Kitty Cat Survival Tactics

I don’t normally follow Blog Azeroth but I happened to pop over there looking for a link to something else and I found that a topic up for this week was how to survive as a melee DPS. I actually believe that surviving as a melee DPS is very simple.

RUN!

No. I’m serious. I leveled as a Boomkin. When one is playing caster DPS one basically stands around tossing spells at the boss. Occasionally one has to pick up an addie or chase after the boss if the tank kites him somewhere. But as caster DPS you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to the nitty gritty of the fight. You toss up Hurricane or Blizzard and let it channel on the trash.

As a consequence when I switched my spec to feral at level 80 to play cat I had a difficult time in instances. I would die. Often. My instincts were to just hang in there, mangling and shredding everything. Although I didn’t know it at the time I actually had the perfect attitude for a tank. Only I wasn’t geared as a tank. The results were predictable.

What I had to learn through harsh experience is the cardinal rule of feral. A dead cat does no damage. You lay there on the ground pushing up the daisies, pining for the fjords, and your dps is exactly zero. You are a deceased cat.

My first reaction to this mystifying problem of dying was to wonder where the hell the healer was because wasn’t it the healers job to heal me through all the damage. But even I had to concede that the healers main reasonability was to the tank, not me. So the next thing I started to do was to use various tools at my disposal such as Lifeblood from my herbalism profession and Barkskin whenever it was off CD. This helped.

But I still was dying more than I liked. Then a funny thing happened while I was in the forum. I was playing with a bad tank who couldn’t hold arrgo. The result was that I was chasing the mobs and the bosses every which way. But I noticed something odd. I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t doing as much damage because I couldn’t land my power moves but I wasn’t dying. And when I considered the issue in a break between bosses I realized that yes, there was a reason why I was living on the run.

I wasn’t standing in the colored goop.

And this dear readers is when I learned the secret to melee dps survival:

run the instance with a bad tank.

Here is the long and the short of it. As melee dps you should only be taking killing damage in two situations. (1) You got arrgo from the boss or the tank failed to pick up adds. (2) You stood in the goop/got caught in the aoe. I have yet to be in an encounter where the melee dps took damage—damage that a proper healer can’t heal through—unless one of these two conditions are true.

In situation number one the best solution is to run…with your toon right out of the instance. Because either your tank doesn’t know what the heck he or she is doing or you significantly out gear them.

In situation number two running is your best option as well. Almost all aoe can be ran away from if you know it’s coming and it’s your responsibility as melee to know it’s coming. Second, running away from the fight is a very obvious signal to the healer that you are hurt. Healers can get tunnel vision too and forget about the dps. More times than I can count I have fled the fight with less than 10% health and within seconds got zapped by a heal. The healer may have even had me on their radar and those precious seconds were the difference between a failed heal on their part and me living.

I understand that in some people’s minds running is a cowardly thing to do. Let’s be honest here. What the worst that could happen if you run away? You don’t do any more damage. Well, if you are dead you are not going to do any damage either. So if you run away you are no worse off than you would have been if you had hung in there a second or two and died.

Like all rules this has an exception. If you are at 1% on the boss hang in there and sacrifice you body. One or two seconds more of damage might prevent a wipe. If not, you gave it your best show and can hold you head up.

There is an old saying that “discretion is the better part of valor”. That’s the code of the melee dps. You first priority is to live. Dead cats do no damage. Although, based upon experience in party chat, they tend to tell a lot of tales.

What´s Your Cheerscore?

“LFM ICC 10. No achievement required, min 5k Cheerscore. PST for invite.”

Is this something we’ll see in the LFG channel in the future? Maybe. I don’t know if there will ever be a Cheerscore. But we need something more than just gear evaluations to make grouping with unknown players a bit smoother.

Different expectations
Recently there have been a lot of blogposts about the use of Gearscore and about the sometimes rather unrealistic demands that l33t players are making on their fellow PUGers. Once again we’re reminded about how the community consists of millions of players with wildly shifting expectations on the game, more or less successfully trying to coexist side by side in peace.

The problem isn’t new, but the new random dungeon system is bringing matters to a head. Some players are in this only for the badges, measuring the success of an instance run in the ratio of minutes/emblem.

Others are Looking for More, wanting to see some sort of group chemistry or even intimacy to not feel empty and unfulfilled.

Just like any other online dating service, Blizzard is trying to match players who they think would fit nicely together. However the matching so far seems to be based mostly on gear level, just like it already is.

The Gearscore addon has been popular for quite a while now as an instrument to quickly evaluate potential party members to try to make the best possible match. Spinksville wrote a very thoughtful and intelligent post about the reasons for using it. It isn’t necessarily the root of all evil, but actually quite handy.

But the majority of the recent voices in the blogosphere have expressed their utter contempt for not only this specific addon, but the mentality that it represents.

Matching mindsets
I believe that we partly can blame the rather clumsy matching and grouping system in WoW for those clashing worlds, the lack of group chemistry and the differing goals and expectations that create unnecessary conflicts. Gear’s fine, but it definitely doesn’t say everything about a player. Being social or not hasn’t got anything to do with purples.

