sharing his personal views, sometimes with a spice of humour and a little bit of edge. While making a clear border of how much the community can expect to influence the game (we don’t always know our own best), Ghostcrawler also displays a genuine interest in what we have to say, as long as we express our views in an intelligent, non-insulting manner.

He is performing an act of balance, where every single comma he utters may be discussed and analyzed. And he’s doing it excellently.

In short: Ghostcrawler is a gem. He means far more than Ozzy Osbourne for the promotion of WoW and I wouldn’t be surprised if the marketing specialists at Blizzard took part in the decision to let him become a spokesman. For what I know it could even been on their initiative, to make sure that Blizzard wouldn’t appear too distant and anonymous to their customer base.

But what about the danger of depending on one person that Elnia warns for? Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Ghostcrawler isn’t the only celebrity at Blizzard, not the only employee who players know by name. And if he one day would find another employer and leave, I’m pretty sure they would scan their human resources and see if they could find someone willing to take his dropped mantle.

I can’t help wondering though why he’s called by his nickname and not by his real name. Is it for security reasons only? Tradition? Actually it opens up for new possibilities. I come think about the comic series The Phantom, who is said to be “immortal”, but in fact is a persona, taken by several different persons.

What if there would appear a new Ghostcrawler the day when the current one has had enough and left the scene? Just hand over the t-shirt, make sure he’s got the right body shape and send him out on his mission.

Ghostcrawler – the ghost that never dies. It isn’t likely to happen, but I must admit that the thought tickles me.

Defining 'Fair' in Loot Distrubution

For the first time playing Warcraft, doing hundreds of PUGs, I was involved in my first real piece of loot drama.

It was a true pick up group with none of the players knowing each other before hand. We were doing the Coren Direbrew daily. What happened is that both the Brewfast Ram and the Direbrew remote dropped. We all agreed to roll 'need' on these two items, except two of us. I passed on the remote because I already had it; our party leader passed on both items because she already had them.

As you can see below, the same person won them both with an identical roll of 93! Some luck, huh.





This luck did not sit well with our group leader who insisted that it wasn't 'fair'. She told the person who won the two items to give the remote to the second highest roller. A discussion ensued, which I did not take part in, over whether this was fair or not. In the end, the person who won both the loot drops gave the remote to the second highest roller, which happened to be our tank. I didn't say anything because the result didn't effect me.

But even as the discussion was going on I was bothered by the idea that giving the remote to the second highest roller was 'fair'. It bugs me still.

Typically my response to loot dramas is that the party members should decide on the loot rules before hand. But the loot from Coren Direbrew is unique in the sense that both the remote and the ram are vanity items. It's not gear. The Direbrew event is also unusual because it is the one time in game where the members group up to increase the party's chance of seeing the loot. Everyone can summon him once a day so there are five chances for the party to see the loot.

Further, both of the ram and the remote are rare drops. Wowhead estimates the remote dropping 4% of the time and the ram dropping 1.6% of the time. A fight where both of them drop is extremely rare. To have a fight where both of them drop and the same person wins both is extraordinarily rare. And the odds of the same person winning with the exact same roll are out of sight.

So I can forgive our party for not discussing the loot rules before hand because frankly it would have never occurred to me that that this situation would come up.

To me, the person who won both the items just got lucky. Extremely lucky. I don't think it was fair to ask him to give them up. On the other hand, we all pitched in our summons to to make the party work. There is a sense in which it was fairer for that loot to be distributed among all the party; one person didn't 'hog' all the good stuff.

I do wonder though what would have been the reaction of our team if our lucky fellow had won both items on two separate fights. Certainly no one would have complained if it had happened on two separate days (with two different groups). After all, if our dear leader didn't win her mount and her remote in the same fight then it must have been under one of the other scenarios. Why does the fact that the drop happened in the same fight make it any different than if it were two separate fights or two separate groups.

Our lucky fellow still has his ram; I'm sure he's happy about that. But I can't help but think that it was he who got the raw deal. He won both rolls fair and square. If I had been in his position I don't think I would have given up the remote.

How I almost started to care about the Harvest Festival

Fitz at Healer Trek gives the Harvest Festival an F grade. “Worst holiday in the game, no doubt about it. If you find a reason to care about Harvest Festival let me know why. I'd love to know.”

Well, as a matter of fact I almost started to like the event when I stumbled up it this weekend. I say “almost”, because in the end it was a fail. I’ll tell you the story.

