The LFG Fail

I’m working at this wonderfully relaxed place now where a large portion of my work consists of running errands for others and taking care of correspondence and where nobody only shows up for work because his parents forced him to. I got my own little office and when I started off in December, our IT support told me to “make sure you’re installing Skype”. The entire company is handling their everyday communication over Skype – how cool is that? I get to be online there all day long and I’ve totally not added a single one of my buddies to my contact list…

Anyways, correspondence. When you’re writing several E-Mails in a row to reply to some business associate or contact, the mind switches off at the oddest times (or maybe it’s just my mind which is an entirely valid possibility). Most business is done in English and so I’m taking care to honor the code and include all those nifty, standard greeting and closing formulas, à la “Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further information” or “Please find enclosed…” and so forth. Corporate language, I has it.

In between handling those letters, I also get to send a lot of short notes or reminders to my co-workers which are frequently in different languages, namely German or French. And that’s when it happened.
When you’re writing more casual types of Emails to friends or colleagues in German, it’s pretty standard to use acronyms like ‘LG’ (liebe Grüsse) or ‘MFG’ (mit freundlichen Grüssen) to replace “kind regards” as a closing line. This has even made its way into more formal letters by now, depending on what the subject is or for how long correspondents have known each other. So naturally, when I was asked to send a short request for booking confirmation out on a workmate’s behalf a few days ago, I didn’t hesitate to end the Email in that way (you need to assume this would have been in German):

[actual message here]

Please contact me if you require any further information.

LFG, Silly Goof

LFG…
I actually wrote LFG!
A splitsecond after sending that Email (figures), I realized it.

/facepalm

And I know why of course: I spent a large portion of my free ‘blogging and blog-reading time’ this week on reading about Cataclysm’s 5man runs, the fail and glory of them, especially in regard to being a healer. There will also be a contribution of my own to that topic pretty soon, so MY BRAIN IS IN LFG MODE!

It’s days like these when you realize you’re having enitrely too many thoughts on WoW. Have a good weekend everybody and be careful on those heroic runs!

When losing is winning. Or: don’t blame players for Tol Barad

Only a few weeks into the expansion, factions on many servers have started to engage into “win-trading” for the honor gains in Tol Barad, Blizzard’s latest outdoor PVP zone equivalent of Wintergrasp. To give complete newcomers some background: the theoretical aim of the zone is to conquer 3 keeps and then, to hold at least one of them as defender through the consecutive rounds (games happen every 2 hours) or re-conquer them as the attacker. Now the horde and alliance have struck a deal which is to alternate between winning and losing, or to put it briefly: never bothering to defend after a win.

– Why is that, you ask?

Simply put it’s because that strategy is the most rewarding for players. A large part of PvP, just like a large part of farming the same heroic for the 20th time, are rewards. Yeah there’s the fun of playing with a team and being successful, but erm….rewards! For many or probably most gamers epics/gear/rewards translate into win. You get loot for killing a boss, not for letting him live. In PvP winning and gaining as much honor as you can is (or should be) identical. So if you want to gain as much honor as possible, what you need to do in TB is losing on purpose, every second game. To lose is to win here.

– How can that be, you ask?

Blizzard designed the honor gains in such a way that attacking gives a lot more honor than a successful defense. So much more in fact (10 times to be exact), that there is basically no incentive at all for players to defend, except for “teh fame and glory”. We know how well that one works…
This difference in honor gain is a result of attacking (claiming 3 keeps) being a lot harder than defending just one base. And while that might contain some “realism” (besieging is harder than defending), it opens a whole can of worms in this case.

Players want to attack as often as they can, so their strategy makes a lot of sense: lose your defense, so you can win more attacks. Anyone looking to optimize and with a minimum of mathematical skills would choose this strategy. The issue are not the players: Losing should never be profitable – the system should make you want to win in every case.

I. When failed game design is an exploit

According to Blizzard such “win-trading” is of course and exploit and against the rules. Now I’m a bit of a free spirit maybe, but I don’t call taking the logic road and making a strategic decision a game offers you, an exploit. To me, abuse suggests players making use of some kind of glitch or bug in game design that is there by error. Be it that you climb up a cliff you shouldn’t be able to climb in Alterac Valley because it gives you a fatal advantage, be it that you use levitate in order to cheat the fire in Crusaders’ Coliseum. That’s cheating and doing so knowingly or unknowingly usually matters not (hai there, Ensidia).

What we basically have in Tol Barad is similar to the situation we had through almost all of WotLK: “let’s lose fast”-mentality in battlegrounds. And while I didn’t like that one bit, the truth is that Blizzard made losing too profitable. And I can see where they’re coming from: obviously a lot of BG pugs are from hell and not getting any rewards for losing would seriously put many players off. Oh the whining. We cant have that, so here’s some welfare points.
And that’s why Blizzard gave losers a bit of a reward, enough to keep them going and sadly also to make them wanna lose fast. That issue was never handled like an abuse though, in fact the whole system encouraged it. Only at the very end of WotLK did they finally make losing hurt enough for people wanting to win and not sabotaging BGs anymore (although I guess they still did, there’s no fix for stupid).

Tol Barad, while being a different case, is indirectly suffering from the same effect. Worse still: alternating between wins and losses is the most profitable way to go (because you can’t win attacks several times in a row). How much sense does that make to you? I see a football team before me that gets paid more for losing every second game than bothering to win. If losing on purpose has such clear advantages, losing becomes a legitimate choice. The big difference here is only that players aren’t deciding this in BG-chat, they’re doing so openly on the forums.

Of course you can say now “but it’s illegal, Blizzard hath spoketh” and that’s right. Works just great too, “because I said so” has always been a really powerful argument in a debate. Fear of ban makes for instant insight? Not only can you not control or prove players losing on purpose, it’s a lot of fuss over something incredibly easy to fix. And yeah I’ve read the EULA – does that mean we can’t reason anymore?

After the same logic, anyone in an Alterac Valley or any other battleground, who is standing around chatting, goes to grab a drink during respawn time or stops trying half-way through, is sabotaging the point of the game. Does that make him an exploiter, strictly speaking? What if he has a clear gain from losing? Do we have a moral obligation to win or at least try to win?

II. Blame not – fix! Possible solutions for the unholy alliance

Just so I’ve clarified my personal view: I’m no fan of win-trading and I’ve detested BG sabotage with a passion for years. I want to play PvP properly and get rewards for winning and playing cooperatively (with my own faction), not for losing. I have in fact not had time to partake in more than a single TB game so far which lasted 3 minutes before it was lost. I also don’t condone deliberate exploiting in MMOs.

