On Ragnaros and the Raid Finder

The raid group I run with is currently 6/7 in Firelands (normal). This means that of the 7 total bosses, we've only managed to kill 6 of them. The final boss, Ragnaros the Firelord, continues to elude defeat, and this annoys me to no end. One of the reasons we haven't downed him yet is time: we only raid 3.5 hours on one day per week, not factoring in the 15-20 minute break we take midway through the raid. Compared to many other raids, this is a pittance, but overall it's an understandable reason to be stuck on the final boss—people have other things to do and one of the accepted truths in the TRI family of raids is that real life is more important than the game.

The other reason is that the Ragnaros fight is a complex one, and small losses eventually cascade into bigger problems later on. Eventually, this can be overcome through practice, but given our limited time investment, our progress is slow. Part of this can be helped with things like addons, but not everyone uses or wants to use addons, and considering that I refused to use addons throughout raiding in WoW prior to the Burning Crusade expansion, I have no room to criticize. Still, the limited progression is frustrating to no end for me.

This, I think, is why I'm looking forward to the Raid Finder so much. Perhaps it will be a way for me to get my fill of progression without becoming increasingly and irrationally frustrated with my regular raid group. Perhaps it will allow me to get more practice on various boss mechanics so I'll be less likely to screw things up when time is of the essence. Perhaps it will expose me to new strategies so I can step forward with actual, concrete suggestions for improvement instead of just "this doesn't seem to be working".

I wonder, if at some level, I'm just drawn to the potential promise of the Raid Finder more so than its pragmatic realities. I still haven't had a chance to experience it first-hand yet, so it's quite possible. Maybe it will come out and I'll just be left with a sense of disappointment, or maybe it will allow for everything in the above paragraph and me a better, happier player. The mystery is exciting. I hope the wait is worth it. =)

Blizzard to Discontinue Java-Based Mobile Authenticator

In case you haven't heard yet, Blizzard has announced that they are planning on discontinuing the Java-based version of their Mobile Authenticator. Before you start panicking, though, know that the version that's being discontinued is for older cell phones, not current smartphones.

If you're still using an older phone and want to buy the $1 version of the Java-based Mobile Authenticator, be sure to go to the Blizzard Mobile site before December 13th. The app will continue to function, but will no longer be available for download. After December 13th, you'll either have to get the physical Battle.net Authenticator, or you'll have to have a smartphone to download the Mobile Authenticator via your smartphone's market app.

Also, the various ringtones and cell phone wallpapers on the Blizzard Mobile site will also be removed on that same day, but before you go scrounging up the change to buy them, note that Blizzard's blog post also mentions that they're looking to bring them back as free downloads in the future.

On 11/9/11's Class Q&A

Blizzard had a live Class Q&A event this morning where the class designers Celestalon, Ghostcrawler, Koraa, Watcher, Wradyx, and Xelnath all participated to answer questions about World of Warcraft classes in real time. Unfortunately, they provided absolutely no answers for Holy Paladins, which makes me a sad panda.

Now, I can understand why they provided no answers. Earlier, Zarhym (@talkingcongas) posted the following tweet showing some of the statistics for the event:

Some #WoWCiL perspective stats: 1 hr 39 min live. 2 hosts. 6 devs. 4 mods. Over 130,000 readers. Over 10,000 comments/questions submitted.

In comparison, the class designers were only able to answer about 108 questions, so there was only about a 1 in 100 chance for any given question to be answered. Still, though, absolutely no answers for Holy Paladins is a real disappointment.

That said, I did participate in the event by submitting my own question. If you're curious what I asked, here's my submission:

Rumor has it that the upcoming Mistweaver spec of the Monk class will be a healer that stands in melee range of the boss while healing. Is there any truth to this, or is the rumor unfounded? If true, and if the heal-from-melee paradigm works out, has there been any thought to giving the plate-wearing, shield-bearing Holy Paladin a similar treatment?

Since I know not all Paladins are interested in a heal-from-melee playstyle, I'm not at all surprised that my question went unanswered. Still, I hope the more dynamic Monk playstyle works out and is successful enough for Blizzard to adapt it towards the Holy Paladin. It still annoys me that our healing plate may as well be cloth and our shield slot may as well be filled with an off-hand frill item for all the use they get in raiding.

On Patch 4.3's Holy Radiance Change

I'm not quite sure I like the upcoming change to Holy Radiance. The fact of the matter is that the current incarnation of Holy Radiance feels like it satisfies the potential that Paladin auras always had, but haven't truly been able to fill as always-on, free-to-cast abilities. Blizzard can't really make auras any stronger than they already are due to balancing issues, but Holy Radiance worked nicely as a short-term, mana-expensive buff that could bridge the gap between aura and non-aura.

