And now what?

The blogosphere and the forums are still in uproar after the news of yesterday that we won’t be able to post on the forums anymore without revealing our real life names.

Tobold calls it a PR disaster. Spinksville holds her breath, wondering what next action from Blizzard will be, and so do I.

Will they change their minds?
Can the community reaction make them change their minds? This isn’t the first time we see mega-long threads filled with thousands and thousands of protests against some recently announced change in the game. It has happened over and over again over the years and I’ve until now never ever seen them back on any decision as a result of an outcry from the community. Never. So why would it be different this time? (If someone who’s been around longer knows of any occasion, please tell about it in a comment, giving us some hope.)

I don’t think for a second that they care about what your innkeeper things and writes in these matters. I may wish they did, but they don’t. To believe it matters is about as stupid to write “WoW is dying” posts just because you’re quitting the game. It’s childish and I’ll save my worst doom and gloom for when it’s really needed.

This said, we’ve already seen a couple of people announce that they’re quitting now because of this. Gnomeaggedon is one of them, and this makes me immensely sad, since he’s been around in this inn since the start. He’s a friend, but he’s also a long-time contributor to the community and his balls of fire will be deeply missed by many if this means that he’ll quit blogging as well.

But does Gnome’s exodus make any big difference to Blizzard? Probably not, I’m sad to say. I’m not even sure they’ll notice. They haven’t exactly displayed any huge interest in the blogging community in the past.

It might take them a little bit harder though when Big Names such as Ciderhelm at Tankspot, who also is a part of their official fansite programme, speaks up and says it’s a really bad idea. Maybe we’ll see some more if this incoming. It will be interesting to see The Instance’s take on this.

What might worry the PR staff
I think it takes a little more than this though to get the PR department really worried. If some national media picks up this story and the reactions – and possibly some examples of players who have been stalked and harassed in reality – it will at least make them a little worried. They’ve worked hard on trying to make gaming into an accepted activity, a form of entertainment that all of the family can participate in, feeling safe and comfortable. It’s hard enough to build this image and they don’t need stains on it.

Companies don’t easily change their minds, backing away from a bad decision after customer complaints. Some really bad media coverage might make them thinking, starting to consider some damage control. The threat of financial losses is far more powerful though.

I’m not sure what kind of revenue they expect from the change, apart from that they can fire a few forum moderators. Will it outweigh some cancelled subscriptions and a bit of bad publicity? Obviously they think so. Until now I’ve had a problem to see what there really is to win on it, which probably says more about my lack of knowledge about the social media circus than about how profitable it is.

I can’t see how it can give them new customers. What they could do of course is to launch a premium service, a “granted anonymity programme”, where you could keep posting on your main if you paid let’s say… 2.99 dollars a month for it.

That was a joke. I hope.

Tesh says that identity has a financial value these days. Clueless as I am, I still don’t quite understand how, but Blizzard probably does and that’s why this is happening.

More blue comments
Wryxian is having a bad day at work, trying to moderate the EU forums.

He has posted a couple of comments that I’m now trying to interpret. In the first one he says that they’ve been planning this for a very long time and that they’re well aware of that many people will stop posting, which they’re fine with “because we want to change these forums dramatically in a positive and more constructive direction”.

“There are many threads on this forum now, and over the last few years, that people have been constructively discussing many aspects of the game. They've received new wisdom and have then been able to go back to the game and enjoy it further with the new knowledge acquired through the forums. “

So. We who have real life careers to worry about and can’t post on the forums anymore, can go there and “receive the wisdom” of the few who still want to post and then go back and enjoy the game even more than before. Sounds like a plan.

Sorry, I got a little bit edgy there.

What the moderators are doing now is mostly to lock all those new threads popping up, desperately trying to keep it all together in one mega-thread at the EU forums and another one at the US. Fair enough, I can understand that. You may wonder if they even read all those comments. Is there any point at all in writing there? If you should believe Wryxian there is.