In Tol Barad’s case however, players are making the most practical choice in order to optimize honor gains and that choice is there by design. Blaming players to play a system that makes no sense to their advantage, makes no sense. If you design a game that nobody wants to win, you fail at designing. Nobody wants to win a TB defense game, only an attack game. So for me, the responsibility lies with Blizzard here: they need to fix this non-sense. I am frankly also a little baffled that they wouldn’t have foreseen this during the months of Cataclysm testing, but maybe they have simply under-estimated the level of cooperation servers are capable of, which Spinks so aptly calls the “miracle of Tol Barad”.

So, how to fix this? Few ideas:

  • Harmonize the required effort of attacking and defending. Why does the defender only need to defend one base when attacking requires three? 
  • Harmonize the honor gains alongside with the requirements; attack and defense should both be profitable. If anything, make the reward for a successful defense slightly higher in order to encourage players to keep ownership. This would make thoughts of win-trading obsolete.
  • Abandon the whole re-claiming concept and reset status before every new game. Maybe a more extreme change, but why does there always need to be the defense part? Make both factions go for the same attack game each round.

In a way, all of this reminds me oddly of Ghostcrawler’s commentary on abandoning the 5-second-rule for mana regen in Cataclysm, which can be roughly summarized as: “it makes no sense to reward and motivate healers to stand around and do nothing”. Exactly! There should be no reward for not playing!

Tol Barad, even if not designed to be played that way, indirectly encourages doing nothing. Or rather: Tol Barad rewards cross-faction cooperation more than conflict at the moment. All it takes for this to change are a few small fixes. We’ll see what happens next.

How to track down an Orc mage

I guess most of you have had some guild achievements flashing up on your screen the past weeks since Cataclysm launched and maybe you’ve shared my feeling of “wut? what happened there?”, followed by trying to find out who did what exactly and what reward the guild might have got.

The new guild perks system is a double-edged blade: not only due to the guild size issue, but overall it feels very underwhelming to see flashy pop-ups coming up ever so often, without having been part of anything – frankly the guild part of the achievement is lost on me there. I know I’m not alone in this, many guildies feel excluded when one, dedicated “achievement hunting team” goes out on the very first days of the expansion to get as many guild achievements as possible and while the rewards are for everybody, it doesn’t feel like a group effort at all.
That said, I don’t nearly care enough about achievements to whine about it and most of them don’t come with noticeable rewards either (the really big part is guild ranks and mass effort achis), but I simply don’t think Blizzard implemented the system very well.

I’ve only just started to explore the new guild tab in the achievement window a few days ago, mostly to check which of them actually come with something useful. Now, as a pet collector I’d love to get the Armadillo Pup, but that one is far away still with our 10k kills out of 50k total. We’re not the biggest guild and I also suspect there’s a natural resistance in many to go and hunt down fluffy bunnies and squirrels! For those among you, here’s a little motivator.

Tracking down the elusive orc mage

Killing horde on the other hand – works fine for most. I’m certainly not shy to PvP and I always enjoyed the achievements that require you to hunt down certain class-race combinations in WoW, either to slay them or put bunny ears on their heads or whatever (see how there is darkness and light inside me!). As a priest especially, you’ve got awesome tools for this kind of mission. So, when I realized that all our guild was missing for the Horde Slayer Achievement was an orc mage, I decided to have a look around AV – it couldn’t be so hard, surely…

…Riiight! Apparently orc mages are the least popular class-race combination ever on horde side. I’m not sure why that is, whether it’s racials or the fact that orcs are generally associated with being “brutes”, so not exactly the educated smart or spiritual kind. The WoW census is rather clear on this: counting all EU servers together a baffling 2%-3% of all horde mages are orcs, already less than there are goblin mages. That’s even worse than the percentage of dwarf rogues on alliance side – honestly, would you rather see an orc in cloth or a hairy dwarf in leather? Anyway.

It took me several nights to finally spot an orc mage in AV and I gotta say, I felt a little sorry for the guy! Having your face on a wanted poster all over an entire battlegroup – NOT FUN! Bad times for orc mages. But then, the system is enforcing this really, because you can’t get the achievement done by killing anything less than a lvl 85, so arranging for an alternative of your own quickly isn’t an option.

Well then, if you happen to be a priest and are looking to do this guild achievement, here’s how to do it the BG way (and I promise you won’t have to PvP any more than absolutely needed):

  • Queue for an AV and once inside, browse the BG chart to check whether there are any orc mages in. If not and you absolutely hate to PvP, /afk out and repeat in 15mins.
  • Once you’ve spotted your orcish friend, create a /target + name macro to make sure you spot him right away on the battlefield.
  • Follow the main rush and stay in midfield on Field of Strife. This is where most alliance and horde cross in the beginning and there’s a very high chance your orc mage will be among them. Spam your target-macro at all times.
  • Once you got your target, follow the horde rush at a distance and try to spot the player to see where he’s going. It might prove tricky, so what you want to do now is to retreat to a safe spot quickly and throw a mindvision before you’ve lost him. 
  • After you’ve located him, track him down and keep a focus on him to see whether he’s already in combat, winning or dying (in which case he will release at the closest horde GY). Throwing a DoT is enough to get the kill count if he’s already battling someone else. If you have to take him on 1vs1, good luck!

I was lucky because in my case the orc mage was on his way to Stonehearth Bunker and already engaged in a flag fight when I arrived. He was at 50% health and too surprised at my arrival to react, so a quick Penance and SW:Death finished the job. And I realize just how this sounds – I’m really sorry Dag-something, Blizzard made me do it!

On the bright side, we got the guild achievement and with it comes the Guild Page companion which is actually quite useful for non-collectors too: it’s your very own mobile vendor and allows you to clear all the trash from your bags during questing which is rather handy at the moment. Unfortunately he only lasts for 5 mins and is on an 8 hour cooldown, just like the other guild vendor items……/facepalm

Anyway, should you get tired of questing or heroics sometime, give PvP achievements a go, they’re actually a fun distraction and you do not need a PvP kit either to get them, especially in AV. The tracking tactic obviously works for any class-race combination you might be after. For the Alliance – For the Horde! Enjoy your weekend and a happy New Year from Raging Monkeys everybody!

Shut up and play

I have to get something off my chest as I’ve been increasingly annoyed by certain comments from some people ever since Cataclysm launched. The posts I’m referring to are typically by ex-WoW players getting back to the game right now, the sort of more casual gamers that only show up for the first few weeks every time and bugger off to other games again after. The ones that will write how addictive and wasteful WoW is and how good it is they stopped each time they have left, and still re-subscribe for every new expansion until content becomes old and boring for them again (which happens soon).

