Maybe an addon will fix it?

No. Arcane Brilliance doesn’t seem to cut it. Nor does the gnome racial increased intelligence.

No matter how much I try to expand my intellect, I’m simply not cleaver enough to understand the idea of Blizzard’s new “Mana Adept” concept for arcane mages, to be launched in Cataclysm.

Frankly I feel rather stupid. The only comfort I have is that I’m not alone in being clueless. Not even the gurus at Elitist Jerks seem to have figured out what to make of it yet, judging from the discussion.

Mana managing game
For all of you non-mages who may not have heard of it, the new idea is that arcane mages will deal damage based on how much mana the mage has. A mage at 100 percent mana will make more damage than at 50 percent.

Mind boggling, isn’t it?

But before I start this little piece of classic mage qq, I want to point out that I don’t have anything against Blizzard putting some more emphasis on the noble art of mana managing.

It’s always been a task for arcane mages to make good use of our limited sources. We squeeze out as much as we can of our pool, altering burn phases with conservation. We evocate at the proper moment and we strive to end up with a more or less empty mana bar as the boss dies. The mana game is a part of my arcane identity and I enjoy it.

The problem is that the mana game that is now presented to me looks more strange than fun. For instance: exactly at which point in a fight are you likely to be at 100 percent mana, and because of this enjoying your biggest damage output? Yeah, I thought so too. Right in the beginning. Personally I have yet to see a fight where you’re expected to go all out right from the start. At least I think the tanks will have objections.

In my world you’re normally expected to top off towards the end, sometimes fighting against an enrage timer. Now imagine spending the entire boss fight anxiously managing your mana bar to be absolutely sure that it’s filled to the top for that short period. That doesn’t sound challenging or interesting at all to me – only frustrating and counter intuitive.

When I think about it they might as well have done the opposite construction – adding more damage to the mage, the less mana he has left. It would probably have some backsides that I don't think of, non-game designer as I am, but at least it would make sense.

To be honest I wonder if the Blizzard devs really thought this over. Doesn’t it sound a bit like one of those ideas you may crack as you’re hanging around a coffee machine: “What if…”?

EJ thinkers or a new addon
For my own part I can’t see myself mastering the Mana Adept challenge, at least not based on the information we have for the moment.

If someone replaced my brain with a calculator I might be able to figure out when to keep nuking in spite of a shrinking damage output and when to stop for refill. Maybe. It would be a complicated equation with many factors tto consider though. There’s not only the mana pool to worry about, but also the cooldowns – my own and others. Has heroism been cast? But wait – it will just burn my mana quicker. I’ll soon hit the not-so-good-damage percentage… maybe rather evocate? What about arcane power? Adding more damage – yes, but at the cost of more mana. Use it or not? Maths, maths, maths.

But I tell you: I’m just a gnome with a normal pinkish soft brain. I’m not a borg. And my head gets all dizzy when I think about Mana Adept issues.

Hopefully the great EJ thinkers will figure something out during the summer and have a new shiny spellcasting cycle ready for us when Cataclysm launches.

If they fail, maybe someone will make up an addon that can come to my rescue, telling me what’s most beneficial for me at the moment – evocating or nuking. It doesn't sound like entirely fun to let an addon decide my actions, but what’s an un-mathematical arcane mage to do?

Or I could of course just give up and go back to the so-much buffed fire tree.

Meh.

I’m glad there’s a long time to go to Cataclysm. Hopefully they’ll have some time to sort this out better – or to even throw the whole thing in the trash bin.

Time Warp goes Swoosh!

So, in case you've missed it, mages will get a heroism equivalence in Cataclysm, called Time Warp.

This raises some questions. Like: exactly how many tears will the shaman community shred over this? Will it exceed the mage outcry when they got their frog spell?

Another matter of discussion is what will the time warp spell sound like? I would vouch for some sort of "Swoosh!". But it could as well come with a "Bang!", like a starship taking off at warp speed. Who knows? The truth is out there.

The sound effects
To make a slightly (but only slightly) more serious take on this: regardless of what the sound turn out to be, I know I will learn to love it, the same way I love the cheering crowd that accompanies our heroism sessions.

It's not the sound in itself I enjoy so much of course - some people even argue that the bloodlust sound, which is supposed to be in the line of "gar-gar-gar" is way cooler. But I love what it represents. I suppose this is a perfect example of Pavlovian conditioning at work. When I hear it I don't exactly salivate, but not far from it. It's not only my toon that gets a boost from it - I do as well. It calls me out: "Focus! Action! Go for it! Just do it! Now!".