Personally, I would have preferred that Light of Dawn have been made the chain-castable, mana-using AoE heal while Holy Radiance were powered up and turned into our AoE Holy Power spender. One of the benefits for this (in my mind, at least, since I'm sure there are plenty of Paladin healers who would disagree with me) would be to emphasize the idea of using the play area of the screen to heal rather than the UI. It's always kinda bugged me that tanks get to play with bosses, damage dealers get to play with the environment, but healers have to play with the UI rather than the friendly characters/positioning. There's already enough whack-a-gnoll with the single-target heals, so I feel as if AoE healing should take a different approach.

On Item Squish

On Friday, Blizzard posted a Dev Watercooler post by Ghostcrawler about troubles they're running into with exponentially increasing item levels. If you haven't read it yet, I highly suggest you at least give it a once-over, because the various figures work to explain the problem really well. As a quick summary, the core issue is that item levels are increasing exponentially compared to character levels, and Blizzard is not quite sure how to deal with it. On one extreme, Blizzard could leave things as-is and figure out a better way to communicate and compute large numbers, while on the other extreme they could squish item levels back down to a more manageable level, but risk alienating the playerbase with the perception of a very major nerf. If Blizzard does nothing about item levels, then it needs a better way to communicate the numbers we'll be seeing on our screen (after all, it's somewhat hard to tell the difference between 100000 and 1000000 at a quick glance). If Blizzard does squish item levels back to into line with pre-expansion content, then players will suddenly feel like they've been nerfed extremely hard because their abilities that were doing thousands or tens of thousands of points of healing or damage will be brought back down to doing hundreds of points of healing or damage instead, which could be potentially disheartening even if all of the other numbers (such as target health) were brought down the same way.

Personally, my solution would be to set up a slow squish system. It would be a significantly larger undertaking up front, but it would allow for item squish to happen without making players feel like they were nerfed into oblivion. Essentially, how it would work is that Blizzard would set a hard upper limit for item levels, and set things up so that whenever tier of items would normally be introduced above that limit, those items would instead be introduced at that limit and nearly everything else would be squished a little downward instead. For example, if the upper limit were set to item level 500 and a gear tear would normally add 10 item levels above that, instead of coming out with a new tier of gear at item level 510, the current and previous tiers of gear would be squashed down to item level 490 and below and the new tier would be introduced at item level 500.

What this does is that it essentially splits one massive nerf into dozens of tiny nerfs that are far less jarring. Damage and healing numbers wouldn't suddenly jump down from the thousands into the hundreds, but instead would effectively cap out and slip down slightly (and temporarily) every time a new tier of gear was introduced, and slightly more for each new expansion. Item levels for any given tier would eventually slip down to where they would have been if Blizzard had followed a more linear methodology, and that would act as a floor so that the numbers eventually settle where Blizzard wants them to be. At some point, the exponential curve will flatten out and the hard cap can be done away with.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, this would require significantly more work right off the bat than either of the solutions Blizzard has used to highlight the problem. For one, all items would have to be made able to scale downward so that Blizzard can squish them repeatedly until they reach the desired item level. Secondly, it would mean tweaking the numbers for every raid boss every patch, or possibly linking boss numbers to expected item level numbers so that the bosses scale down naturally. Ultimately, it would probably be a very complex solution to program and implement without taking up massive amounts of developer time, but I also think it's a more elegant solution than the two Blizzard has shown publicly.

That said, I doubt the two solutions Blizzard has shown are the only options they have up their sleeves. I think it will be interesting to see how Blizzard decides to deal with the problem as Mists of Pandaria inches closer to release.

Happy 3rd Birthday, The Lion Guard

Happy 3rd Birthday, blog. I was hoping I'd be able to give you the gift of a Ragnaros kill, but alas, things didn't work out last night. We had a bunch of great attempts, though, and made it farther than we'd ever gone before. But, close doesn't cut it, so there's always next week, or the week after. =)

Blizzard did, however, come out with a new Dev Watercooler - The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria blog, which I'm sure will be excellent blog fodder for the near future, so there's that. =P

Why I Stopped Blogging

Sometimes, when I think about this blog, I feel like I owe the 3 people who may actually check it on occasion an explanation as to why I simply haven't been around here, even though I've been as active as ever on Twitter and PlusHeal. Part of the answer is personal and has to do with real life, and I'm not going to get into it here, because, quite frankly, I don' wanna *stomp stomp* *pout pout* so there! =P