There are extremely achievement-oriented, rather impatient players who don’t put up with less than perfection from their party, but are totally uninterested in a friendly banter, imba players who have blue gear, since they’re currently speedlevelling the new tanking character that their guild desperately needed. Or perhaps since they just admire Gevlon’s Ulduar adventures, considering overgearing a waste of time.

And there are players decked-out in purples, who are more social and chatty than they are hungry for boss kills, who happily would like to spend two hours whipping in a Hall of Reflections-pug as long as they had a good laugh doing so.

The challenge is to make sure that those different sorts of players aren’t grouped up together, but matched with other players with similar mindset. The question is: how do you make it happen?

The Cheerscore solution
Dw Redux is sick and tired of the silent runs where the only answer you’ll get if you write something in the party chat is “gogogogo”. He suggested an extra tick box: “looking for friends” or “willing to chat”. Maybe that’s the easiest thing to do. Let the talkative people play with each other and let the emblems/hour people have their fun.

But I’m also playing with the idea if it would be possible to make an addon to help you evaluate the social side of other players as easy and quickly as you can get a rough picture of their gear through Gearscore.

Everything we do in the game, every little piece of action we take, is recorded and kept in the seemingly endless Blizzard data base. Just look at the statistic page of your own character and you’ll get the picture! Would it be possible to make a rough picture of the play style of another person from some of those numbers? Maybe.

Let’s have a look at the social page for instance. Admittedly there isn't much information on it for the time being, but at least there is some. Until now Lar'isa has given out 175 hugs but she has never ever done a facepalm and only lol’d 11 times. It probably says something - and I'm afraid my own Gearscore would be far higher than my Cheerscore. Probably there are more social statistics available than the ones currently displayed. Probably they know very well not only how many hugs we've given out, but also how many we have recived. Those reciprocal hugs, shouldn’t they increase my Cheerscore? What else could be measured? The numbers of friends list you’re appearing on? The numbers of times you’ve sticked around after a wipe feast? You can probably come up with better ideas than I.

The question is of course: would it really matter in the end? The Gearscore mentality is widespread to say the least. Are there still enough Cheerscore people around to form a pug raid based on it? If you could choose between a highly rated Gearscore raid respectively a Cheerscore raid, which one would you pick?

Why I enjoy Vote Kicking

After almost three years of WoW playing I thought that I knew Larísa pretty well. I was aware of her strengths and weaknesses, I had a good picture of what in the game that makes her happy, excited, annoyed or bored and I was aware of how she would fit into a group.

Little did I know! It took the new random dungeon finder system to make me realize it. All this time there I had missed that there was a full-fledged Jerk living inside this seemingly merry little gnome, just waiting to be let out.

The transformation
Larísa the Patient. Even before the title appeared this used to be a good way to describe me in the game. I’ve always tried to look over the shortcomings of other people, focusing on whatever good side I could see in them, well aware of I too have less flattering sides. Until this very day Larísa has been the proud owner of a completely empty Ignore List. I guess I’ve just never encountered anyone who could put me in a truly aggressive mode. And of course I never dreamed of booting anyone from a group, either I was the leader or not.

The X-realm pugs changed it all. Suddenly I’m happily pushing this button that magically makes a trapdoor open in the floor, just as they did in old comics. And to my surprise I don’t feel bad or guilty about it for a second! All I sense is relief, a pleasure almost on par with some boss kills, making me happily exclaim in our guild chat: “Yay, I just vote kicked someone!”

So far it has happened twice. On both occasions the players who were kicked had key roles, as a tank respective as a healer. This probably added to the enjoyment.

You see, as a dps you’re taught from the very first day in game that you are easily replaceable, while tanks and healers should be worshiped and cuddled since they’re rare, easily offended and hard to swap out. The dps guy is a Nobody, as opposed to those Somebody healing and tanking people. If you have a Somebody in your group, you should just be grateful, compensating for whatever stupidity they show, since it might be hard to find someone to take their place.

But apparently there is a limit even to how much crap a dps Nobody is prepared to put up with. And when that line is crossed, it’s time to take action!

My vote kicks
The first Larísa initiated vote kick event took place in Culling of Stratholme. We had a sub-par tank who had given us a rather bumpy ride through the instance, constantly failing to pick up the adds, forcing us to use all our oh-shit-abilities as soon as they were up just to stay alive.

However, as we were heading down the stairs, this dk suddenly rushed away far ahead the party, aggroing a huge amount of mobs, without thinking for a second about where the healer was (far behind, out of sight of course). And as we ran in after the inevitable wipe, he did the same thing over again, not giving a thought about that the party was at half health, unbuffed and still out of sight. In my world, one error like this is acceptable, but two is not, especially not when the one who’s caused it apparently thought it was funny, judging from his lols in the party chat. I smiled as I initiated the vote kick. And it didn’t take us 15 seconds before we had a new tank. A proper one.

The second vote kick incident involved a healer in Oculus of all places. As we started the run, this guy began to ask for all sorts of achievements he wanted to do. Or “ask” is the wrong expression, he rather demanded it. The party was somewhat reluctant to obey, especially since some of the exclude-one-type-of-dragon achievements are a bit tricky and not so easily combined with the speed-run achievement. Realizing that he might not get every achievement on his wish list, the healer promptly stopped healing the tank, leaving him to die on the trash mobs. I was furious, if you can imagine such a thing as a furious pink pigtailed gnome. The vote-kick came up instantly and I didn’t hesitate for a second as I pushed the yes-button.

