(Its such an awesome title how could I not run with it?!!? Probably should have been Monthly WoW Woes, but that certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.)
DPS (Damage Per Second). The never ending quest for the all time highest damage output EVER. What is the DPS ceiling and how can I get there???
Since both of my World of Warcraft characters are DPS-centric, this question comes up for me often. My love-hate relationship with recount doesn’t help, as I can’t seem to get by without it, but playing with it is almost as impossible. Would I do better without it? Keeping track is eminently distracting. Though having such a clear display of ones performance (compared to everyone else) is highly motivating.
Okay, so maybe not all woes, but all it is certainly time for my weekly WoW ranting. (Hmm maybe I should do this weekly, might be cathartic.)
Somehow I have gone from being mildly interested in raiding, to raiding consistently four days a week. Since the new dungeon came out, Ice Crown Citadel (ICC), I got invited to be a guest (Hunter) on a regular ICC10, which turned into semi permanent. Then my little guild started running an ICC10 (Warlock does guild runs) and we got invited as a guild to join an ICC25, which has been taking two days a week so far.
The guest gig currently has the best success rate, as it’s a more consistent set of people. Our guild is too small so we always have to pick up a few extra random people (same with the 25man run). But overall the challenge is exciting and succeeding is invigorating.
I ended up drafting first, which might have helped, but then I’m never sure who to draft, thus my draft order is always a bit wonkey. Never the less I got a team that started out a bit slow but ramped up nicely.
The team finished the season middle of the pack and as luck would have it, most of my players actually participated in the final fantasy playoff weeks.
I dedicate this win to Wes Welker ~sniff sniff~ who kept us strong but had to leave us at the end for a serious knee injury.
Thank you team! I couldn’t have done it without you. =)
The latest patch for World of Warcraft (patch 3.3) was recently released, featuring a few new dungeons and of course lots more gear to get.
Being the good little WoW hamster that I am, I hopped onto the gear and reputation grinding mill as soon as I possibly could. And most other times I find myself happily chasing that tantalizing carrot dangling ever so close to my nose, yet with this latest patch it seems like I am running through mud.
Adding in the badge system for purchasing gear and items was a brilliant move that opened up gear to a much larger group of people. With the 3.3 patch, new gear was added and along with that they added new badges to purchase the higher level gear. Only they made the new Frost badges almost impossible to get, unless of course you are raiding.
Even for those raiders out there, there is only one new raiding dungeon that was added. The only place that drops frost badges! To top it all off, they didn’t even finish the dungeon! Its still missing quite a few bosses.
/sigh
So I lumber through the mud, though its wearing on my patience. But I do understand why the decided to take this route. This is the last new content before the next big expansion and frankly its not much. How this is going to last for the next 8 months to a year until Cataclysm, I dont know.
Aion seems to be thriving, the servers are at decent concurrency levels, there aren’t overwhelming server problems, and most players seem genuinely happy with the game. China can’t add servers fast enough and North American and European sales have almost reached a million.
Really it appears that the Aion launch (in North America) was not only successful but also quite smooth. Not something very many MMORPGs can boast. (To be fair, it was also not as large of a lunch as some previous games have been, plus they launched in Korea and China before they did here. Clearly that gave them an excellent opportunity to work out some kinks.)
And though I may be finished with Aion, I’m extremely glad I tried it. Much of my playtime was quite enjoyable. It just turned out to not be for me, which is fine. No game can appease everyone’s needs.
So I’m closing out the Aion book with a proper review. =)
Aion is a newly released MMO where all the characters are angels, not that they call them that, but the world is populated with beings that can fly. From what I have read, flying is the thing to set this MMO apart, flying around the world, and even more importantly, flying combat.
Since at our house we like to try out many of the new MMOs that pop up, we couldn’t miss this one. And since I wanted to share, writing a diary of my daily Aion activities seemed the best option.
Once resigned to the fact that PUGs are necessary and need to be suffered, finding them becomes the challenge.
Sadly in World of Warcraft the Looking for Group function is horrible. It is incredibly limited and hardly anyone seems to use it.
On my server the big alternative is the trade channel. This channel is only available while inside a major city. Since it is literally the only channel that gets used with any frequency everyone joins it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Imagine every PUG experience rolled into one very overused channel. It’s awful and I avoid it as much as possible.
Overall finding PUGs is not that easy, especially if you are a damage (DPS) class, as they tend to be a dime a dozen. Either you sit in town reading through agonizing trade chat, or you join the severely limited in game Looking for Group feature.
One of the suggestions that I got from my WoW raiding 101 write up was that I hadn’t mentioned anything about PUGs and how those should affect peoples class role choices.
PUG – Acronym for the phrase ‘pick up group’ – meaning to play as a team with random people.
Pick up groups are something most aspiring raiders will have to deal with, especially in World of Warcraft as it is today. Unless of course gifted with a very dedicated set of friends to play with, or part of a large guild that has enough daily active members to provide frequent group and raid buddies.
I hope everyone had as wonderful a halloween as I did! Managed to finish my All Hallows Eve achievemnt and still go out trick or treating IRL! Candy + sedentary computer game addiction = way too many extra pounds. Time to bust out the Wii Fit! =D
Wanted to leave you all with this excellent image from Aion today. Clearly nakedness sells, but nakedness topped with a pumpkin head, zomg! Merchants wet dream. From all of the vendors that spam Aion mercilessly, Happy Halloween! Every holiday is a shopping holiday. =)
It has been pointed out to me that the “weekly wow woes” rants are making it seem like I am not enjoying myself and should probably just quit (WoW).