I frequent several more general gaming boards that are crowded with re-subscribers like these and read how they publicly try to “justify” playing Cataclysm there, adding lines à la –

“Oh noes I’m such a freak, I just resubscribed to WoW! /facepalm”

or

“Me too, I’m so weak! But I promise it will only be for a few weeks!”

……….

Seriously, can you people just shut up and play? Enjoy the expansion maybe and let others enjoy it? I’m all fine with people unsubscribing and re-subscribing to WoW when they feel it’s lost its glamour for them or they simply can’t find the time – I’ve been there myself. What I can’t stand is all the cliché nonsense that follows when some ex-WoW players leave the game, making a scene how much the game sucks or the people still playing it are such sad individuals….and then actually come back every time to play new expansions! If you need to act like a jerk, do me a favour and at least be consequent.

I know it’s an alien concept, but a lot of people play WoW because it’s a great game. And maybe you re-subscribed because Cataclysm looks awesome and like lots of fun. So how about leaving it at that and cut your pitiful attempts at self-redemption? It would make sharing our servers with the likes of you much more pleasant.

It might sound weird (though I’m sure many WoW players out there know exactly of what I speak), but “visitors” like these make me feel like I am hosting guests in my home who sit on my chairs, drink my wine and eat food at my table and then smash the bowls after they’re fed up, ruin the carpet and kick the cat on their way out. The sole difference being that the lock on that door ain’t mine – more’s the pity.

Or in short: Just shut up and play Cata, mkay?

Healing Coordination: Going the extra mile

There is an elephant in my room and it’s bright blue. It’s been there ever since I’ve taken up blogging on WoW and it’s starting to soil the rug now. All my friends and co-healers know how passionate a holy priest and healer I am in WoW. I’ve coordinated raid healing ever since my first 40 man guild. I’ve had the pleasure to work with 3 different healing teams over the years and to experience and coordinate every encounter in the game since Molten Core, with the exception of the last few bosses in AQ40 and most of the Sunwell. Every encounter I think back on or look forward to in WoW, is from a healer’s perspective. I love healing and I love being a part of healing teams.

The reason why I haven’t blogged about this sooner, is simply that there are already many great posts on healing coordination out there, guides full of useful tips by other very experienced healers and bloggers. I love reading and scrutinizing these topics and while I take a lot of it for granted by now personally, I know it’s not; there’s a great many raidguilds out there still running without dedicated healing leads and raidleaders. They’ve my sincere sympathies.

Healing coordination, the successful kind, is all about a great deal of things: knowing your healers, knowing your classes, knowing encounter specifics, knowing how to prioritize, giving precise assignments (that includes things like positioning or save rotations), re-adjusting raid setup constantly (to correspond to more specific assignments and make your healers’ lives easier), communicating and keeping feedback flowing, keeping your team’s spirits high – just to name a few.

Most of all however, it is about someone willing to do all these things; from pre-raid preparation and discussions with the raidleaders, over the actual coordination, to post-raid analyzis. There’s a lot going on for healing coordinators during raids, especially on a progress night, and chances are you will never know because you never really see them adjusting things in the background. Most non-healers do not notice the healing coordinator’s job in a raid – they only notice his absence, in some obscure, nondescript way.

I don’t like repeating things that others have said before me and already put into elaborate words just for the sake of it. That’s why I’d like to point out a few guides first that I appreciate for their overall information and insight on the subject matter. I know there are many more, these are simply three I remember for being good places to start:

  • Raid Rx: 3 steps to assigning healers – an older breakdown by Matticus which does something before all else: simplify. Sometimes less is more, especially if you’re just starting off. A thing that I’ve said time and again is that healing isn’t rocket science, there’s no need to make it sound that way.
  • Zen and the art of healing assignments – a good example of the essentials of the trade and how healing coordination is about keeping a cool head and adaption.
  • Kurn’s Healing Lead Philosophy – I liked this particular overview because it emphasizes several points that I personally find very important, such as maximizing clarity or dealing with parses the right way.

That’s really all your essentials to start off as a healing lead. Might sound like a lot, but you grow into a role and will refine procedures and macros over time. What you cannot necessarily learn is things like having a “knack” for leadership and overseeing these kind of things – having an analytical yet creative mind for problem solving and strong nerves to deal with short-term changes or unhappy raidleaders. Healing leads need broad shoulders. Not everyone is up to be a co-leader in WoW but if you are, your tools can be found in those articles.

…So, what can I contribute to all this that might haven’t been mentioned? What tips would I like to give to other healing leads out there looking to get back to business in Cataclysm, based on my very personal practice and experiences? I think I have a thing or three to add. I can’t promise you to keep this short, but I can promise to include everything that might be useful to somebody else.

Going the extra mile: further methods to optimize healing coordination

Over time I’ve been stuck in situations where I felt the basic tools weren’t quite enough to prepare us for the tactics of a fight or then we were simply struggling at a boss with more complex mechanics. Multi-phase encounters especially can be a challenge to coordinate if all you have at your disposal are assignment macros and manually typing and reacting in the healer channel. You know that there’s a raidgroup waiting and while all good things need time, holding others up for too long is uncomfortable. Here’s three means of helping yourself which I’ve used frequently in the past and cultivated in our healing team:

1) The pre-pull peptalk / PPP
The pre-pull peptalk is going to make your life loads easier on encounters where there is a lot of details and roles to discuss, positioning, multiple phases and so forth. You do not only feel that spamming so many lines is too overwhelming, but you want to make absolutely sure that everyone is on board and has a chance to ask questions if unsure about any objective. For this, I would usually grab my entire healing squad over to a separate ventrilo channel at raidstart where I would go through all the essentials of the upcoming fight in a very swift and reduced manner: an overview of what’s ahead, what difficulties there are and what every healer is going to be in charge of – while also spamming the summary macro. In only 5 minutes you can explain and emphasize a lot more than you ever could by typing and you get to ask two fundamental questions: “Everyone clear on their targets? Any questions or suggestions?”

Meanwhile, the rest of the raid is busy with getting their own directions from the raidleaders. In Adrenaline the raidleader and healing leader work closely together and prep each part of the raid separately (and we’ve usually already talked this through pre-raid). Nobody is going to miss the healers in these 5-10 initial minutes.
I have used this method at Malygos, Mimiron, Arthas and Dreamwalker to name a few examples. In general, it’s worth doing when you know you’ve got a wipenight ahead. It does not only help you but makes your team feel like a real unit.