The benefits of vote kicking
Basically vote kicking should be something sad and regrettable, being a last resort, a measure used only in cases of emergency. Still I can’t help enjoying it, for several reasons. One is obviously that it solves an immediate problem. You have a player works in the opposite direction of the group. Remove him and you’ll reach your goals more easily without wasting your time and gold. Period. But apart from this, I think it gives us all the opportunity to let out some steam and aggression we’re carrying, either we know about it or not. It’s a bit like hitting a punching bag. And finally it knits the remaining group together. Vote kicking is a team building activity.

So now the secret is out. Larísa can be a Jerk when she has to. She even enjoys it!
The ignore list remains empty however, for some reason.

The Porn Star and the PUG

The following post contains mature themes and language that may be offensive.

Even now I feel slightly awkward publicly admitting that a porn star changed my life. It was one of those boring evenings surfing the web where one news article led to another news article that caused me to eventually land on the web site of AIM, the adult industry medical health foundation. The web site of Sharon Mitchell. Five years ago I did not know anything about Sharon Mitchell, the porn industry, or an important truth about myself.

The Woman of a Thousand Fucks

In the porn industry Sharon Mitchell is legendary. She appeared in more than 2000 sex movies and has won every major adult industry award that exists. What makes her interesting compared to other adult entertainers is that after a twenty year career in the business she left to advocate for the health and well being of the performers. What makes her interesting to me is the reason why she left.

Stumbling around on the site I discovered an interview that she gave shortly after she left the business. An interview no longer available on-line but which I still have saved to my disk drive. Reminiscing about her career she said, “Looking back I think I fell for attention. I was performing acts of intimacy without the intimacy and that kept me from love for a long time.”

Having a Zen moment is no trite phrase. Those words crashed upon my consciousness; a tidal wave of truth exposing the foundation of my existence; laid bare the bedrock of my love life. In a flash my whole life cleared and I realized that what was true in the deepest heart of a whore was true for me too. That I too had been guilty of falling for attention and confusing it with intimacy. In my case that attention wasn’t sexual; it was about intelligence, competency, success in my career. A different brand of poison. Attention is not attraction which is not intimacy which is not love.

The Pornography Business

In what is coming to be a pattern Spinks is arriving at insights one step ahead of me. In regards to the new Looking for Group tool she writes, “Unshackling the social side of guilds from the group game may be one of the most long sighted advances any MMO of this generation has accomplished.” A statement that is about as close as one can get to a feisty defense of the pornography business.

Because unshackling sex from intimacy is the core of the porn industry. That’s it’s purpose, that’s it goal, that it’s aim. Some will argue that this has always been true for the consumers of porn; Sharon’s key insight is that this divorce is equally true for the performers. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she named her organization AIM as a subtle reminder to all adult entertainers to question what their aims are for being in the business.

Because the entire thrust of Sharon’s insight and her subsequent work is that it’s the lack of love, not the sex, that is the underlying problem in the porn industry. The problem with the porn industry isn’t that people are fucking; it’s not even that they are fucking for dollars; the problem is that they are fucking strangers. They are performing acts of physical intimacy without psychological intimacy.

The Ugly Side of the New LFG Tool

The ugly side of the new Looking for Group tool is exactly as Spinks describes it: it allows us to grind groups in the same way we grind mobs. The efficiency of the new tool removes the need for any knowledge about one’s fellow players. Since most cross server groups don’t know each other and will never play with each other again, what Larisa has called the “quick silent run” becomes if not the norm the ideal. Get in, get it done, move on. With strangers.

The easy defense of the new tool is that no one has to use it. That the new LFG tool along with the new guild system arriving with Cataclysm presents the best of both worlds. For those who only want a quick silent run during their lunch break to get some loot the new tool makes that easy. As easy as a sites like Redtube or Pornhub makes it easy to have a quick silent handjob during the lunch break for a thrill. Meanwhile, those who are seeking deeper relationships can find those bonds in the new guild system.

But what is the best of both worlds for some is the worst of all worlds for others; people like Sharon and I. People who are gullible and easily confused. People who are after the attention the loot gives them and want the quick and easy way to get there. People like the teens to whom this game is marketed and rated. For teens the distinction between intimacy and attention that is clearer to adults is not so obvious to them.

The easy defense of the porn industry is that no one has to look at it. But the reality is that people do look at it, are influenced by it, and it has consequences for everyone concerned. The critical question is why is there a tool that emphases the unshackling of sociability from grouping when, as I pointed out last summer, the teen age years are the most social times of one’s life. Do we really want our children to learn that the ideal group is a group without intimacy? For the precise real world analogue to the new grouping tool is the website Adult Friend Finder, where people go to create PUGs for sex. With strangers.

A Thousand Fucking PUGs

The new LFG tool is the gaming instantiation of the pornography mindset. A quick easy thrill with no string attached. So it’s no surprise that it’s popular; pornography is popular. As Tobold correctly notes popularity normally means profits.