“We want you to know we are very much aware of the range of reactions being displayed here. We're very much aware of the feedback being given. We're listening and carefully considering everything being said. Posting in this thread is not a waste of time, the feedback is being gathered and delivered. You may choose not to believe it, but we do greatly appreciate it when you take the time to give us your constructive thoughts and reactions. For those who are avoiding the insta-ban style spamming and instead are taking the time to write constructively, we thank you. For those that aren't, we hope that in the future you will come back later and with a clearer head, to provide constructive feedback when you are more able to.”

A commenter at the inn posted a link to an interview with the Battle.net project director in USA Today, published in May. There was a little quote there that made me smile:

"Do you expect any push back from diehard Blizzard fans from the Facebook features?"
"We don't anticipate any."

We’ll see in the next few days if the push back has made any impact whatsoever. I think what would really hurt them is if any of all those legislation actions that especially US players are taking now (it’s a specialty where you live, isn’t it) will become successful and appear to be leading anywyere. Maybe the lawyers at Blizzard Activision have overseen something in this deal that goes against some obscure law? I wouldn’t hope for it – it seems stupid if they haven’t looked into it closely. But you never know.

Communicating with Blizzard
Let’s move forward, looking into what we can do when this idea is implemented. One obvious thing is to change your account name into a faked name. I haven’t yet figured out if this is possible and if it will work if you’re paying with a credit card though. Has anyone else tried this?

I’ve also looked a little bit into how we can communicate with Blizzard in the future without using the official forums.

As the Blizzard representatives have said themselves: participating in the forums using our real names is optional. So let’s find new ways to come through to them.What can players who care about their privacy do to get in touch?

What I think they want us to use is the support form, which you’ll find here if you’re on a EU account an here for US. I don’t know if we can post anything but issues about our accounts and technical problems, but you could always try.

You can also call them on telephone. I’m lucky enough to live in Sweden, where it’s free, but this isn’t the case for every country, unfortunately. The waiting line can be rather long from my experience. However this is only for technical issues and account management. Here’s the phone numbers to EU and here’s for US.

It’s not as good as posting at the forum, where you often can get quick suggestions from other players, who often knows those things better than the support staff. But it’s better than nothing.

I’ve been looking for e-mail addresses to Blizzard without any great success. They do publish an address to complain-about-a-GM, but who want to do that anyway? In my experience they’re a just charming bunch of people.

However you could try to write a normal, old-fashioned letter to them. I didn’t find an address for the headquarters, but here’s the one for EU – maybe they can pass it over to the developer team in US. Here we go: Blizzard Entertainment Europe, TSA 60 001, 78143 Vélizy Villacoublay, Cedex, France

If we can’t communicate with Ghostcrawler through the forums anymore, since they put adults with concerns about their personal integrity in the same group as trolls, we can always go back to old-fashioned hand written letter writing. It’s a forgotten art, but it’s not as hard as it may seem. All you need is a pencil, a paper, an envelope and a stamp. Quite handy when you think about it. You don't even need electricity!

A final remark
I’m trying to keep my tone as civilized and constructive as I’m capable of, but I think I’ve raged and ranted enough about this for now.

Before calling it a day I just want to remind you that the real community never has been in the official forums anyway. We all know it. For a long time you’ve found the best discussions at the sites run by fans. At Tankspot, at EJ, and not the least in the abundance of great blogs and podcasts. And this won’t change because of Blizzard’s recent plans. We're needed now more than ever.

Did Blizzard just miss to do a reality check?

I so wish it was April 1. But it isn't.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I just saw the announcement. In a near future we'll not be able to post on the official forums anymore without revealing our real life identity. And Blizzard claims they've thought this over. Quoting:

"With the launch of the new Battle.net, it's important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that's highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.

We've given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years."

They may have thought this over, but not long enough. And couldn't they have... like asked us?

Like Hatch points out, this is a very effective way of driving out every intelligent adult from the forums. If you don't want your future bosses to know that you're deeply involved in gaming, you'd better stay away. If you've ever been stalked or treated badly, for instance for being a female, you have no right to express your opinions in the forums anymore.