2) Visual aids
Fights like Lady Vashj, Mimiron or Sindragosa, do not only have complex mechanics but assignments that are absolutely crucial to be followed meticulously by every single member in the raid. Positioning is one big factor here among several others. Whenever we were facing fights of such complexity, with all the mayhem and chaos of first wipenights, I posted a small overview on our forums with visual aids for the healers (usually useful to others too). Take a screenshot of the boss room if feasible and make a graphic for your team that clears up points like movement and positioning once and for all.
I am a very visual person myself and I know from my educational background that if you’re trying to teach more elaborate concepts, you always want to use more than just words: a lesson that’s accompanied by pictures and/or voice, stimulates several senses at once and always leaves a more lasting effect. And: there are far fewer misunderstandings going on when people have looked at the same graphic!

To give you an example of such visual aids, here’s what I did for Lady Vashj, Mimiron or Sindragosa in the past. Pictures were accompanied by detailed strategy. If you have a forum account at Plusheal.com, you can also check here or here for the complete guides.

3) Post-raid analyzis sticky
Tanks, DPS and healers run their separate post-raid sticky threads in our guild forums. Looking back at what went wrong as much as what was done really well, is an important part of preparing for your next raid. It can be difficult to get everyone engaged in these discussions, but in the healer team’s case you have an easier job to get people to participate and we’ve had some very fruitful feedback and tactical discussions there in the past.

In our topic I would regularly publish a round-up after particularly intense nights or new encounters, pointing out briefly what the healing difficulties were, what still needed improving, linking further reading and also: highlighting the good stuff. I have a tendency myself to focus on negatives but it’s crucial to celebrate success from time to time. Get used to writing short post-raid summaries like that and encourage your fellow healers to feedback.

Things to cultivate in your team

This is a more personal part about the core values I have personally come to believe in and uphold in the healing teams I’ve been part of and coordinated in WoW over the years. An atmosphere of trust, honesty, mutual respect and friendship are the corner stones of every functional group of people. As a healing coordinator, it is your role to cultivate qualities such as these while being the leading figure who is in charge of maintaining a sense of order and get to the bottom of  whatever issues. This role can be a demanding task when under pressure and as always, communication is key.

1) Primus inter pares
At any given time, I perceived my role in the healing team as that of the primus inter pares – “the first among equals”. This distinction has always been vital for me to convey. I am my team’s coordinator: that means, I fulfill a necessary and logistic task for my raidguild. I do this for a variety of reasons which range from natural disposition over know-how to the lack of anyone else willing to commit himself to this task (and that last reason has stuck with me wherever I went).
What I am not is your boss, babysitter or mom. I am not all-knowing, perfect or better than any of my team members. When I assign tasks and responsibilities, they will be clear and detailed but I never tell my healers how to heal or play their class. They know what is required – the how is left to them. If things go wrong and it’s really due to a single healer’s poor choices, there is still time to address it when you’re crossing that bridge.

We all see eye to eye in our team even if I am the one calling the shots. If there’s a situation where I need a serious word with one healer, I will do that subtly, via whispers or after the raid. I will never humiliate anyone publicly in the channel and undermine his standing with the rest of the team. Healing teams depend on trusting each other and anyone can have a bad night. I’d rather make a light-hearted joke in such a situation or laugh about it together than blow things out of proportion.

I cannot possibly stress this point enough: your team’s willingness to cooperate, be open and communicate with you is going to depend on your relationship with each other and the role and attitude you establish for yourself as healing lead. That doesn’t mean you cannot be forceful if needed, but there is a difference between resolve and arrogance.

2) There is no “not my problem”
There is no ‘I’ in team, only ‘we’. If there is any issue in the line of healing, it concerns each and everybody. No one is allowed to lean back with a self-sufficient smile while there’s still unresolved issues around. Healing is teamwork: there are no stars here and nobody will be left behind. Without meaning to sound too militaristic: each healing team is only as strong as its weakest link. There are encounters that will push you to a limit like that and where there is no room for ego.

While individual performance matters, the thing that still counts the most for the rest of the raid, is the overall outcome of a fight. Therefore, consider every issue your issue and help your team mates out with suggestions or add your feedback and ideas in the healing channel for the coordinator.
This is what I expect of each team member and nobody is left out from it. We celebrate our successes together and we also work as a team when things go wrong. Anything else will make me really unpleasant really quick.

3) The only way to the healers is through me
This is something I have always been adamant about, sometimes to the dismay of a raidleader or co-raider. By now, most of my mates know why this is so important though (and they’re also a little scared of me, haha!). What I’m talking about is that I expect raid leaders and members alike, to take any form of feedback or critique on healing through me. I am the person in charge and I am also the person with all the information: who has been assigned, to what, how and why. So if there are any questions, issues, wishes or criticism, there is no use to moan at an individual healer in the team, bicker in raidchat about healing or trying to give out orders of your own – they won’t listen to you. We’ve had a trialist or two in the past that actually thought they needed to scream “HEAL ME!” during our raids or blame the healers in the DPS channel; they didn’t last very long. This is not how we deal with issues in our guild.

I’m the one you should be talking to if you want to resolve something and that’s not because I am on some sort of power trip: I need to know what’s going on in order to coordinate healing better and I can’t do this if you by-pass me, this only creates utter chaos. Talk to me, I am actually here to help. Respect the job that I’m doing and let me do it, don’t go over my head or behind my back. Not if you’re hoping to get heals in the future, anyway.

I’m also the one who has a fairly good idea about whether a screw-up is really due to healing or not which is something that’s usually assumed by others overly quick. That said, no healing team is perfect, of course there are healing issues sometime and they can cause the loss of an MT or even wipe a raid. But there’s many many potential reasons behind a screw-up, so if you have anything to convey or ask, then ask the healing lead because he holds all the information. Also:  If you want to blame somebody, blame me. There’s really no use blaming other healers for their assignments.

Final words

These are probably my most valued and personal tips I can give to anyone about the things I’ve learned and situations I’ve been in. I still learn new things every raid, such is the beauty of dealing with human beings rather than NPCs: we’re all unique and fallible and that fallibility is what actually makes leading a required task and a fun challenge. It’s also the reason why encounters stay interesting for healers. Human error is the spice of our trade: if the rest of the raid was constantly 100% on top of tactics, things would get boring quickly. But we never quite know what’s going to happen and as a healing lead, you always need to be ready to react, re-evaluate and work with the choices before you. I love the first weeks in new raid instances for this reason.