Because of profit I don’t have any illusions that either the new LFG tool or pornography is going away. What is mystifying to me is that despite the inroads pornography has made in Western society there still is a cultural sense that being a sexual whore is bad yet being a social whore— having casual and temporary emotional and psychological relationships with others—is harmless. It’s just a game, dude.

I have a deep respect for Sharon Mitchell because after her epiphany it would have been easy to walk out the door feeling betrayed and disgusted with herself and with the world. Instead, every day she gets to look those young men and women in the eyes and subtly ask them what their AIM is. Do they really think the risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is worth it for a few thousand dollars and the chance to see oneself in a movie. Do you think fellow Warcraft players that having a silent run, without communication, without intimacy—your little noontime quickie—is really worth it for a shot at some loot? Is grinding out one superficial relationship after another—networking—really worth it for success in the business world? It’s not my place to tell you yes or no; many of Sharon’s charges will get treated for their sexual diseases and go back on the movie set. Yet she and I are alike in another way: we have come to the place in our lives where must ask the questions.

The real Occulus

There's a lot of talking about Occulus these days. I wonder what he thinks about it.

He used to be one of those poor, forgotten creatures that no one notices, since we're all so occupied chasing for the next epic item, the next frost emblem, the next glorious achievement that we get a tunnel vision, thus missing out 90 percent of the game. And now he's getting whole blogposts dedicated to him, arguing why Occulus is a failure.

The real Occulus
You don't recall him? He's one of the dragons standing outside of Caverns of Time for some obscure reason (I bet it's lore related). Remember him now? He was one of those creatures you used to kill just for the heck of it, while waiting for a party to assemble for BM or Durnhold. The biggest one wasn't killable as far as I remember. At a certain health level he disappears. There are a bunch of smaller named elite bronze dragons though, and Occulus is one of those. He doesn't offer anything of interest though, unless you have some kinky fascination for objects such as Ripped Wing Webbing.

The other day I went to see Occulus and managed to accidently kill him, as shown in the screenshot. Just approaching him with my molten armor active was apparently enough to kill him. I didn't touch him, I swear! He killed himself. Actually I tried desperately to find some way to save his life without dying myself, but I lost him before I thought of going invisible.

How bad didn't I feel! This dragon didn't wish me any harm. He was a comparatively powerless creature - in fact quite sad for being a dragon. (Aren't they supposed to be huge and dangerous?) And as if this wasn't enough the poor guy didn't drop more than 14 silver and 24 copper. That's cheap for a life, even in Azeroth.

The O instance
You may wonder what brought me to see Occulus in the first place? Where did this sudden dragon love come from?

Well, the whole community has been buzzing about a certain instance ever since the new Random Dungeon system was launched. Some of us - and I'm one of them - have been blessed or cursed - depending on how you see it - ending up in O. more or less every single time we've rolled the dice. It's been so many times by now that I've actually given up on seeing any other instance using the PUG tool. Halls of Reflection, Pit of Saron, Gundrak, HoS - those are instances where other players dwell. So not Larísa. Larísa has gotten an O. assignment for eternity.

And so the other day the great piece of news arrived about O. Blizzard has obviously realized that the constant bailing out of it is threatening to give the system a bad reputation. So now they're hotting up the loot and suddenly my habit to roll O seemed to be quite a good one, provided at it will last. Giving it a second thought - isn't this instance actually quite nice? After all those nerfs and all this practice in the art of dragon flying, it's just as quick and easy as any other instance, only more beautiful.

Anyway - back to the point. It was when I read those news at WoW.com that I realized a small but important detail. The instance in question is actually called Oculus. With one "c". Not "Occulus". I've been spelling it wrong for a whole year! I looked it up at Wowwiki to make sure. And even if I found an Occulus there, it wasn't the name of an instance, but a dragon standing outside of CoT. I felt stupid.

I'm not alone in my misconception of this name. I think I've got half of the players with me, at least judging from the blogs I read. So Miss Medicina, who I teasingly linked to above - and Hatch, who did the same thing: I don't blame you for the mistake. I've done it myself over and over again. I'll probably keep doing it. There is something with that name that makes me instinctively want to put to c:s in it.

The new Oculus
I have no doubt that Oculus - with one c - will go from being one of the most hated instances to be one of the more popular ones to roll. The days of O-quitting are over. The question is what instance that will come in its place. Which are the best candidates to become the least loved in random running?

Culling of Stratholme might be one, with the seemingly endless road, the messing around with the crates and the long speeches that serves no other purpose these days but to annoy people. I used to love the place for its pacing, but in those silent pugs it's just slow and boring.

Come to think of it, if we just start bailing out of it we might get a new treat with some extra goodies in the cache. Want to give it a try?

The Pink Pigtail Inn List of 2009 - The Blogosphere

Fanfare! Time has come for the fourth and concluding part in the series of The Pink Pigtail Inn List of 2009.

Before announcing the winners I'd just like to vent a little bit about sitting in the jury. It's been hard work to put together the previous list posts, thanks to all those excellent suggestions I've got from the community. And this post, where I'm putting the spotlights on the WoW blogosphere is no exception. As a matter of fact it's been worse this time. There are hundreds, or I should probably rather say thousands of excellent WoW blogs out there. I only manage to follow a minority of them, and even within my little sample, there are just too many posts, too much talent over the place to pick one in front of the other. No matter what I pick, I'll make the wrong decision according to someone.