"What's left? Teenage boys who don't have enough career aspirations to want to keep their gaming a secret. The dumbest, most immature, most dead-end teenage boys."

What is so tragic about the whole thing is that they actually seem to believe that they're doing something good, that this will lead to an improvement:

"Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven't been connected before."

It's a beautiful thought, but not even your innkeeper, who admittedly has some of the strongest pink colored glasses in the entire community, believes in it.

Did Blizzard just miss to do a reality check?

The intelligent discussion moving

For my own part I've never posted very much at the forums. I've vented my opinions and shared my experiences and ideas here at the inn, where I'm pretty well protected from trolls and surrounded by intelligent, civilized people. And you bet I'll stay here in the future as well.

If there still was any intelligent discussion going on in the official forums (and there have been a few spots where there actually has been some of that, such as in the guild relation forums), I predict that it will move away. Most of the well articulated people, people with a career and personal integrity that they care about, will hide in the blogosphere and in forums where they still can post with their avatars, such as EJ. You can only pray that the Blizzard staff is sensible enough to go to those places and listen. Because many voices worth listening to will never be heard in the the discussions at the official forums.

I think this change has bigger implications than we foresee right now. And I give those who cried loudest about the Real ID feature right. It was a slippery slope indeed. I didn't understand your worries, since it was optional to use it ingame, but you were totally right. And I have no idea where it will end. I thought that WoW was a RP game and not an extension of Facebook. Apparently I was wrong.

One of the first concrete problems we will run into with this change is the issue of guild recruitment. At least for our guild, the realm forums have been an important channel for this. A lot of players in the guild have helped out to bump the thread and keep it updated. Now we can only hope that someone in the guild will be willing to give out their real names on the forums. Or else we'll have to start recruiting through the in game channels. Until the day you'll need to leave out your Real ID to use those as well.

There's nothing, absolutely nothing, that can surprise me in this anymore.

Coming out as an older player in WoW

I’ve never ever lied about who I am in WoW.

I’ve never pretended to be younger than I am and I’ve never kept my gender a secret. Not that I walk around talking about it all the time uncalled for. There’s no reason to do it. But if someone puts the question I’ll answer truthfully.

You could wonder why. Why shouldn’t I enjoy the anonymity that WoW provides (to everyone who refuses Real ID)? It’s a role-playing game. I could take upon any role I wanted to and explore it to the fullest. I could pretend to be a 17 year old boy and see how far I could pull it before someone became suspicious. It would probably make it way easier to meld into parties, to become a worthy, accepted group member.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t seen any examples of open age discrimination in WoW (apart from possibly guilds not letting in anyone younger than 18, but I don’t consider that discriminating in its true sense.) But being older than 40 certainly isn’t meriting. While I’ve often been accepted without anyone making a big issue out of it, I’ve got the feeling that there still are a few of the younger players who would get a bit suspicious or bothered at the thought of playing with folks who basically could be their parents or grandparents.

I can hear their thoughts: What are you really doing playing WoW at your age? Shouldn’t that lady rather play the real stock market than AH, knitting scarves rather than tailoring spellweave boots? Maybe you’re having a secret agenda. Maybe you’re some sort of spy or Peeping Tom? In any case you’re probably a terribad player, because we’ve all seen what happens when grown-ups are trying to pre-programme the video recorder. Better stay at a safe distance from the wicked granny.

Being that old lady
Let me tell you a story. This is something that happened to when I attended the Swedish Peace & Love rock festival a few days ago. I was there as one of some 40 000 visitors for two reasons: One was to keep an eye on my teenage girls and see that they had a good time and didn’t end up robbed, hurt, smashed drunk and even unconscious as some of their friends who were there on their own. A typical parent/grown-up reason. Yep. I’m that too!

The other reason was different though. I was there because I enjoy music and festivals and there were some pretty good bands playing there.