Adrenaline will start with official 25man raids sometime around the start of January 2011. I look forward to new challenges and also to welcome Stumps, long-time raidleader and GM of Adrenaline, back in our healing team. I’ve successfully poached him to play his resto druid in the expansion and share the role of healing coordinator with me – I know we’ll have a lot of fun (it’s gonna be fiiine!). There’s been a few changes in our setup, but it still stands strong with both long-term healers and few newcomers. I can only second Lodur’s hommage to his healing team: WoW is so much more enjoyable for me thanks to them and our lively raid channel. We are not just fellow raiders but comrades and it’s worth your time and extra effort to lead such a dedicated bunch of people. Happy coordinating everybody.

World of Warcraft Hats

When I was chatting with friends in guild chat the other night, the topic was collector mania in WoW. Most gamers I know collect something, be it mounts, pets, tabards, achievement points, titles or recipes. For me, it’s pets and dresses – my bank alt has no less than 2 guildtabs full of rare and special WoW vanity outfits. I’m not much of a ‘handbag and shoes’ person in real life, but ingame I enjoy collecting robes, with the odd matching headpiece or shoulder item.

So when a guild mate asked me how many special hats I actually have, I had to go check. Funky headpieces aren’t exactly easy to come by in WoW even though things have gotten a lot better since vanilla (hello ugly headbands). Some more interesting models are either gear class- or profession-exclusive or drop from longer questlines or dungeons, like the Goblin Rocket Helmet.

However, if you’re looking for an easy way to be fashionable or that hat for the special occasion, here’s my pick of 15 special WoW hats everyone can have! Most of them are relatively easy to obtain via farming, holiday quests or checking the auction house, none of them are class – or faction-exclusive! A few share model with another item or two, but my picks should be the easiest way to go.

Since I am heartbroken over seeing goblinettes go to the horde in Cataclysm, I’ve put all hats on display on a female goblin – all images are expandable.

Admiral’s Hat [BoE / green / no lvl]
The Admiral’s Hat can be crafted by a tailor who picks up the recipe in Stranglethorn Vale.
With this royal hat you’re not only captain of the a ship’s crew, but grant everyone in your party a stamina buff – how cool is that?

First Mate Hat [BoE / green / lvl 35]
A rare drop from Stranglethorn Vale, this item can usually be picked up from the AH if you don’t feel like farming yourself. Prices on my server vary from 1’000 gold upwards. One of my favourite hats, pirates ftw! You want to combine this item with a swashbuckler outfit and classic parrot companion!

Battered Jungle Hat [no bind / white / no lvl]
Obtained via various fishing dailies, this stylish hat is usually up on the AH for a reasonable price and is the perfect finish for all your black outfits. This hat seems particularly popular with bank alts for some reason!

Chef’s Hat [BoP / blue / no lvl]
A must for every dedicated cook, this hat can be picked up from the cooking supplier in Dalaran for 100 cooking awards which makes this the most time-intense of all my hat picks. The model is unique and comes with a cooking speed bonus. Must combine with Cookie’s Tenderizer and any flavour of fish offhand!

Blood Elf Bandit Mask [no bind / white / lvl 5]
Dropped by blood elf bandits on Azuremyst Isle, this elaborately patterned headpiece is one of only a few roguey masks in the game that come without armor class restrictions. It’s usually found on the AH and combines very well with Lunar Festival finery.

Hallowed Helm [BoP / blue / no lvl]
The Hallowed Helm is a random drop from the Headless Horseman during Hallow’s End. While this item might require some more dedicated farming, it is not super rare and definitely worth getting! Accompany by Sinister Squashling for the perfect spook effect!

Red Winter Hat / Green Winter Hat [BoP / green / no lvl]
Both of these Christmas hats can be obtained by killing designated 5man dungeon bosses on either normal or heroic during the Winter Veil holiday. Matching outfits in red and green can be crafted by tailors (patterns are available in Ironforge and Ogrimmar, the NPCs will sell to both factions).

Spring Circlet [BoP / white / no lvl]
One of the more controversial items in the game, the bunny ears are a funny looking and unique model headpiece. Buy this for 50 chocolates during the Noblegarden Easter holiday or get lucky by opening Brightly Colored Eggs. Best combined with Elegant Dress or Festive Pink Dress and a Bouquet of Spring Flowers.

Crown of the Fire Festival [BoP / white/ no lvl]
Coming by a floating halo model is not the easiest undertaking for non-priests in WoW. This crown comes with a funky blazing fire effect and is the quest reward to A Thief’s Reward during the Midsummer Fire Festival. Great to combine with the rest of the midsummer regalia sold during the holiday.

Brewfest Hat [BoP / white / no lvl]
The Brewfest Hat comes in 4 colors and is sold for 50 tokens during the Brewfest holiday. It’s part of a 3-item set and the next best thing after actual holidays in Bavaria. Needless to say, this outfit goes hand in hand with an authentic Brewfest Stein.

Haliscan Brimmed Hat [BoP / white / no lvl]
An equivalent model to Don Carlos’ Famous Hat, this item requires you to complete the quest Nice Hat picked up in Tanaris. Unlike the blue heroic drop, this is a guaranteed reward but doesn’t come with a shiny coyote as companion. Matching Haliscan Jacket and Pantaloons can be crafted by tailors – Ay, caramba!

Authentic Jr. Engineer Goggles [no bind / white / no lvl]
While almost all engineering crafted goggles in the game have profession requirements, this pair is your easiest shot at a smart look without the need to quest. Engineers can craft this for cheap materials and no other goggles will make you “appear more gifted and attractive” just like these!

Noble’s Monocle [no bind / white / no lvl]
Your top choice for the distinguished air, the Noble’s Monocle is a cheap random drop from fishing dailies and usually sold for a reasonable price on the AH. Apparently jewelcrafters can now also learn to craft blue quality monocles in Cataclysm, in case you shouldn’t be able to find this anywhere.

Sorcerer Hat of… [BoE / green / lvl 41]
Not actually a ‘special’ hat, I still keep a blue Sorcerer Hat of Frozen Wrath in my collection for that authentic, goofy witch look. The hats come in various colors and drop randomly over Azeroth, so picking one up on the AH really isn’t hard. Combine with a matching robe, add a sparkly wand or broom and black cat for full effect!

Pilgrim’s Hat [BoP/ white / no lvl]
This hat is obtainable via daily quests during the Pilgrim’s Bounty holiday, along with matching chest pieces and shoes. The modelviewer doesn’t seem to like this hat on goblins for some reason. Combine with a Farmer’s Broom and cook your turkey nice and crisp over a fire! For the holiday-resistant, a possible alternative might be found on the AH.

I hope you enjoyed my pick of WoW hats! There’s certainly many more, but these items are obtainable for everyone without too much hassle (patience might be a requirement here and there). I would love to write a guide on special dresses sometime, but these lists are such a time-consuming project and it will probably take weeks deciding on what dresses to pick as there are just way too many! That said, I won’t dismiss the idea entirely!