The yellow exclamation mark
It all started where all our adventures in Azeroth begin, with a shiny yellow exclamation mark. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Dun Morogh, I had just come online and was about to take the usual quick jump from entrance of Ironforge down to the Brewfest camp for the daily booze party, when I noticed a new guy standing there, begging for my attention.

I consider myself pretty much well updated on what’s going on in game. The combination of excessive blog reading and regular browsing of wow.com and MMO-champion is usually enough to keep in touch. But this guy had slipped through the net. He was talking about some sort of harvest celebration and had a mission for me as well.

I draw the conclusion that this must be part of some sort of seasonal event, which probably gave some fancy fluff rewards, if nothing else another pet to my collection. But instead of following my instincts, looking up a “how-to” guide to complete the Harvest Festival in the most efficient way, I decided to do it differently this time. I would approach this the way I played WoW when I started in February 2007. I would follow my instincts and let the quest take me wherever it wanted to. I would explore the world rather than conquer it.

Of course there was a difference now to my first stumbling steps in Azeroth. I knew the world a little bit better. So the journey to this Uther’s Tomb in Western Plagueland was pretty straightforward.

As I was riding the gryphon, I checked out the achievement tab for the holidays. Even if I didn’t want to use any Internet guide for this event, I thought I could check out the achievements for it. That would give me an idea about where this adventure would bring me and didn’t feel like cheating. But I soon found out that there wasn’t any achievement at all for it. I decided to not be disappointed about it. It only meant that there was no tick-box stress luring on me. I could enjoy it as a casual, relaxed adventure.

Disappointed
Finding the tomb wasn’t hard, even without addons and guides. I had a vague memory of where it was situated, and it turned out that I was right. It was even included in the world map, so I shouldn’t have worried about it.

I approached the place, curious and a little bit excited. I had no idea about what would happen. Was there to be some phasing? Would I pick up the next quest in a long chain? Would a ghost appear and talk to me, maybe some cool voice acting performance? This could be anything!

I guess I don’t need to tell you that I was pretty disappointed when I did my clicking and the only difference I could notice was that the quest was completed. Oh well, there would surely be a nice follow-up once I got back to Ironforge to turn it in. The guy would have another mission for me, and so would the ghosts hanging around the place by the dinner table. Once I turned in this quest there would be a jungle of yellow exclamation marks for me. And I wouldn’t have a clue about what anyone of them meant. Oh joy!

Little did I know.

I received my 12 gold, a crap book and a “thank you”. No yellow mark. Maybe this was the kind of quest giver who wanted to hold a little speech and wander around doing a little piece of acting before he told me what he wanted. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing.

The food table
Then I turned around, looking at the ghost party, starting to click whatever I could, desperately hoping that there was something more I could do, now that I finally had come to my senses, using a “let’s see what this leads me to” mindset rather than a “let’s get over with this grind” mindset as I approached an in-game event.

Yeah, there was a firework vendor. But his assortment wasn’t impressive to be honest. And then there was this food on the table. I inspected it suspiciously. This was the kind of food that probably would have come handy when I was levelling my first character, provided that it wasn’t a mage, who brings his own. But for me – to be honest it was just another bag filler. The only fun thing about it was that the supply was a bit limited. If I took enough of fruit from the table, the plate would disappear. This amused me for a second, for some reason it tickled my sense of wardrobe role playing. I felt immersed as I wondered around, tasting all the goodies of the table.

And that was the end of my Harvest Festival experience.

Reasons to like it
Fitz gave the event an F-grade and considering my disappointment I’m not far from doing the same. However, there is one little reason to like this event that I would like to point out: the pleasure of change.

The longer I play WoW, the more I’ve come to appreciate anything that isn’t exactly the same from day to day. The Darkmoon Faire moving around. One day it’s there – the next it’s not. There is a point in those holiday events coming and going: it gives variety and a sense of the passing time.

For this reason, I even visited the Pirate day event in Booty Bay! I’m not a huge pirate fan myself and the fun of speaking as a pirate is beyond my sense of humour. The whole thing felt shallow and provided little content, most of all it appeared to be a lag party on the rooftop. But nevertheless – it was a change, a welcome break in the everyday life of Azeroth. Those things definitely helps to make the world come alive – especially if you choose to approach it from a casual, exploring, deliberately inefficient way rather than grinding them.

I almost started to care about the Harvest Festival. Given just a few follow-up quests and a little bit more of content, it could have been a little bit of fun.