Most of the time I did like the rest of the older part of the audience: I watched it from the far back, away from the crowd, looking at the big screens that broadcasted it. But for one band I did an exception. I had seen them live before, I knew they were good and I wanted to do what I used to back in the days, joining the crazy frontlines. So while one of my daughters looked after my handbag, I squeezed myself into a spot if not in the first line, at least very close to the stage.

It was cramped, but for some reason my demands for a personal sphere fly out of the window at concerts. We were inhaling each others smell in the almost tropical heat, and if it wasn't for all the noise going on I could have heard the heartbeats from my neighbour. Just as it should be.

As we were waiting for the band to start, I heard a guy in the 20s calling on his gf:s attention.

“Pssst!” “Look over there!” Do you see that old lady”! “She’s standing right behind you. There, there! Do you see her?”

They were talking about me. I smiled at them and waved to acknowledge that I heard them perfectly well. They didn’t wave back though. Obviously they thought they were visiting a zoo and they had ruled out the possibility to communicate with someone as old as I was, long time ago.

A little bit later another guy standing next to me turned to me. But rather than just staring, he spoke up: “Excuse me ma’am, but may I ask you how old you are?”

He looked at me with curiosity, but his eyes showed either pity or contempt, so I answered him truthfully and we had a little conversation about what I was doing here. I told him that I just loved this band and gave me a little bit of information about my punkrocker background, sharing some concert memories from the past. He looked at me with appreciation and raised his hand to make a high five. And then we went back to where we were, trying to keep the masses pressing on from behind away from stealing our spots. A few minutes later the concert started and we lost ourselves in the music, singing, dancing, jumping, sweating – and we could have been 5 years old or 100 – it didn’t matter, because we were fans and that was all that mattered.

Messing up the generations
But afterwards I thought about it a little bit more. Something has happened with the generation gap. It isn’t what it used to be. Remember The Who’s “My Generation”? It was old was I grew up in the 80s, but it still felt relevant at that point and I loved it (I still do). But what about now? Are their still any generation barriers to talk about? We like the same rock bands. We dress alike. And we play the same computer games.

It’s almost as if I feel a bit sorry for the ones growing up today. Have they still got any secret hideout? A territory where they still can claim is their own, something that the older generations don’t access and don’t understand? I doubt it. And maybe they miss it. Don’t we all need to revolt a little in some phase of our lives? But how can you revolt if your mother’s friends enthusiastically are bouncing side by side with you in the audience or pugging the same raid boss with you? Are we in fact causing a them troubles, preventing the kids from a natural personal development?

Maybe that guy who just pointed at me like an animal was distressed at my presence, making his own concert experience less “cool”. You can’t love the same music as a grey haired old lady, can you? Perhaps I should leave those kids alone, staying in the background after all rather than bouncing with them? I don’t want to mess up their brains, do I?

My decision to come out
I was talking to myself back and forward. And then I recalled another performance I saw at the festival, the 63 year old Patti Smith, who managed to enchant everyone in the audience, regardless of age. She sang with authority and presence and as opposed to many other bands at the festival, her messages about peace, love and freedom were more than just a pose. She wasn’t 20 years old, face lifted, with big boobs, a short skirt and a mission to seduce. She was the woman she was, standing there on the stage – simple, strong, intelligent, successful and glowing. I was so glad that my daughters were there to see it, hopefully taking her performance to their hearts.

I thought to myself: this is what it’s about. Patti Smith doesn’t hide in the back. So why should I?

No matter how convenient it could be to pretend I’m a 17 year old boy in WoW, I refuse to.

My musical taste has developed a little further, I don’t bother to make my hair spiky anymore and I don't tear my clothes into pieces, but in my heart I’m probably still a little bit of a punkrocker. I don’t need anyone’s approval. Especially not from zoo visitors.