But I'm no coward and I promised you a list, so you will get one.

In the last minute I decided to add a couple of new categories. I know, you haven't been able to nominate to the new classes, but you've inspired me there too and you'll get the opportunity next year, right?

Ready? Here we go!

1. Biggest blog facelift

Nominated: WeFlySpitfires, The Rawrcast blog, The Hunting Lodge, Paladin Schmaladin .

" I believe Nibuca of Mystic Chicanery did a some tweaking and layout changes this year, which look fabulous. I love her blogroll buttons!"

"Tree Bark Jacket had a major face lift earlier in the year and the new site looks fantastic. While there wasn’t anything wrong with the old look, the overhaul has categories and additional pages which makes finding information simple. The header is also very beautiful."

"Daniel Howell, BRK to Brain Needed Space. Still follow him as often as he posts. He can write."

Miss Medicina is cheating a bit by nominating two. But she does it in such a good way that I have to quote a long passage:

"I'm going to give this a somewhat liberal translation, and assume it means something beyond just a new "look". In that case, Forbearance and Righteous Orbs are a tie for me. Forbearance for combining the forces of the illestretpally Jong with the random rapping of OOMegan. Righteous Orbs for throwing together Sissy Robe donning Tamarind with math geek Ideathtard Chas. Both are perfect examples of combined forces in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Since he wasn't nominated by anyone else I also would like to mention Krizzlybear at Frost is the new black. He moved from a standard blogspot platform in january to his current wordpress and while at it he threw out the white-text-on-black-background, which I'm really no friend of at all, changing it into a bright, easy-to-read layout. It's a facelift indeed.

The winner is: Righteous Orbs!

Motivation: I'm all with Medicina. The marriage of the blogs I deathtard and Standing in the back in my Sissy robe, was the happiest we ever saw in the blogosphere. We spotted their talent before, but when this new blog was launched, it sparked something more. Righteous Orbs is also very close to my ideal picture of a WoW blog. It's very simple, it's bright, it's easy to read, it doesn't make my eyes hurt and it draws my attention to the very posts and not to anything else, such as ads and banners

2. Most memorable blog post

Nominated:
MMO champion's predictions on Cataclysm,
Gevlon's clearing Ulduar in Blues,
The good bye post from Resto4Life - "I was very sad to see her take her leave, but extremely happy to know that she was embarking on a new and exciting quest in her life!",
BRK's goodbye
"I'm Coming Out" at Arkslaw - "I have never seen such a mixture of true confessions meets wow insight."
Rawrcast called the reworking of old world before it was announced.
Scourge chat log #1,
Miss Medicina’s Healing Survey,
Tamarind's first time in Ulduar: Flame Leviathan v. Golf Caddy,
Ixo's trip to Blizzard,
Mortigan the Lock’s Single Set of Raid Rules

Tobold is Gevlon
WoW.com's investigation into the Ferraro(s)

Greedy Goblin calling out Markco - Miss Medicina's motivation: "Perhaps this is only because it is somewhat recent, but the Gevlon v Marko post (in which I learned that *popcorn* is, in fact, a valid emote), which elicited commentary from multiple wow blogs was immensely entertaining."

All the nominated posts were really brilliant, for very different reasons. How could you possibly chose between Gevlon's already classic post about raiding in blue gear or Ixobelle's fearless recounts from his equally fearless attacks towards the Blizzard headquarters?

However I decided to go for a different post, nominated only by myself.

The winner is: Archetypes of the Female Gamer, revisited by Sydera at World of Matticus

Motivation: This post wasn't only thoroughly researched and thought out and very well written. It also sparked a following debate. The 200 or so comments are just as readworthy as the post itself, and Sydera did what I wish more bloggers would do - throwing herself into an engaging discussion with her readers, making us THINK. I love personal, opinion style blogging, and Sydera did it just splendidly - and actually made me rethink my own position about feminism and stereotypes a bit. And besides - it must have taken quite a bit of courage and integrity to do challenge her fellow blogger at World of Matticus.

3. Most noticed blogger breakthrough

Nominated: Life in Group 5, Hots and Dots, The Hunting Lodge, Restokin - " Lissanna posts regularly and has a fantastic balance of both fun entertaining entries alongside informative and engaging pieces", Sideshow and Syrana, Killing'em Slowly, Dungeons and Daenei, Outdps - "He’s filled the void for me from BRK leaving. He’s not as serious and certainly not quite the writer Daniel is, but his blog is really well organized and full of useful information. And he posts often and with enthusiasm.".

"Miss Medicina certainly got the spotlight’s attention with her fabulous Circle of Healers questionnaire! I thought it was innovative, and she did a super job of keeping track of everyone’s answers!"

Tamarind and Chastity at Righteous Orbs. Rarely do you find a blog where every post is going to be insightful, or screamingly funny, or both. They deliver.