For you who aren't into raiding, and might not have experienced it, I'll try to describe the feeling of it. You see, the moment when the heroism is cast in a raid encounter is like the tipping point at the top of a roller coaster, at least if you're playing a dps class (I have no idea about if it's the same for a tank or healer.). The sudden acceleration, the huge damage increase, the short but sweet period where you know you have to squeeze everything you can out of your character and push it to the edge. The thrill is fantastic.

Actually I dare say that the psychological effect of it - triggered by the sound - probably is more important than the spell itself. Or as the blue poster Eyonix put it in a discussion on the forums about heroism a couple of months ago:

"It certainly feels like a big boost when it happens, but part of that is because so many groups use the Bloodlust/Heroism moment as the time to blow all their cooldowns and go all out. While it is unarguably a buff (though for some specs more than others), it’s role as “blow everything!” is significant too."

Mage power at last
And who wouldn't like to be the guy or girl who pulls the trigger? Until now it's been the privilege of the shamans, adding to them a certain aura of exclusiveness and power. But finally - FINALLY - the turn has come to the mages to shine. God knows we've been waiting long for this, almost as long as the gnomes have waited for their glorious retake of our capital.

When was the last time anyone really took any notice of us? Honestly? Has anyone ever asked for a mage or bothered about what we were doing standing in the back in our sissy robes since we tanked HM in Gruul? Don't think so. We weren't even wanted for the world first kill of LK heroic. (sniff)

But we're approaching a new era, my friends! As I'm casting my first Time Warp, I will pay a thought to the short statement at in the header of Euripedes blog that I've always admired so much, because it has Attitude:

I am important.

And then I'll proudly and loudly make the announcement - the obvious callout to make when you're about to enter a Time Warp.

"Engage!"

Then there will be a Swoosh! Or a Bang. Whatever.

Edit: I think I need to add a little disclaimer. Like some other community members (for instance TB) I DO have doubts about how wise it is to make all the classes more or less similar, - the same stuff in different shells. The Bring-the-player-not-the-class concept can easily lead to a pretty boring game in the long run. If I'm truly honest.

Nevertheless: speaking from my strictly selfish Mage perspective, I can't but smile thinking about my new incoming power buff that will put me in the captain's chair. Cheers! It was about time that we got a little bit of love. Then there's some other stuff going on with the mages that is less promising. But I'll leave that to another day.

The Return of an Innkeeper

Knock, knock, knock.

Is there still someone hanging around here?

I left quite suddenly a week ago, without giving the readers any previous notice. There were no prewritten posts for you to chew on, although I had hired a stand-in to keep an eye and chase away any trolls. The mountains were calling me, that's all I can say.

I came home with a cold that makes me resemble to one of those about-to-explode slimes at Rotface. So honestly I'm not quite as re-energized as I had hoped for. But I guess it made me good to replace the view of the raid instances with some breathtaking real life sceneries, drinking sunlight rather than coffee for a few days.

The Game

I'm trying to pick up what has been going on in Azeroth during my absence. To be honest I hadn't expected too much to happen. The previous week, the one before Easter, had been incredibly quite - so quiet that Totalbiscuit had to shorten his Blue Plz! show since there so few things to comment on.

This week seems to have been a bit more busy, especially with all the Cataclysm Class Changes being presented. For the more information-theorycrafting heavy blogs out there, this gives a ton of stuff to talk about. For the PPI it doesn't mean that much. I don't play any hunter and I couldn't care less if they have ammo or not. I have no idea about if our DK:s play in frost or blood or whatever - as long as they keep the mobs away from me when they're tanking, I'm all fine whatever way. Sue me.

Of course I DO care about the classes I play though, and most of all I care about mages, since that's what I am and will remain until I put down this game for good. I'm way too lazy and slow to learn new things to change classes between expansions. A couple of hours ago they released the mage information, which made me both smile and frown at the first glance. I'll probably make a separate post about it. It doesn't happen often, but once in a while it happens that PPI reveals its true nature as a mage blog.

The guild

What else have I missed? Well, two first kills in my guild: Lich King in 10-man and Sindragosa 25 man. It would have been nice to be there, since I've worked so hard and wiped so much on both encounters, but those things happen. It's a part of raiding and you have to learn to live with it. You can't always be there. Actually I'm most of all excited about it; I can look forward to face LK 25 man in the next raid, and the heroic modes are finally open for us in 10 mans. That's awesome.