Life doesn’t automatically end at 30, 40, 50 or whatever. You don’t reach a magical zone where you suddenly ditch all your former passions to start to gather grown-up-points, doing adult things. Your physical body ages – yes. The pain in my Achilles tendon after the concert is a testimony of that. You get more money at your hands as well, so I spent the nights at the festival in a hotel bed, rather than enduring the hardships of the camping site. But in your mind and heart you can be just as old as you decide to be.

I hope that my presence in Azeroth – a 42 year old woman and mother of two – somehow can inspire others not to be so wary about their ageing.

It's easier to hide your age in WoW than standing in the audience at a rock concert. But regardless, I've chosen to come out.

Ask Larísa: How do I get my wife into an MMO?

I got another reader question the other week. Like the previous one it’s related to gaming and relationships. I suppose innkeepers are expected to be good at those things. You know. Life issues. The kind of stuff you talk about at the barside.

However, I felt something was missing in my answer. So I thought I’d publish it in the hope that some PPI readers with more experience from different MMOs could help out.

Tigerus asked:

My wife is a player of pop cap games and the sims. I'd like to play an MMO with her, but she is very anti-wow and not much of a gamer. Any suggestions for a way to get her into an MMO that I would also enjoy?

Larísa’s answer:

This is a tough question and I’m not sure I'm the best one to answer it since my husband doesn’t play WoW or any other game and I definitely have no plans on trying to change that either.

Regardless of what you think, I’d dare say that your wife IS a gamer; it’s just that she prefers other games than you do.

It sounds as if you'd like to share the magical world of MMO-playing with her, not necessarily in WoW, but in any kind of MMO. If she really has a problem with WoW, maybe you should leave that for a while and try introducing her to something else?

I come to think of LOTRO going free-to-play this autumn. Maybe that could give you an opportunity to play together. There's no big harm in trying something for free, is there? And this game has - from what I've seen from my brief trial period - a lot more of possibilities and choices to dress up and customize your character. There are way more choices of different looks and you can even dye your clothes in game if you want to stick out. And there are player houses too. I suppose that would fit a Sim player. It appears to me that LOTRO also offers raiding, PvP and that kind of gameplay as well and not just "fluff". So maybe it could suit you both?

I wish I could give you more and better advice on this, but to be honest I don't have any experiences with other MMOs, so I can’t come up with anything further. For now my recommendation would be to try to find some free-trial offer from an MMO that not necessarily is WoW and check it out together.

Cheers and good luck!

More questions
And finally just a small bumper:

Pitrelli @ Kill that Cheerleader is running a series of interviews with various MMO bloggers. The presentation of PPI is up today and you can read my answers here.

Why the nerf to deaths in Cataclysm might be harmful

We’re right in the middle of another heated debate about the death penalties in MMOs. Is it good as it is in for instance WoW or would we like to see something harsher, a death that really means something?

Psychochild blogged about it the other day, and there’s a very good, intelligent and civilized discussion going on in the commentary section. Regardless of on which side we are (I’ve previously written about why I think the death penalties are fine as they are), there’s a general agreement on that a game with a bigger risk factor never will gain a huge audience, but remain a niche. Or as Tesh puts it:

“If you *do* make a pure hardcore risk game, don’t be surprised if the mainstream doesn’t like it and shower you with money. ;)”

Well, I suppose Blizzard likes the idea to be showered with gold. (Which gives me a an opportunity to quote Tobold’s wonderful one-liner: “is World of Warcraft dying? Not unless it suffocates under a pile of money.”)

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that they’ve decided to pull this a bit further. They’re actually planning for a pretty huge nerf to the death penalty in Cataclysm, as long as you’re playing grouped up with your guildies. You can read about it in wow.com’s summary of the planned guild perks.

The new guild perks
Some of the features perks are “nice to have” but really not anything I bother that much about. Vendor discounts. Extra gold from fallen enemies. Who cares? I never notice what sums they drop in the first place.

But there are a few things that I think will affect raiding within the boundaries of a guild quite a bit:

“The Quick and the Dead: Increases health and mana gained when resurrected by a guild member by 50% and increases movement speed while dead by 100%. Does not function in combat or while in a Battleground or Arena.”