As for hats, I’ve already set my eyes on the fabulously looking High Society Top Hat , a blue tailoring item from Cataclysm whose source apparently is still unknown, argh! If you happen to know where this is from or if you’ve already discovered any more special items of this kind, be sure to let me know – I always love finding out about new items! =)

P. S. Gief earlaps Blizzard!

My private Cataclysm

So I’ve spent the first half of last week trying to find time for Cataclysm while running from one appointment to the next and taking care of all sorts of paperwork. It’s been hectic times for me, in fact this year seems to be a ‘cataclysmic’ one indeed, not just on Azeroth but my own private world has been revamped quite a bit. It’s been a year of endings and new beginnings and just when Blizzard decided to launch their new world, I’m looking at a fresh start too. After a tedious application procedure that lasted for several weeks, I finally got the final phonecall telling me I got the job I wanted 3 days ago. It’s the one goal I still had for 2010 and makes Cataclysm week a truly special week in my book!

Now I wouldn’t be a real WoW gamer if the euphoria wasn’t instantly accompanied with a least some worries – “oh noes, no more time for Cataclysm now!” and “how am I gonna keep up with all the new work?” – so I’ve plunged myself into WoW ever since I got the news, canceling further duties and exploring as much as I could. I have stayed away from pretty much all the beta information and screenshots before to make this the real deal and weeee, I’m having fun!

New zones

I absolutely love Vash’jr as expected. They’ve really done as good job by handing you those speedy seahorses early which makes traveling down there so much easier (they look awesome too!). The zone is by far the most original and unique one in the game for obvious reasons, there is so much new flora and fauna to see, it’s an explorer’s delight! And while Grumpy Dorf is still resisting me by saying he hates murlocs, the beasts you really get to re-meet down there aplenty are the naga. I loved Lady Vashj, so it’s all fine by me.

I went to Hyjal later which is a great zone as well, the whole vanilla-WoW feel to it (you are the BOMB!), the variety of sub-zones and the cave questlines. One thing I noticed is that Cataclysm doesn’t exactly blow me away in terms of soundtrack like WotLK did, but Hyjal makes up for that a little.

Deepholm is impressive and depressing at the same time, intimidating and otherwordly. I’ve mostly been there to fish so far (I’ll do anything that helps me avoid the AH in order to skill up my professions at the moment) and got my ass kicked by the mobs there – damn, they hit a lot harder after 83, don’t they?!

Twilight Highlands look nice but nothing I haven’t seen already and better in WotLK. When it comes to woods and highland feeling, you can’t really top Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord.

Uldum is not my thing at all, way too geometrical and ‘clinic’ for my taste. It reminds me of past nightmares in Silithus and the AQs so despite Stumps telling me how awesome the quests are in there, I’m likely to stay away until I run out of things to do. I will of course eventually want the reputation, sigh.

Healing

I’m leveling my way up in healing spec, smiling a little at all the shadow-priests that have suddenly popped up all around me – it almost seems as if holy and disc don’t exist anymore outside of dungeons. When I logged into WoW on Wednesday, I was shocked to find how many lvl 85 there were already and decided that I definitely didn’t need to speed things up further. I’m fine leveling as disc.
I’ve also been very eager to test group healing and have healed all the instances up to lvl 84 until now. The most irritating part was probably that mana seems to get exponentially worse with every ding – it feels like a big chunk of it is disappearing with each level or well…staying the same while everything else goes up. The scaling steps are miserable and having just hit 84, I can see what’s going to happen next.

That said, I’ve not struggled on any runs so far, but I’ve only been in there with my guild. The few times we miss-pulled or aggroed several packs, I used my saves and shadowfiend and was completely out of mana afterwards – which is great. Amagad, I am using all my spells again, not just once a month in a 25man raid but in a NON-HEROIC 5man!!

I’ve started to use heal now because flashheal has become unaffordable but I’m struggling with the 2.3sec cast I got at the moment. This has gotta come down bigtime, obviously my gear is still far from ready. I can also not find a lot of use for my Chakras because of this, I can’t maintain either of them very well on 5man and I’ve had absolutely no reason to use Sanctuary so far. New idea for Heal-Chakra: remove Renew-refresh and give 30% haste buff on heal instead!

Am currently wearing a mix of old epics and new blues and try to get my hands on as much spirit and haste as I can. I actually like holy mastery too, it should become quite huge in raids with proper numbers.
I look forward to throw myself into heroics (and that funky lvl 85 blue set from the JP vendor) soon. I’ve gotten over my initial shock of how fast leveling is and expect myself to give this a go in about a week or so. I would like to assemble a completely new gear-set before I attempt this.

Apart from all that, I’ve tried to keep my inner zen and not go into a frenzy over all the things I still need to do and find out about (professions! reputations! minipets! gnlgnpffl!), telling myself that there’s TIME and really no need to rush it. I’ve played around with archeology a little and can see this is going to be boring fast. The alchemy mount is definitely not on the agenda for me.

That’s all for now, back to exploring! Enjoy this first week everybody and remember: the faster you go, the older it gets!

Raidguilds with entry fees

The social structure that is guilds has come a long way in the history of online gaming. If we take World of Warcraft as an example, which is handy since the game has been around and evolved for a longer period now, we can see the same has happened on Azeroth – the founding of guilds is as frequent as ever, but the reasons why they are joined and the ways they are run have changed gradually over time, as a consequence of the game changing. There’s a vast variety of guilds these days, catering to every imaginable playstyle. There’s true ‘professional guilds’ and there’s guilds with all sorts of requirements. The other week I read about the rise of a ‘super guild’ on World of Matticus, a new form of guild that has sprung from Blizzard’s featured guild perks system for Cataclysm.

If I think back on the early days of my own server, there was only a handful of 40man raidguilds around. If you wanted to raid seriously, there was a limited choice and we all knew each other on that block, just as you generally knew your opponents in a battleground as a more frequent PVPer (which made for many a fun interlude at Xroads). There were hardly any so-called ‘casual raidguilds’. There were far less non-raiding guilds than today and there was certainly a lot less going on in terms of public chat pugs and lose alliances.

My very first raidguilds also had a rather modest structure and set of requirements and guidelines in place, compared to the well-oiled business machinery run by many guilds these days. Officer teams were chaotic bunches more often than not, recruitment happened in much more legère a fashion and if you wanted to raid on Thursday night, the way to sign up was to be there on time.