The Blogosphere

And then there's the Blogosphere to catch up on, and there's especially one blogger that currently has my attention. Ixobelle. My hero. He hasn't just kept an eye at the inn during my vacation (thank you once again!), he has also been busy on adventures of his own, making it all the way to an interview for a dream job at a gaming company. Yes, his brave attack at the Blizzard HQs paid off. It's a fantastic story and I hope it has a happy end. Or I'd rather put it this way: I know for certain it will have an happy end; I just don't know if we're about to see the end right now or if we'll have to wait a bit longer for it.

Upcoming posts

And now I'll just rest a little while here in front of the fire, letting out some more slime out of my head before it explodes. But I'll be back in the bar again soon, serving you some thoughts about the mage changes and about some new perspectives on the game that the skiing gave me.

I had planned to make some sort of Tobold's Open Sunday thread while I was on vacation, where you could put some orders for things you'd like to see discussed here, but never got around to do it. It isn't too late though. Just write in a comment if there's something special you'd like to read in the next few weeks, and I'll see what I can do about it.

Cheers!

OH SNAP, Ixo's got rhymes!

Come pull up a seat and an ale,
And I'll weave you a short rhyming tale,
I've been left with the keys,
While Larísa's on skis,
Let's all hope I can dodge a LOLFAIL?

She told me to watch out for spam,
But she didn't say "NO GUEST POSTS" (dammmnnn!),
So forgive me bar patrons,
And Larísa, our matron,
I'm the first to admit, I'm a ham.

---

So what have I been doing in WoW?
Why, I'm riding the Honor Grind Cow!
My game time (recently),
Has been all PvP,
And I'm having a blast... ummm... Ka-Pow?

I used to roll eyes at those ding-dongs,
"PVP TAEKS MOAR SKILL!" are their themesongs,
But I have to admit,
That each comp needs new wit,
And the prep time doesn't take quite as long.

Log in, invite Vessen, and queue,
So far it's been all Two Vee Two,
The queue times are fast,
And each match is a blast,
Even when we lose points, no QQ.

Nobody complains of repairs,
Or runs for the door (or the stairs),
During a wipe,
We just break down the fight,
And adjust to new strats from our chairs.

My UI has ne'er been so clean!
No spare buttons or crap on my screen!
I need to see all the action,
Much to my satisfaction,
Only two moles to whack!? Grid looks LEAN!

Used to hate getting trained as the priest,
But with so much resil I'm a beast!
I can tank all the damage,
"Ves, commence pew pew spammage!"
And our shiny new ranks have increased!

Last night I turned down Lich attempts,
And I'm absent from YE OLDE GUILD VENTS,
4 hours at a time?
It's too hard to align!
Plus the raid gear is trash, no resilience!

So I apologize to my fellow crusaders,
I've crossed over to the dark side (just like VADERZ!),
I've become what I hated,
My Bloodlust is now Sated,
A PvP douche; no time for the raiders. :(

In my defense, I've a 19 month man,
And my wife just got back from Japan,
I just can't commit,
To an all evening sit,
40 minutes, 10 matches? That's the plan!

My limerick rhyming grows old,
And my story thus far has been told,
I'll watch out for spam,
just like Jean Claude Van Damme(!),
Till Larísa returns from the cold.

---

One last bit before outward I duck,
And I hope you'll all wish me good luck,
Game design interview!
38 Studios' crew!
Help design Copernicus? OH FUUUUU*****

I fly Cali to Boston on Monday,
I hope Tuesday will turn out a fun day,
I'm nervous as hell,
But it's all just as well,
They can see I'm sincere, so that's okay..?

Maybe this time next week, new employment?
Apartment search drama deployment?
We'll see how it goes,
Crossing fingers and toes,
Brand new paid MMO-based enjoyment?

As I bow out this blog posting gimmick,
If you comment, it MUST be a limerick,
If it's hard to be clever,
Make the last line whatever,
rhymezone.com helps if you get stuck and can't uhhhh...

find ... a word...

that rhymes with Limerick...





Crap.


: /

Homesick for Blizzcon

Are you going to Blizzcon this year?

Oh, you are? Good for you. Or rather: I hate you. Because there's no chance in the world that I'll be going and it bugs me.

Did you notice how cleaver I put that? By writing "this year" I kind of imply that I won't be going now, but that I've done it many times before; this year is just an exception due to some unforseen circumstances. It suggests that I'm a dedicated WoW community member, so of course I plan my life and set my priorities so I can attend the yearly we're finally coming together as a huge-family-event.

Why I won't go
But to be honest that's not the truth. I won't be going and I can't see myself going anytime soon. Even for an established adult person with a decent income the cost for participating in such an arrangement is enormous, especially if you're living in Europe.