“Mass Resurrection: Brings all dead party and raid members back to life with 35 health and 35 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. No cooldown.”

Wow. This is a nerf so huge that it more or less makes the Painful Corpse Run to a dark distant memory from the past.

I think we all have our pet peeves when it comes to those runs. In my case I have some special feelings for the path to Archimonde, which I did way too many times to be happy about it I’ve (even though we used to accompany it with Benny Hill music from time to time to cheer us up.) The way back to General Vezax is another non-favorite. The Decent to Insanity was totally cool the first time I saw it but it grew old quickly.

I bet that we’ll be we’ll be using anks, soulstones and bubbles in Cataclysm as much as we possibly can, in order to avoid corpse runs altogether. Mass resurrection, eat and mana up and you’re ready to go in an instant. If you can combine it with the 50 percent increase of mana and health when resurrected by a guild member, it will shorten the time loss after a wipe immensely.

And as if this wasn’t enough, they’re also adding “Reinforce”, which at Rank 2 means that your items will take 10 percent less durability loss when you die. This is just gold though. The nerf to the time sinks are way more important.

Warlock complaints
If you look at the reactions at WoW.com, most players seem to be jumping for joy. The only ones who are disgruntled are the warlocks, due to another guild perk:

“Have Group, Will Travel: Summons all raid or party members to the caster's current location. 2 hour cooldown.”

OK, I can understand that locks will feel less “unique” and “needed” just like mages did when they put up free portals in Shattrath and Dalaran. But honestly – exactly how much “fun” is it to make summoning portals before a raid? If that is the major point of bringing a warlock to the raid, I think the class is in deep trouble.

Effects on raiding guilds
However, that was a sidetrack, back to the issue about the death penalties. What will it mean to raiding guilds?

Well one thing is that there will definitely be room for more tries during progression raid nights when you expect a lot of wiping. We can expect more of a trial- and error-approach to new content, especially since the information we have so far is that they’re not planning to have a lot of limited attempts in Cataclysm, apart from in really rare cases, “Algalon-style”.

No wonder that this sounds tasty. We’ll spend more time doing the fun stuff, which means fighting the bosses, experiencing the fights. And less time travelling the world as a ghost or sitting on our asses drinking and eating. More fun, less boring. Could there possibly be anything bad about that?

I’m not sure. Maybe. Because while I don’t advocate harsher death penalties, I’m not so sure I want them less strict than they are either. Of course I’ll be happy about it initially. But is it good for the game in the long run? Players don’t always know what is a good design decision when they ask for features, as pointed out by Richard Bartle six years ago.

One effect to consider is that there will be a lot less at stake every time you try to down a raid boss. This will decrease the pressure on the individuals to perform, especially in the kind of fights where one mistake can wipe-it-all (for instance Teron Gorefiend, Blood Queen, Lich King). If you’re the one blows it, you’re not cause half as much trouble as you’re doing now. This can be nice and forgiving for a new player, but it might also affect our motivation to stay focused, alert, trying to bring our best gameplay and perform.

It will probably also decrease the excitement and the adrenaline rushes you experience in a raid. If you can squeeze in 40 tries instead of 20 in a wipe night, will you really put in your heart to every try as you do now?

However painful the corpse runs have been, I think they also give a common experience that works as a sort of glue for a stable raid group. There’s nothing that brings a group together as much as going through hardships. And of course it also increases the sweetness of the victory when you finally nail the encounter. Would our Archimonde kill have been quite as fantastic if we had endured 100 mass resurrections instead of 100 corpse runs?

To sum it up: as much as I’m looking forward to this as a raider, I’m a little bit worried that it might dilute the game experience.

Pugging less attractive
A final thought: I wonder how quickly we’ll get used to the new nifty guild treats, taking them for granted. Quite quickly I’d dare say. I think we’ll feel less than enthusiastic at the thought of pugging a raid, where you’re not only more likely to wipe, but also will have much worse consequences when you do so.