"A toss up between Righeous Orbs, Spinksville, and Ms. Medicina. I think this might be the single most difficult category. Ro has the best writing, Spikns has the best coverage, MM has the most useful information. An extremely close contest. I'm forcing myself to chose here but I am going to go with Righteous Orbs. I do think that they had the most noticed *breakthrough* even if they don't get the hits that MM does. In other words, when they came on the scene they came with a splash as opposed to MM or Spinks which have grown slowly."

There were also a number of nominations for Gevlon at Greedy Goblin.

The winner is: Greedy Goblin!

Motivation: Greedy Goblin started to blog in 2008, but it was in 2009 that he had his big breakthrough, so I think he's eligible for the award this year.

I know everyone in the blogosphere doesn't love Gevlon's writings, and especially not his political views. But no matter where you're standing you can't deny that he has made quite an impact at the community. Just have a look at the nominations for this list for instance. Which other blogger has provided so many posts which will come up spontaneously when you ask people about what blog posts they remember?

Or as two readers put it:
"He might turn your screws a bit, but he does keep bringing in readers for the politics, the challenges, and the gold making skills."

"Undoubtedly Gevlon takes this prize, if for no other reason than that he has made some of the most memorable posts, inspired some of the most rampant drama, and gone to great lengths to provide evidence for his stances."

4. Most solid content provider
Nominated: Wowinsider, World of Matticus, Tobold, Greedy Goblin, Honor's Code, OutDPS and Warcraft Hunters Union, EpicAdvice.com, Gnomeaggedon - " He posts regularly and often has epic length posts that are full of information and humor.", Restokin, Tree Bark Jacket, World of Matticus, Bio Break, Critical QQ - "Euripides has some downtime, but when he's writing he's writing GOOD STUFF.", Tanking Tips, Tank Like a Girl, No Stock UI blog,

Killing'Em Slowly: "My favorite thing about Killing 'Em Slowly is that I know there will be a post every weekday. I may not know the exact timing, but I can rely on the fact that there will be something, and it won't just be a "sorry no time to write today!" post."

Welcome to Spinksville - "Frequent posting, multigaming interests, lots of thoughtful posts too.", "Lots of updates and always interesting".

Tamarind wrote: "as a healer I am naturally biased but I don't know what I'd do without Miss Medicina. But if I was more 'serious' about raiding, I'd have to pick Beru from Falling Leaves and Wings. And for a wider perspective on gaming as a whole then it would have to be Spinks!"

Elnia pointed out that the category is a bit unfair and should be broken down into commentary vs useful information."I think that the most solid commentary is a toss up between Spinksville and Tobold. If you are asking for useful information then I would say either Wow.com or MMO champion."

I agree that the category probably needs a clearer definition. Even though I too use and appreciate resources such as WoW.com and MMO-champion, I regard them as news providers rather an as blogs. And it was blogs that I had in mind for this category. However I might add another category next year, focusing on general news resources.

The winner is: Welcome to Spinksville!

Motivation: Spinks combines interesting ideas and a wide assortment of topics with depth, wits and overall high standard writing, covering not only WoW but also MMOs in general in a way that it makes them interesting even for a WoW-only-player. When the next patch is months away and there's nothing more to say about the current one, you can bet that Spinksville still has some new perspective to add. She is simply amazing and I didn't hesitate for a second about who I would give this title, especially not since Tobold was out of the game because he had the title last year.

5. Most hugged blogger
Nominated: Jong, Gnomeaggedon, Pike of Aspect of the Hare, Gevlon, Tamarind.

"The bloggers that I most feel like hugging and in one case, drinking a Peach Bellini with, are Beru from Falling Leaves & Wings and Tamarind from Righteous Orbs."

"Should be me. But nobody ever hugs a panzercow".

"Sorry, I can’t pick just one! Keredria always makes me laugh, even if she is a “chick” , I absolutely adore Tamarind and can’t get enough of his humor and keen insight into the WoW universe, Lath and Cass are just fantastic…and love peachbellinis! And…last but not least, I don’t know how I can’t hug Lash: He’s a troll with a dog named Lunchbox irl."

Fitz at Healer Trek wrote:
"Well it's certainly not Gevlon. I'm going to go with Phaelia over at Resto4Life. While she stepped out of blogging near the beginning of 2009, she went out on a high note and had lots of virtual hugs on her way to becoming a mom. She also got a hug from blizzard in naming a piece of gear after her"

The winners are: Phaelia and BRK!

Motivation: Let's face it: bloggers come and bloggers go. There are equally many new popping up replacing the ones that are leaving. And very few of us leave any long lasting footprints. But there are exceptions. When Phealia and BRK left the blogging scenes, we saw the most touching farewell scenes ever. BRK:s farewell post had over 1 000 thankful, hugging comments, and the community even put together a special video as a gift to him. Phaelia was celebrated in a beautiful farewell photo album and a wonderful interview at the Twisted Nether Podcast. They even got recognition from Blizzard in form of in-game items named to their honour. That's what I would call a well hugged blogger!

6. Blog drama of the year
The blogosphere wouldn't be the same if there wasn't any interaction going on. A little bit of popcorn-drama if you put it that way. Obviously I'm not the only one to find it rather entertaining, since several of the nominations about the best posts were for ones relating to some sort of drama. So I decided to make up a new category this year.