The other part of it about how World of Warcraft has changed these past few years. There are, at the very core, two reasons why I play World of Warcraft—the story and the raiding. The storytelling in Cataclysm has been leaps and bounds better than its predecessors, and I have to give major kudos to Dave Kosak for that. Having major lore characters actually going out into the world and doing things is fun to watch, and getting to help them do those things is a joy to experience. Getting to see the plot unfold first-hand is amazing, and my only real problem with it is that the factional divide locks me out of experiencing some very key moments in Alliance lore unless I play a Horde character (such as the full story of Gilneas). Unfortunately, the storytelling does not make for a particularly blog-worthy experience unless I decide to take things in a more RP-centric direction, such as Flinthammer Hall or Travels through Azeroth and Outland, because everyone who is interested in the story can simply log into the game and experience it for themselves.

As such, most of my blogging desire is a result of the raiding aspect of the game—an aspect which I've been equal parts frustrated and content with for since Cataclysm launched. It's not so much with how Blizzard is handling raids (although I'm saddened that Blizzard's 10/25 raid lockout changes have essentially wrecked my old raid group), but rather the inescapable feeling that I'll eventually have to move on from my raiding group of the past 6-7 years if I'm ever to find the style of raiding I'm looking for. The fact of the matter it that, among other things, 10-mans are just not my thing. The days of Upper Blackrock Spire and running Karazhan weekly alongside the 25-man raids during the Burning Crusade have firmly implanted into my head the idea that 10-mans are supplemental large dungeon groups rather than raids proper, and it's an idea I just can't shake no matter how hard I try. Hopefully, though, the introduction of the Raid Finder feature in patch 4.3 will allow me to experience the best of both worlds—raiding with people I know and have a vested interest in seeing succeed, without feeling locked out of running larger, more epic raids.

All in all, between the upcoming storylines and upgraded game systems, I'm becoming more and more excited about the next big patch by the day, and that excitement is the reason why I'm trying to get back into blogging—I finally feel like I have something to say again.

Horde Favoritism in Theramore's Future?

Warning: This posts contains spoilers for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria pre-launch in-game event. Normally, I wouldn't even talk about this since it comes from datamined/unreleased sources, but I'm going to take the fact that Blizzard has taken the time to respond to the posts (including explicitly stating what happens in the events I'm referring to) publicly on their official forums as a sign that they don't mind public discussion about this. If you would like to read the threads and the official responses, you can find the first thread here and the second one here. Click the little Blizz icons to be taken to the first (or next) Blizzard post.

The posts linked above reveal an interesting plot point for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria pre-launch in-game event: the Horde under Garrosh Hellscream's leadership attacks and destroys the port city of Theramore. After the many losses suffered by the Alliance in Cataclysm (relatively speaking, compared to losses suffered by the Horde), some Alliance players are taking the razing of Theramore to be a sign that Blizzard is outright favoring the Horde to be the ultimate victor of World of Warcraft.

I disagree. The fact of the matter is that the Horde instigating an escalated conflict with the Alliance is the only way forward that makes sense. Both the Alliance and the Horde have suffered huge losses over the course of recent WarCraft history, especially in Cataclysm, and as such, both factions are trying to consolidate their power and rejuvenate their resources. It just so happens that the way these two factions go about this is in diametrically opposing manners that cut to the very heart of what it means to be Alliance or Horde.

The Alliance would most likely undertake this consolidation by renewing and reinforcing the ties between its varying races, as well as seeking someone to champion the cause of the faction as a whole, such as happened during the Second War with Anduin Lothar (and later Turalyon). During BlizzCon, Blizzard revealed that a major quest plot point for Alliance players in the future will be to act as a squire for King Varian Wrynn as he undertakes herculean tasks for the other Alliance leaders in order to be worthy of becoming said champion. Indeed, in addition to this quest chain, steps towards closer diplomatic ties between the Alliance leaders are already being taken as Prince Anduin Wrynn has been sent to study the ways of the Holy Light under the tutelage of the Draenei, who had until then been about as far from the center of Alliance political power as possible.

The Horde, on the other hand, is in the worst shape it has ever been in. The new WarChief, Garrosh Hellscream, is despised by most of the other Horde racial leaders. Cairne is dead by Garrosh's hand and Magatha Grimtotem's treachery, Sylvannas misses no opportunity to show her contempt for Garrosh, Vol'jin has been exiled and trusts Garrosh so little that he even sent emissaries to Stormwind City to ask for aid in the wake of the Zandalari resurgence, Trade Master Gallywix is certainly using the Horde for his own ends, and who knows what Lor'themar Theron is up to. The most obvious and orcish solution? Pick a fight with the Alliance to force Horde leaders to unite under the WarChief's banner.