They may have trashed the talent system, but I think the planned guild perks definitely will be motivation enough to bring back the game to a state where most of the raiding is done within a guild and not in a PUG. Like it used to be back in time. Not that I complain though. I’m a guilded player myself and have no plans to change that.

But now time has come to put an end to the last post for this week and call for a toast. I’m going to attend a pop festival and no Ruby Sanctum in the world can complete with that. I hope you’ll get an enjoyable weekend too.

Cheers all!

I wasn’t in the Alpha. Sniff!

No. I was not in the Alpha. And I can’t help sulking a little bit. Just a little bit. Because I’m childish like that. I never actually thought about it until now, when it has become apparent that a number of other WoW bloggers were in it all this time. They were invited. I wasn't.

Not that I actually WANTED to be in the Alpha. Hey, if anyone had asked me I would probably have said “thanks for asking, but no thanks”.

Why? Because doing software testing isn’t one of my hobbies. If you're in the Alpha, you’re not supposed to play the game, you’re supposed to test it. Reporting tons of bugs for instance. How fun is that? All it would give me is a shortcut to quicker burnout in Cataclysm, when all content would be repetition, right from the beginning.

Not. My. Thing.

The chosen ones
All this said: wouldn’t it have been nice to be asked to join the Alpha? It would make you feel sort of… important, if you get what I mean. You’re not just ANY blogger. You’re someone who Blizzard knows about. Someone whose opinion they value.

Jen at Stories of WoW was a chosen one. So was Lissanna at Restokin. And Totalbiscuit. BRK of course, but that has been known for a long time.

Probably there will be more who will come out of their closets the next few days, putting up an invisible badge on their websites. “Approved Alpha tester”.

Other blogging colleagues haven’t been that fortunate. Skeleton Jack wrote earlier about how he had gotten an invite to the alpha but was removed from it before it started. According to him, the only explanation he got was that there was some internal policy at Blizzard that prohibits people from participating in NDA content who have some form of media interaction and/or publication dealing with Blizzard games on any level. So when they found out that he had a blog, he was kicked out. It sounds weird considering that many other bloggers particpiated. Maybe their invites for the alpha were just a bit arbitrary and messy.

Whatever. The Alpha is over and grats to you who were invited! Being considered “friend and family” of Blizzard, that sounds like something.

Next up is the Beta and no, I don’t want to enter that either. A couple of my guildies would like us to try to win a bunch of beta invites in the announced competition. Count me out of it. I don’t go out of my way to avoid taking part of spoilers, but on the other hand I don’t look them up actively either, and Beta-testing is way more information than I'm looking for.

This said. I wouldn’t mind getting a personal invite from Blizzard anyway. Even if I'd decide to decline it. Childish blogger is childish.

Let´s foster a new generation of raiders

Anna at Too Many Annas had a great post the other day, where she discussed how we should approach the new raiders that will enter Azeroth for the first time with the arrival of Cataclysm. How will we work with them? Are we prepared to follow the DBAD-rule (Don’t Be a Dick)?

She gives examples from her own raiding career – negative as well as positive.

As a newbie hunter she was almost scared away from raiding for ever due to the utterly dickish behaviour from a fellow hunter – who wasn’t even an officer and had very little reason to criticize or bully her, which was what he actually was doing. His constant picking on her can hardly have resulted in any improvement in her performance whatsoever.

Later on when she did her less-than-successful debut as a resto shaman, her raid leader gave her honest and constructive feedback and quickly managed to put her on the right track. Within a week she was on par with any other healer in the raid.

Two different approaches. Two different results.

My personal WoW teachers
When I look back at my soon to be three years of raiding in WoW – from my first wipes on the trash before Attuman to killing LK 25, I can see that I’ve been lucky enough to see very few – if any at all of the dick types. On the other hand I’ve been blessed, running into some absolutely fantastic veteran players who gently and generously have given me guidance on how to improve my game play and understand what raiding is all about.