First a couple of my own nominations:

Tobold's revelations that he in fact was Gevlon was hilarious to read. Gevlon never took the bite, so in the end it didn't turn out quite as dramatic as it sounded from the beginning. It was hugely entertaining though and also a bit thought provoking, as a statement about the trustworthiness of our online characters. Are we really what we claim that we are? We never know, do we?

A dramatic incident indeed was the little war fought between Gevlon and Markco during the autumn. It was fascinating to watch it from the side - especially since also Tobold engaged himself in it. The whole thing reminded me of the fights between the capitalist ducks in Carl Bark's comics: Uncle Scrooge and his equally rich and cheap opponent.

But the winner is a different piece of drama: The Ferraro debacle.
While the other suggested dramas were isolated to the concerned blogs, this really shook up the community. The whole story about identity theft and a blog identity that was inherited, going from person to person, was intriguing. Amazingly enough Paladin Schmaladin survived all this turbulence and is still going strong. And I wonder if anyone will ever know the full truth about it.

7. Best Writer
This is also a new category, invented by me on the fly. For me the writing skill of the author is essential when I evaluate a blog.

I don't care about if the blog provides news - I still get it quicker from MMO-champion anyway, so why bother to compete? I don't care if a blog gives useful advice since I get my need for strategies and theorycrafting covered by other resources such as Tankspot and Elitist Jerks. I don't care if the blog has a lot of fancy screenshots - most of the time they're just annoying and distracting.

But I care a LOT about writing - about the style and beauty in it, about how the author manages not only to make himself understood, but also to really touch me, making me laugh or cry, using no other means than letters and words. We have a few magicians out there, the ones that can make me interested and enthusiastic about things that I normally don't care about , let's say for instance PvP, just because they're such brilliant writers.

For outstanding writing skill I would like to nominate three mage bloggers: Gnomeaggedon, Krizzlybear and Euripedes. They've all impressed on me: Gnome with his humour, which is impossible to resist, Krizzlybear with his special talent for personal writing and Euripedes who is like a firework, never entirely predictable, always full of energy and temperament.

But the winner will a non-mage, who also won another category in this list and was nominated for several others: Tamarind of Righteous Orbs.

Motivation: Tamarind doesn't give a crap about the general advice not to write long blog posts. He writes walls of text which never feels like walls of text, because they're so hilarious, touching or thought provoking, and always, always formulated very elegantly, in a consistent and interesting style-of-the-day. If I wasn't so old and hopefully mature, I would actually feel a bit jealous seeing his abundance of wits and intelligence.

The End
This fourth and final part in the series of the Pink Pigtail Inn Awards 2009 was probably the longest in the history of this blog. If you're still reading this, thank you for staying to the end!

Now it's time to close the door to 2009 and look forward. Who do you think we'll see in the PPI list of 2010? Actually I have already an idea from Miss Medicina. She suggested a new category: "Blogger Most Likely to Succeed in 2010", defining it as a "new WoW blog that shows an extraordinary amount of promise". Her vote vent to Life in Group 5, a new healing shaman blog "which doesn't make overly frequent posts, but the posts he does make are extensive, thorough, and very informative."

Falling leaves and wings suggested another new category for the list: Worst Dressed. "My vote is TOTALLY going with Druid T10 - wtf is UP with that helm?"

Well, if it's any comfort, I don't think it can be any worse than the mage equivalence. Why would a spell caster try to frighten the enemies dressing up in animal teeth? I didn't include this category in the list of 2009 but let's keep our eyes open for ugly clothes for the year to come and save it for the list of 2010.

Because now it's time to call it. Thank you all for participating! It has been a pleasure. And for the records - here is the final, short version of The Pink Pigtail Inn List of 2009:

1. Best raid instance: Ulduar
2. Least successful raid instance: Eye of Eternity
3. Most longed for instance: Ulduar
4. Silliest gold sink: The Dun Niffelem Mammoths
5. Biggest addition to the game: Dual spec
6. Best quest: The Quel'delar chain
7. Ugliest tabard: Wyrmrest Accord
8. Favorite non combat pet: Onyxia Whelpling
9. Most juicy guild drama: The Martin Fury incident
10. Most charming Blizzard employee: Patric Beja
11. Best podcast: Blue Plz!
12. Biggest blog facelift: Righteous Orbs
13. Most memorable blog post: Archetypes of the Female Gamer, revisited
14. Most noticed blogger breakthrough: Greedy Goblin
15.Most solid content provider: Welcome to Spinksville
16. Most hugged blogger: Phaelia and BRK
17. Blog drama of the year: The Ferraro debacle
18. Best writer: Tamarind at Righteous Orbs

The Pink Pigtail Inn List of 2009 - The Community

Welcome back to the continuation of The Pink Pigtail List of 2009. Previously we have looked at the instances of 2009 and at some things we saw in the game. Today we'll remember some of the people in the community who made themselves a name over the year. Fanfare!

1. Most juicy guild drama:

Nominated: Guild drama is obviously something that many players experience from time to time. "I've had too much of my own, I can't keep up with everyone else's", as someone wrote.