Defying the Jante Law in the WoW Community

Have you ever heard about the Jante Law? Unless you're from one of the Nordic countries, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't . If you're Scandinavian on the other hand, I bet you have.

It goes like this:

• Don't think that you are special.
• Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
• Don't think that you are smarter than us.
• Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
• Don't think that you know more than us.
• Don't think that you are more important than us.
• Don't think that you are good at anything.
• Don't laugh at us.
• Don't think that anyone of us cares about you.
• Don't think that you can teach us anything.
  

This "law" was created by the Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose in the novel A fugitive crosses his tracks, which was written in the 30's. I hardly know anyone that has ever read the book and I think quite few of my fellow countrymen even know about the origins of the Jante law. But the law has gotten a life of its own and become a saying that is commonly referred to.

In the novel, the ten commands are used to describe the mentality in a small Danish town called Jante, where no one is anonymous and no one is allowed to stick out from the crowd.

However, I think that not only those who have lived in small communities can recognize those attitudes. And that why it has become so established. Starting at school, we are many who have relentlessly been picked upon as soon as we've dared to differ from the "normality" in any way - by excelling, or by daring to believe in ourselves. We learned to arrange ourselves into the line, aiming to reach the roof rather than the stars, so that no one would hold it against us.

I've always lived in the maybe somewhat naïve illusion that the American culture was different. I thought that rather than questioning and trying to pull down people who excel to Earth, you would encourage them and let yourself get inspired by their example. A sound and generous way of looking at success, with a mindset that "there's always room for more people on the top. If he can do it, I can as well".

Lately I've began to wonder though. I would have thought that the WoW community was pretty much influenced by the US approach to the world. After all, without any scientific evidence, I would argue that there are more US bloggers than European, and the visitor statistics for PPI tell the same story. Blizzcon are mostly held in US and all the WoW podcasts I know of are broadcasted from the other side of the ocean.

But how is the atmosphere? Look at some of the responses that Ixobelle has gotten from his Blizzard Crusade adventure. Look at some of the trolls frequenting Gevlon's inn. Look at the constant picking on Ensidia - regardless of if they succeed or don't succeed to be number 1, you can bet that there will be something to complain about. Look at the forums. Look at how Ghostcrawler finally has decided to shut up because he can't take any more of it.

No matter what crazy achievement, no matter what astounding performances players and bloggers and developers do, as soon as they dare to tell the WoW community about it, you can bet that the Jante Law will trigger and they'll get a cascade of criticism thrown in their face. Sure, there will be a few cheers and some applauses as well. But far too often they won't be heard because it's owerwritten by the loud voices crying: "fail, fail".

So what can we do about it? Well, I'm humble enough not to think that I can change the mentality of millions of WoW player. (Or maybe I've been too infected by the Jante Law, so I don't believe in my own capacity in that matter.)

But at least I can keep an eye on myself. I've got a choice. I don't need to join the villagers of Jante. I can encourage excellence whenever I see it. I can believe in the people who build this wonderful world - gamedesigners, bloggers, guild leaders and ordinary players. I can believe in myself.

The Jante Law will only rule us if we allow it to do so.

Tickled Pink: Brewfest – Happy Hour or Horrible Hangover?

We’re halfway through the biggest booze holiday of the year, Brewfest. The inhabitants of Azeroth are gathering to swing their goblets. They’re running rams, engaging into bar fights and filling our bags with jugs, silly hats and all sorts of crap. Above all they’re more or less constantly drunk, pending on a scale between tipsy and smashed, depending on how long it was since they did their last achievement.

There has been a lot of enthusiasm for Brewfest in the blogosphere the last few days. Several bloggers have pointed it out as their favourite holiday event. There are cheers and happy cry-outs all over the place (with one exception).

Since The Pink Pigtail Inn is run as a virtual pub, you could expect the innkeeper and bartender to join the choir, praising this celebration to Bacchus, which definitely will increase the sales of this business considerably. But strangely enough our landlords don’t seem to be entirely pleased. Someone is grumbling in the corner.

Let’s hear what they have to say about it! It’s time for another Tickled Pink.

Larísa:

I remember the first time I got drunk in WoW. I was shocked when my character started to wobble. And also utterly fascinated. Such a simple mechanism and yet, it was so realistic!