I remember for instance one guy who promptly took me to Dr Boom when I just had joined his guild. (Boom was the dummie like mob in Netherstorm we used before everyone became too lazy to ever take a step out of the major cities. In case anyone has forgotten). Within the course of 30 minutes he had revolutionized my rotations.

Or that raid leader who refused to let the warlocks summon me up when I had fell down into the waters of SSC through the noob trap (a glitch that everyone who’s been around for a while knows about and can avoid). I was completely lost down there, but he refused to let the warlocks summon me up. Instead he jumped down and showed me the way, knowing that I’d never ever again get allow myself to get lost down there. I returned the favour with a loving blog post.

And then there was this game friend of mine who was a mentor, a personal trainer for me for years, until he eventually got bored and left the game. He went through the weblogs with me and didn’t hesitate to call my attention to things that were bad. He helped me to grasp the BT tactics as we watched some videos together and he commented on them over vent.

Not to speak of my missed ex guild leader who built me a brand new UI after realizing how horribly clotted and dysfunctional my current one was and how hard it would be for me to figure out a better one on my own.

To all of you who took me under your wings: I can never ever pay you back, only give you my thanks, coming straight from my heart.

Becoming experienced
Coming from this, I’ve always thought that I would like to pay it forward, help out a clueless, newbie Larísa-type of player I may encounter in the future.

My biggest problem was that I didn’t really see what knowledge I had that was worth sharing. I pictured myself as something of an Eternal Noob, doomed to be a Tourist in Azeroth, unable to grow up and become a Real Raider.

But maybe I am one after all? In her post, Anna gives a few examples of the kind of knowledge and experience that you gather and incorporate with yourself as you raid, without taking much notice about it:

“There are skills you learn, certainly, and boss fights. But you also learn group coordination, what to expect when you show up for a raid, how things usually work, what it’s like to wipe on a new boss for hours or weeks. You learn how to read patch notes, look up strategies, and learn to be effective at your class. You pick up raiding jargon (like tank, crowd control, adds, line of sight, DKP) as well as picking up on little jokes that later become Raid Tropes to refer back to and laugh about. Some jokes become universal – The Safety Dance, Don’t stand in fire, Merely a setback, IN THE MOUNTAINS, 50 DKP Minus, Many Whelps Handle It, Leroy Jenkin. […] Every one of those little jokes, bits of jargon, raiding skills and coordination skills get filed away in your brain under “Raids”, and you become an experienced raider.”

All the stuff she talks about is so very familiar to me – everything except “In the mountains”, which doesn’t tell me anything. (Explain, anyone?)

Yeah. I suppose I’ve been around a while. According to the statistics in Armory, my main has entered 294 25-man raids and 118 10-mans. I’m not sure if this includes the raids we did before the statistics page was launched. Regardless of which – it adds up.

Anna says:

“Everyone who runs raids right now in Wrath will become an “old” player – we’ll be the voices of experience, even if we don’t feel qualified.”

OK, Anna. I hear you. As long as I've been playing WoW, I’ve been the newest kid on the block. I’ve rarely been in the position to guide anyone but myself: as far as I can recall it only happened once over all those years. But if I ever get the opportunity to be the teacher and the guide again, I promise I’ll grab it.

Reasons to bother
Why you may ask? Why should you bother? Why should you make the effort to share your experiences rather than being a dick? It might take your time and energy and effort after all.

Well for me it’s simple. You get a better feeling in your stomach. It feels better to be nice than to be a dick. There are few experiences that beat the one to see someone else grow, improve and succeed, as a result of your guidance. That goes for WoW as well as for real life. Proud mentor is proud. As simple as that.

Another reason is very egotistical: I want there to be good raiders around, people that I want to play with. Older players drop off eventually and if we want decent replacements we have to work for it. They don’t spawn ready-to-raid. They come as unwritten cards, and we have the opportunity to influence what kind of players they’ll become. We have every reason in the world to grab it.

It’s time to foster a new generation of raiders.