Additionally, some posters in the above-linked threads are complaining that the next step they fear Blizzard may take after Theramore's destruction would be another Alliance loss with no consequence for the Horde. Personally, I don't think that's very likely because the lore itself does not bear that out. When we look at why the Alliance hasn't retaliated against Horde aggression thus far, two primary reasons come immediately to mind: 1)there were urgent matters at hand with significantly higher stakes; and 2)two powerfully influential proponents of peace were in perfect position to mitigate an Alliance military response.

The Theramore incident takes place after Deathwing's death, in the lead-up to the Mists of Pandaria expansion—an expansion in which Blizzard emphasized that there were not going to be any overarching doomsday plots that would suppress the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. Even if we were to completely ignore Blizzard's emphasis on factional conflict, the fact that there is no imminent threat from the Burning Legion or Lich King or Old God-controlled dragon aspect putting all of Azeroth in jeopardy means that point number 1 above ceases to be. In other words, the Alliance can stop focusing on whether or not there will even be a tomorrow and start focusing on what kind of tomorrow they wish to live in—and chances are said tomorrow will not include a unified Horde threatening their stability at every turn.

As for the second point, the two characters preventing the military might of the Alliance from turning to face the Horde were Prince Anduin Wrynn and Lady Jaina Proudmore. As mentioned earlier, Prince Anduin is off studying in the Exodar, conveniently out of the way and unable to talk his father out of war. Lady Jaina Proudmore, on the other hand, is caught right at the epicenter of the conflict. Something tells me that this time she's not going to advocate for peace after the Horde levels her city.

All in all, I'm excited, because if WarCraft past is any predictor of the WarCraft future, the Alliance is about to show the Horde exactly why you don't rouse a sleeping lion from its slumber. I can't wait. >=)

Oh November

November is National Novel Writing Month. No, I'm not writing a novel, but I figure I may as well take this month as another attempt to revive this blog and get some actual posts done. For the most part, I haven't been writing due to some circumstances in real life seem less and less likely to change by the month, so I figure now's probably going to be a good a time as any.

Anyway, I have a fully written new post lined up for tomorrow, as well as some post ideas rattling around in my head for the upcoming week. Let's see how this goes. =)

Well, That Was Weird

I just got out of one of the weirdest Zul'Aman runs I've ever been on. The group consisted of 3 guild members and 2 pick-ups (I was one of the pick-ups) that decided at the outset to attempt a bear run. Things started out really rocky right off the bat during the Akil'zon fight - I died once because I was too far away from the ranged DPS who got targeted by the Electrical Storm, was immediately combat rezzed, and then died again instantly because Akil'zon decided be a jerk and target me with Static Disruption before I could even heal myself. Fortunately, we had a second combat rez that got me back up on my feet and let us finish out the rest of the fight without issue.

Nalorakk and Jan'alai were not noteworthy at all, and we managed to get to Halazzi with a good few minutes to spare on the timer. I don't know exactly how much time we had left when Halazzi went down, but it couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 seconds at most. It was pretty close. I didn't win the bear, but I got my Bear-ly Made It achievement as well as completing The Captive Scouts quest, which is definitely good enough for me. (Not to say I don't want the bear - I definitely do - but I feel like I was the weak link in that run due to the several deaths, so I'm not going to begrudge the person who won the mount their victory.)

Anyway, you're probably wondering right about now why I think that run was weird, and there were several factors that contributed to it:

1. It was a semi-PuG run that actually managed to get the bear without too much difficulty and without any character in the group having done that accomplishment previously (all 5 of us got our achievement for it).


2. Aside from some small bits of advice here and there and the initial "Let's go for a bear" conversation, the 3 guild members all spoke in nothing but question marks. I doubt it was a UI error since there were some important statements here and there that displayed correctly, but the rest of the conversation in party chat looked something like:
   

   ?
   ???
   ??
   ??
   ???
   ?

   I have no clue whatsoever was going on there.
   


3. After completing the bear run and getting a bear for one of their guildmates, the three just left abruptly. I can understand if they didn't need any more Valor Points and just wanted to go on another bear run without bothering to complete the instance, but they didn't even bother to go back and loot the previous chests, either. Just rolled on the mount, got it, and left. Oh well, all that meant was a very quick Valor Point payoff for their replacements and more loot for me and the other original pick-up member at the end of the run.