Oh yes, we’ve come a long way with our guild organisation; with our lootrules and raid calendars, our recruitment procedures and attendance monitors, guild ranks and officer departments. In Adrenaline we make use of all these options and more. Over the years, Blizzard has introduced more tools to help guilds organize and monitor themselves better. I can certainly say that the implementation of guild banks for example was a huge relief to all the officers out there, used to re-logging constantly to some guild mule.

Another change that has evolved over the years in WoW, is a guild’s need for security. Almost all of us have had at least a guildmate or two who’s account’s been compromised in the past. Even worse, many guilds (ours included) have experienced their guild bank raided because a member and/or officer has been hacked. Using a login authenticator has become pretty much standard in WoW’s community, even if some still resist (for what I personally find very weak reasons) to get one attached to their account.

The other day, Alas wrote an article about an officer guild-quitting on her, because of her guild’s authenticator requirement for raiders. It’s not unfrequent for guilds to have safety requirements like this today – but she goes on to ask the more fundamental question of “how far can guild requirements go?” without becoming unreasonable.
Personally I believe that the sky is the limit. Guilds are always about joint ventures and just like it’s up to every guild leadership to decide on their own type of guild and guidelines, it’s your freedom to join or leave a guild that is not to your liking or found a guild of your own. If there is enough people interested in a certain type of guild, chances are such a guild will be created.

We might have a hard time thinking out of the box right now, but if we look at the long way guilds and online communities have come, I wonder how their structure is going to evolve from here: how are things going to look like in a world like Azeroth, 10 years from now? What procedures and requirements might future guilds employ?

Paying for membership

I have an aunt and uncle who love to golf. They’re average middle-class citizens, they don’t own a house of their own and they only drive one car which is 15 years old. They might go on a short vacation every other year, but that’s about as much as they can afford. Pretty standard where I live, one of the so-called richest countries in the world.
In order to find a shared hobby for their retirement, one that allows them to be together outdoors and be active without the ability to hike or run marathons anymore, they settled for their mutual wish to take up golfing together – a much more difficult endeavor for two average people like them, than meets the eye.

The few golf clubs available around here are the same as pretty much everywhere: damn expensive to join. For those of you that might not be aware of this system, the majority of playgrounds like that are not public and come with entry fees and membership fees of several thousand euros, ranging from 5000-10’000 per year, up to more astronomical numbers such as 50’000 euros and more. Entry fees do not include yearly membership, nor any further services or equipment – they’re only payed for well, entry.

A big stash for ‘normal’ people. A reason to say fuck golfing maybe and look into mini-golf. Certainly a reason to go vote and prevent more of these places to pop up and claim public spaces and wildlife habitats. But I’ll leave the snidy side-remarks at that because I really don’t want to talk about the sense or non-sense that is a few select ones claiming leagues and leagues of public countryside for themselves and their private leisure, pushing out all other people and animals alike (not to mention the gazillion galleons of precious water required to maintain the supple lawns every week), to mingle in exclusive country clubs because life is so hard and they really need some luxury every now and then to relax in peace. Ooops, have I already done it now? Oh well, there’s only so much quiet sufferance I got in me, and it’s Julian-week after all.

The logic behind golf club policy is of course most comprehensible: they’re about exclusiveness as much as the need to limit the number of visitors in order to maintain the courses and keep them a clean and quiet experience. You can’t and don’t want to have places like that crowded by hundreds of people. The high maintenance costs a lot of money and you want things to be profitable after all – none of that is possible if you opened it to a wider audience who’s never gonna spend cash in the same way, while ruining the whole point. Also, many golf clubs around here do business with the excess money, investing into financial projects and so forth.

The business model works for the ones running it and their clients alike: both parties get what they want from the deal.

The guild with the entry fee

In the year 2012, Leprechaun, an imaginary tauren warrior from the imaginary Stormglade EU server, is the founder and GM of an ambitious raidguild called -Decadence-.  Decadence is safely established among Europe’s top 5 raid progression guilds and home to a force of 45 regular raiders with a 99% attendance or more. 
The guild runs a strict raiding schedule and transparent guidelines, monitored by a very dedicated staff of officers who look after all the guild’s needs 24/7. Joining Decadence is rather simple: willingness to commit to all raid nights, profound knowledge of your class and game mechanics (yadda yadda) and: submitting a membership fee of 60’000 gold upon joining.

When Decadence set out with this unique recruitment requirement, they were initially met with an outrage in their thread on Stormglade’s public forums. By now, the guild is one of the most respected and favoured places to be in their battlegroup. Raiders are switching servers only to get a shot at a trial in Decadence. One more notorious rumor tells a story about a smaller raidguild’s former GM, who disbanded his own guild and sold off the entire guild bank, in order to be able to submit the membership fee.

During this time, Leprechaun has been accused of being an elitist and worse by many haters, as much as being praised a genius by his own guild mates and fans all across other servers. In an interview with MMO-Reportz.com, he had the following things to say about Decadence’ unique approach to recruitment:

“At some point the number of applications was just too overwhelming to deal with. This was on the brink of hitting EU’s top 10. The officers were working all around the clock and our guild’s expenses skyrocketed in order to support our swift progression and minimize our members’ need to spend time on farming for mats and consumables.
In Decadence, we provide for everyone: everything is guild funded and free, down to individual playstyle / consumables, repairs and extra gear sets. All of this is funded through membership fees and business done with it.”

“We felt that with the 60’000 gold entry fee we were killing two birds with one stone: a smaller selection of recruits who put in the extra effort of depositing a reasonable sum of money the guild needs in order to function.

“We don’t believe the amount of gold is too high; if anything, it shows a member is dedicated and knowledgeable enough to farm this kind of money in the game. It’s not hard to come by in my opinion, at least not if you’re playing a lot. And that’s the sort of players we want to attract.”

“We’re furthering the goldseller business – are you serious? [laughs] Now that’s a pretty ludicrous claim, in my opinion!  Decadence is a small guild after all, we hardly influence this kind of global enterprise. Also, the types of raiders we attract are probably not the kind of casual players that are more likely to struggle with gold in the game.”

“Asking everyone for the same deposit makes our members feel they’re contributing in the same way, it’s an even share among everybody. Already upon joining, this allows new recruits to feel they are actively partaking in Decadence and have a ‘right to be here’. This is easing them into becoming an established part of the guild. In return, our members get a unique and all-inclusive guild experience. Decadence is run professionally and provides for all our raiders’ needs without any further guild requirements that other raid guilds have, such as donations or material farming. Even our excess loot is evenly distributed, rather than hoarded by us. I don’t see how our policies are so much worse from other guilds, we’re simply doing it differently.”