I'll make you a quick list:

• Flight tickets across half of the world.
• Outrageously expensive hotel room since sleeping on the floor or coach of some fan living on the location, as we did when I was a SF fan in my youth, just doesn't cut it anymore. I'm old, spoiled and squishy compared to how I used to be.
• Astronomical costs for food because you can't really bring your own or put up a camping kitchen at the convention, but have to accept whatever junk food they're offering.
• Ridiculously overprized franchise stuff sold at the event - silly, but hard to resist.
• And of course the convention fee not to forget.

The biggest issue however, which effectively keeps me away is that I really couldn't use several of my precious days of paid vacation just for my own amusement instead of spending them with my children.

I may be a WoW fanatic, but Blizzcon is definitely out of my reach.

And you know what: even if I haven't ever been there, I feel homesick about it, because I believe I have a pretty decent picture of what it's like.

SF conventions
As I've told you before I have a passed as a member of the Science Fiction Fandom. I never went to any of the world conventions, but for several years I attended the national ones, in a community that resembled a lot to the World of Warcraft blogosphere. Our panels featured SF writers, publishers and such rather than game developers, but in the core I dare say it was the same kind of event: geeks meeting up around a common interest, enjoying the company of each others.

Some of the participants were pretty classical nerds, the stereotype of a no-lifer living in his mothers basement coming alive. Some of us on the other hand led a life outside of the conventions that appeared to be pretty normal - including having a job, wife, kids, car and house. But deep inside we all had a hidden geek that needed to be let out in full freedom.

Arriving at the conventions was always a feeling of homecoming. For a couple of days we were in a protected area, where we could speak and think for hours about our passion, without any restriction whatsoever. We could use fanslang expressions and make references to books and TV series and expect everyone else to get it. We didn't have to apologize, we didn't have to make excuses, we didn't have to explain anything or try convince skeptics that what we were doing was acceptable. We didn't have to pretend to be normal. We were safe among friends.

Every convention was like a little bubble and all those bubbles tied together like a pearl necklace. It was sad when we parted, but somehow when we came together the following year, it was as if no time at all had passed. Geek conventions have a time logic of their own.

Size matters
Maybe I'm completely wrong. The conventions I attended never held more than 700 participants and Blizzcon hosts thousands and thousands of people. Size matters. The SF conventions were arranged by fans and were non commercial - Blizzcon is big business.

If I as by a miracle was given the opportunity to attend Blizzcon 2010, it's definitely possible that I'd become utterly disappointed. I imagine you can easily feel a bit lonely and lost, because of the scale of it.

On the other hand - there will surely be some initiatives to make smaller, more cozy meet-ups for the community during those days. I know Twisted Nether are planning for something, and there will be others.

Actually I think that's the part of the convention that I'm most envious of - the opportunity to hang out with people in the community in real life.

It was the same thing with the SF conventions I used to attend. Many times I didn't bother all that much about the official scheduled program. It was nice that it was there; I might watch a bit of it. But the best conventions were often the ones where I missed almost every single panel or speech since I had too much fun sitting in the bar, talking to other fanzine editors, just relaxing.

Wil Wheaton's homesickness
The other day I stumbled upon the brilliant blog by Wil Wheaton. (BTW I must have been living under a rock to miss this one for so long, it's really a shame.) He quoted a few lines from the keynote speech that he held at PAX, some sort of gaming convention that was recently held. And I couldn't help smiling, because I could recognize his sentiments so well:

All of the things that make us weird and strange in the real world? Those things that people tease us for loving, those things that we seem to care about more than everyone else at work or school? Those things make us who we are, and when we’re at PAX, we don’t have to hide them or explain them or justify them to anyone; instead, we celebrate and share them.

We have come here this weekend, and we will go to PAX Prime in Seattle in August, and we will be back here in a year, and back there next year, and the year after, and the year after that, because just playing games isn’t nearly as fun as playing them – together – surrounded by thousands of people who love them as much as you do.

And in the post he also added a few concluding lines as he was sitting in his hotel room and the convention was about to end:

as I sat on my bed in the hotel, zoning out at something stupid on television while my HP and Manna bars slowly climbed out of the red, I began to feel a familiar sense of ennui. I feel this way every time a PAX is over: a sense of sadness and loss that I've never really been able to identify more eloquently than "post-PAX blues." A fellow PAX attendee e-mailed me this morning, though, and summed up the feeling in one word: Homesickness. I'm home, yet I feel homesick. I know that may sound weird, but it perfectly sums up how I feel today.

Wil's post is about PAX and not about Blizzcon. However this is exactly how I picture it would be for me to go there.

I've never been to Blizzcon. I probably never will. But the thought of it makes me homesick.