Rathernotsay for instance nominated his own guild. "Our GM going spastic every time someone quits. It gets old, but it is funny as hell to see the dude go apeshit."

One reader suggested: "building the new healing mace". Yeah, I bet that may have caused a bit of drama in quite a few guilds. No matter how fair you tried to be, there would always be players who got so disappointed that they blew up about it.

However: even if the drama we all experience from time to time, I was looking for events in the community that became big news - guilds that became world famous and guilds that we talked about - enthusiastically or in contempt. The juicy guild drama should be something you wanted to gossip about.

A couple of readers had the same idea about this and nominated:

1. The Martin Fury cheat and the ban that followed
2. The guild Exodus who first grabbed the world-first kill of Yogg-Saron+0 in front of Ensidia, but who shortly after were revealed to have done it by an exploit and were punished for it.

The winner is: The Martin Fury incident!

Motivation: This story really grabbed the attention of the whole community, since it was so easy to relate to it. The thought was provoking and tickling. How would we have reacted if we suddenly had gotten this magic item in our mailbox? Would we have resisted the temptation to use it? There were many strong opinions about it. Some players thought that the ban from Blizzard just served those players right since they knew perfectly well that what they were obviously violating the exploitation policy, while others thought that Blizzard were too hard on them, considering that it was the mistake of a Blizzard employee that had made it possible.

No matter what we thought about it - it surely was one of the most memorable dramas involving a guild during 2009.

2. Most charming Blizzard employee

Nominated: Ghostcrawler. More Ghostcrawler. And yet another Ghostcrawler. Yeah, we all love Ghostcrawler. The one and only. BUT he won this class last year and since we want to spread the love a bit he'll have to pass this year. He's probably never heard of the PPI anyway, so I don't think he'll be too disappointed about it.

Other Blizzard employees who have been suggested are: Chriz Metzen "for making dorks look kind of cool" and Netharea - "She is fun and playful, all while providing the information we need from her. I wonder how she keeps that thick skin moisturized!"

Hots and dots has another favorite: "I’ve always been a fan of sarcastic wit and no one does that better than Zarhym".

Miss Medicina revealed that he has a bit of a crush on Bornakk: "if you hadn't picked it up from my emoted swoons and such whenever I quote something he says on the forums. It is completely due to the fact that he is courteous, funny, a bit of an underdog, and a sexy, sexy orc."

Then there are those anonymous, but yet popular game masters:

"The one(s) who FINALLY fixed the glitch in my Argent Tourny quests, and the one(s) who got all my stuff back when I got key-logged. They really do take security seriously, I appreciate that."

A bit odd nomination is Lady Jaina Proudmore. "Whe is very nice especially she is making a big role Jaina feature in 5 man dungeons on ICC". Well, maybe she's nice, but I never thought about NPCs as Blizzard employees.

The winner is: Patric Beja!

Motivation: The suggestion came from Stomalina at Rawrcast if I remember correctly, and I'm all with her. This Frenchman has charmed us blogging, twittering and podcasting (How I WoW among others). I was certainly charmed when I had the honour to participate in the same roundtable as him in Twisted Nether Podcast last summer. Now he can't participate in the community the same way as he used to, since he has joined the Blizzard staff and isn't allowed to share the corporate secrets with the rest of us. However: he has showed us all that it's possible for a gamer and fan to make it all the way into the Blizzard offices. That's well done! I just wish that the category winner next year will be Ixobelle. He's the most charming wannabe Blizzard employee as it is, that's for sure.

3. Best podcast

Nominated: The Instance, "The tankspot ones", Rawrcast, Turpster from Wowinsider show, The Hunting Lodge, Outdps, Van Hemlock.

And of course Twisted Nether. TN is admittedly one of my absolute favorites, having a clear blog focus, and as you all know, WoW blogging is a passion of mine. This said, it won the category last year, so that leaves them out of the question. But I'd really like to give them a special mentioning, waving and cheering for Fimlys and Nibuca. I think you mean more to the development of the WoW blogging community than anyone can imagine.

I'm also waving at Mike Schramm and Turpster at the Wowinsider Show, who made a wonderful, entertaining show and now unfortunately have left the scene, I'm waving at Stompalina and Haf at Rawrcast, who manage to be personal, enthusiastic and charming week after week, and I'm waiving at The Instance, which probably is the most polished, professional Wow podcast there is.

However: The winner is: Blue Plz!

Motivation: Blue Plz! isn't what you would call big and fancy; on the contrary, it's the most basic little one-man show you could think of. No famous guests appearing, no interviews, not even a co-host to quarrel with. Just one, slightly insane host, alone with his microphone and a bunch of music recordings to mix it up with.

Most of the time Totalbiscuit is angry, sharply bitching and commenting on current events. Occasionally he surprises us, going enthusiastic over something, such as he recently did with the new five-man instances in Icecrown. But no matter of if his current mood is bright or dark - Totalbiscuit is always, always personal and passionate about what he's doing. I think he deserves more recognition from the community than he currently gets.

The End
And once again: that's all for today. Please come back for the final part in the series of the Pink Pigtail Inn List of 2009. Then we will remember the highlights from the blogosphere - the bloggers and blog posts that made the biggest impression on us in 2009.