However the entertainment value of this faded off pretty quickly. I guess it’s a bit like in real life. Our enthusiasm for getting drunk normally decreases as the years goes by. We don’t get excited about it anymore. Only tired.

This year is the first time that I participated in Brewfest. I never bothered about it on the two previous opportunities I had, since the all-year-round-achievement-dragon wasn’t available at that time.

And innkeeper as I am, I must admit that my feelings for this event are mixed.

On the positive side, I like the situation of the Alliance camp, right outside of Ironforge. I’ve always felt at home in the winter landscape of Don Morogh, and with all those dwarf connections, it fits in very well. I like the way they’ve set it up. The festive atmosphere, the little happenings, the wagons and salesmen, all those things give a feeling of what Darkmoon Faire could be like if it hadn’t been deserted by the developers. The boss fight in BRD gets quite repetitive, but the transport service to get there is very charming. It reminds me of a TV show from my childhood, John Blund (Sandmann in Germany), where a little gnome travelled the world in a space rocket.

The ram ride is OK. It’s nice to compete with yourself and see how many rounds you can get out of the given time. Still I can’t get out the idea of my head that I’m whipping the poor animal until he’s bleeding. I know it’s not what actually is happening, but it’s what my brain makes out of the animation and the sound effects.

But Brewfest isn’t just fun. As a matter of fact it has given me a bit of a hangover, and then I’m only half way through it. Not only because of the extremely grindy character of this event (how ironic isn’t it that you have to log in more or less every single day, playing like an addict to get your achievements done?) It also makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because of the shameless glorification of heavy drinking.

Read me right. I’m not an absolutist in real life, I’m not against drinking as such. Not at all, as long as it is moderate. I love to have a glass of wine or a jug of beer when I’m having a nice meal in company with friends.

On the other hand I also know about the negative sides of alcohol. I know more than I’d like to know, having a close relative who is an alcoholic. It’s painful and I assure you it’s not something I like to be reminded of, especially not in a game that I play to be entertained and escape reality.

I’m also a bit concerned about the young audience of WoW. All those kids who are playing – what kind of view on drinking will they get? The more you drink, the more achievements you get and you’d better get completely smashed to succeed? You don’t even get a hangover!

I’m not asking for Blizzard to cancel the whole event because of my concerns. They’ve already taken away a couple of quests from the players on the EU realms for political reasons, which I think is silly. Those quests weren’t any worse than anything else at Brewfest.

But perhaps it would be possible to make some smaller adjustments, so the event is pointing towards responsible drinking rather than get-smashed-drinking? Adding an appropriate hangover debuff after you’ve done your achievements could be a start.

Elnia:

Like Larisa, I too have some social concerns that Brewfest is not simply a festival of good cheer but disturbingly a festival that glorifies drinking to excess. Especially in a game that's rated for teens, and we know people even younger than teen play it, it does seem unfortunate. Yet I can't help but feel a little hypocritical. After all, the last time I looked at the statistics on my achievement panel it showed that I had killed more than 30000 virtual creatures. Maybe this simulated killing is killing to excess. Looked at more broadly, there are other aspects of the game that are excessive: bosses that stand three to four times taller than a night elf, grinding for a rare mount for three months, the whole motif that we puny little characters will defeat the Lich King and save the world from the Titans. There are elements to Warcraft that are exaggerated, cartoonish. From this broader perspective the drinking and drunkenness that goes on in Brewfest is in line with the overall character of the game.

I also find my worries about Brewfest inconsistent with my position regarding violence in the game in another respect. There is solid body of academic work that disproves the notion video game violence leads to violence outside the game. If I am persuaded by that research, then it seems improbable that simulated drinking would also have the out of game affects I fear.

Yet despite all my logical reasoning Brewfest bugs me; it does. I think Larisa hit on the key point of why it still bugs me. Both of us have had family members who have been touched by the curse of alcohol abuse. We know what that's like; we have experienced first hand the social, psychological, and physical trauma it causes. One doesn't think about alcohol the same way after staying up all night making sure a passed out relative doesn't choke on their own vomit. That isn't cool. Seeing my own character drunk hits too close to home; it brings up too many bad memories. Even the cool Om-pa-pa music can't remove the sour taste.

There are lines from the Tina Turner song "What's Love got to do with it" that go,

It's physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
that it means more than that.

Sometimes being ignorant is a really difficult thing to do. Physically, logically, getting drunk in the game seems no more harmful than anything else about the game. Yet subjectively, intuitively, it means more than that.