April 1 Giggles

Has anyone else had a look at your Armory picture today? I had to look twice before I realized that this creature actually was supposed to be Larísa.

I’m not entirely sure if this also is a part of April Fool’s event, but I think they’ve also done something to the list of recent activities. As we were doing ICC 10 last night, I decided that a cloak might be good to have in case I’d change specs, so I greeded. But according to Armory this was “ninjaed”. And the achivements we got (quite a few by the way – the 10 percent buff makes a significant difference to be honest), are described as “cheesed”.

It’s just small details, a prank by Blizzard, but it put a smile on my face. Thanks for that! My biggest laugh so far though this day is the joint joke by Paragon and Premonition. It’s brilliant.

Why I prefer a Stopwatch Guild

I’m in a Stopwatch guild. Thanks God for that.

I've spent so long time in this guild that I had started to take it for granted that everyone's on time whenever we make an appointment. Tam's post the other day reminded me of that this is probably rather an exception than a rule in most guilds.

Tam shared some of his frustration at the constant delays of 20-40 minutes after the scheduled raid start. Those who bothered to get online in time had to spend this time just impatiently waiting, which hardly is what I would consider fun.

(Oh, and here I'll make a short break here for a message: Tam is not badmouthing his guild, it's not like his previous breakdowns. He assures that he loves this little bunch of nice people, it's just that they need to work a bit on the formalities. There's no incoming drama as far as we know of yet, they just have to find a little more structure. OK? Now, back to the topic!)

Starting on time
I'm in a Stopwatch guild and this means that we - ooohh, crazy thought! - begin our raids on the scheduled hour. The first pull is made no later than the starting time - in 10 mans as well as in 25 man raids. If you’re not present at the destination for the night by then, buffed and on your toes, ready to go you can be pretty certain that you’ve been replaced once you come online (provided that there were any reserves available). Even if it's only a couple of minutes past the official start, you'll be replaced if possible.

You may have an every so good reason to be late – a car breaking down, a computer having issues or unforeseen happenings at work. We understand and we feel for you and we don’t rage about it. Nevertheless – if you’re late and you didn’t make an agreement about it on beforehand, someone else will get your spot. As simple as that. There is no academic quarter in our guild (an old practice in the Swedish universities, allowing students to turn up 15 minutes late to the lectures). We start when we said we would start and if you’re not there you’ll miss the show, just like you'll miss your airplane if you're late to the terminal. It will take off on schedule.

Is it harsh? I don’t think so. The rules are the same for everyone, and by sticking to them, we set a certain standard. Everyone knows what's expected and new players adapt to it quickly.

Admittedly it sucks a bit to miss the entire raid if you're 10 minutes late because your boss kept you at work. But on the other hand, it feels pretty good to know that you won't keep anyone waiting. You can rest assured that the raid will move on without you and you don't have to feel distressed and bad about letting them down.

However, one of the side effects of this is that people generally are on time. The latecomers are exceptions, not the rule.

Stopwatch guilds for casual players
Someone might dismiss the Stopwatch mentality, arguing that it's good for hardcore bleeding-edge guilds, but not so much for a casual guild. There is some sort of general view that casual players don't want or need to take their online commitments as seriously as others. Real life comes first, and it's only a game, heh?

I think this is wrong. Plain wrong. Actually I believe that players who are casual in the manner that their game time is limited, are the ones who benefit most from a punctual raid start.

We who have left our single and student years behind us, normally can't play every night, and because of this we plan the online time we have carefully, to get the most out of it.

Every raid we sign up for is the result of a balancing act. We negotiate with our spouses and our children. We work extra other nights so we can finish our work earlier to make it in time for the raid night. We hire baby sitters and we make dinner arrangements with friends and family so they won't collide with the guild appointment.

All of this takes a huge amount of effort and energy, and also has the consequence that once we're online, our gaming time is precious. Spending it hanging around, waiting for latecomers is the last thing we want to do. Then we'd rather cancel the arrangement altogether.

Being on the same page

I don't know why, but Tam's post made me slightly upset. I guess I feel angry on behalf anyone who has to wait around just because people suddenly decide to have a smoke rather than to start on time. If I was in that situation, it would drive me absolutely nuts. I'd rather PUG the raid to be honest than to spend time just waiting for others.

But if I let go of my anger I can hear what Spinksville commented, wise as always:

"You will need a raid where everyone is on the same page".

That's so true. Let the people who freely want to go away for a smoke or join the raid whenever it suits them best raid together! As long as they share their viewpoint on this, there's no harm in it. To each one their own.

For me however, the choice is easy. I want to raid in a Stopwatch guild - or not bother about raiding at all.