“We provide our raiders with the experience they’re looking for. In return, we use entry fees to do guild business and ensure a smooth progression. Besides that, members leaving us are eligible to a refund of a 50% of the initial sum. This is an additional security for us in terms of guild drama: we don’t have rage-quitting in Decadence. People treat a guild very differently if their own money has been invested. And a potential refund makes for much more amicable parting, we have learned.” [chuckles]

I admit that while my initial reaction to the membership fee was very critical, much of that if not all has been dispersed through the course of the interview. There is a solid logic behind this guild model: it allows the guild to function the way it does and there’s a few very interesting pros in Leprechaun’s reasoning. His points on members sharing ‘ownership’ and including newcomers straight away for example, makes a lot of sense to me. So does his point on guild drama, as sad as it might be. The 60’000 gold fee is a measure of security for Decadence and it provides members with services in return.
The only ones that really get excluded are those unwilling or unable to make such a deposit – but then these players would probably not be able to commit to such a raid agenda anyway (much less want to).

I don’t think Decadence is different or necessarily more elitist than other guilds: it is just one joint venture among others, catering to one type of raider. And unlike the golf club analogy, it does not harm anyone else by its exclusivity which is probably the most important part.

What does the future hold?

I can definitely see more evolved ‘business models’ like this hypothetical one, exist in the future of online guilds. There are already enough signs out there, maybe there’s even a few raidguilds around already that require deposits of this sort. Guilds are here to stay and as long as MMOs continue to grow, guilds will follow that progress and become more professionalized, with more elaborate concepts and membership requirements. I guess you can like that or not, but then the freedom of choice is still yours.
Would you pay to join the ‘perfect guild’, if it enhanced your gaming experience? I don’t see why not.

The Traveler’s Logbook, Part II: Secrets of Gilneas

Last week I started a two-part report on my adventures around Azeroth post-Shattering, deciding to dedicate some time to Thousand Needles and Gilneas. I’m enjoying to write these reports immensely and have been very eager since to continue my tale on the worgen starting area which holds a special place in my heart among my favorite maps of WoW. So without much further ado, let me pick up where I left the trail last week and present the second part of the traveler’s logbook about the secrets I discovered in this lovely place! As before, this is meant to be a sneak peek and all snapshots are expandable.

Chapter 1: Of sheep and interior decoration

Traveler’s logbook, November 30th, the year of the Shattering.
The most striking impression upon setting foot in Gilneas for the first time, is that this zone is so, so much England. Heavy rain is pouring down relentlessly and there’s a gray mist settling over the grassy landscape and more highland areas all across the zone. Every now and then you chance upon certain rock formations that will take your memories right back to that time you spent in Somerset and northern Britain. And while the fauna in Gilneas is rather scarcely spread, there’s one animal gracing the landscape before all others: sheep. If that’s not enough to make a northerner’s heart beat a little faster in his chest, then maybe the spooky atmosphere in Gilneas’ medieval towns will be able to.



Keel Harbor to the west of the city of Gilneas, is an astonishing example of how much work was put into the design of the entire zone: never have I encountered such lavish decoration inside and outside of town buildings in all of Azeroth! While the towns all appear deserted to my human eyes and there is no life to be found inside their walls, I have discovered some of the most well-tended and charming homes on my way.

Most tempted was I to linger in these beautiful homes. Yet natural instinct told me not to taste any drink nor to steal food from the tables.

After breaking myself free of their spell, my curiosity turned me towards Greymane Manor, looming through the mists across the western hills. The way west however was blocked by a firm formation of hills as the only street leading up the manor leads out of Gilneas city. Having just passed down south to Alderic’s Repose however, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being cut off from reaching the city as the bridge crossing over presently lies in ruins. There was however another path.

They really do love their sheep here.

 Chapter 2: The secret passage

Officially, there are four entrances into the city of Gilneas. However, having investigated all the buildings in the area so thoroughly, I found myself chancing upon a secret passage in the cellar of one of the home’s located at Alderic’s Repose. The hair on the back of my neck stood erect as I took courage to follow the dark and spooky corridor…

…taking me directly into the heart of the city. At this point I will not go into further descriptions of this delightful place where the fires are ablaze and bustling leaves are driving down dark cobblestone streets, lest you be tempted to skip the experience first-hand. The music in Gilneas is most formidable too; the deep voice of the bassoon and spooky ring of a spinet greet the weary adventurer, doing nothing to ease his mind.


Back on track, I left the city behind me heading for Greymane Manor. I did not let myself be deceived by an off-limits way sign halfway through the journey and made my way up after taking a considerable detour.

The manor was everything I expected and more: home to Genn Greymane, it is an exquisite place of rich taste and splendor. Feeling oddly out of place, I hastened on to leave it behind me.

Chapter 3: An unexpected party

I finished my tour around the zone by crossing Stormglen Village and paying the Schwarz…forgive me, the Blackwald a visit. Much to my dismay, there was no cake to be found here which convinced me not to overstay my welcome and head straight for Silverpine Forest up north. Upon leaving Gilneas, I stumbled into a most curious camp at the Silverpine border, named “Beren’s Peril“. There were bears roaming the area and I found these two fellows sitting at a camp nearby:

I will leave others to be the judge of this curious scene and most suspicious name-giving of said spot. For my part, I have long learned that there are no coincidences in Azeroth. I have yet to find out the exact reason for this reference though – maybe someone more knowledgeable will help me out someday. 

Closing the logbook

With this, I finish the retelling of my adventures in Gilneas. Not surprisingly, the zone has met all my expectations and definitely sold me into rolling a worgen alt come Cataclysm in order to experience the place come to life. I’ve yet to meet all its inhabitants and I’ve the firm intention to find Sherlock somewhere turning around a corner in Gilneas City.

I hope that those of you that have followed my travels through both Thousand Needles and the home of the worgen were inspired to do some more exploring of Azeroth and pay these zones a visit sometime while you’re counting the days until Cataclysm. There are uncounted secrets to be found on the way for those determined to seek them out. It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy !

Another Dog for your Kennel

For an early Monday morning post, there’s good news for all you WoW playing dog lovers out there:

Noticed those new mastiff hounds strolling around Gilneas or Western Plaguelands? Sad that you aren’t a hunter to tame one of them?

Well, you still get to have one of your own now by re-visiting good old Scarlet Monastery! Blizzard have changed the (rather boring) model of one of their old drops in there, namely Dog Whistle dropped by Houndmaster Loksey in the Library Wing. Nicer still: they’ve changed this item from a 3 charge use to a permanent trinket!

Naturally, all us (slightly loony) pet and bauble collectors need to have this – and your Perky Pug will be happy to get a big buddy to play with!

Cat person or not, these two (make that three if you’re actually a hunter) really look adorable together!