Oddly enough, I have never really had many problem with lecherous encounters. It seems like everyone else I know has – my husband (on his female characters), my coworkers (also female characters), Aensu (on every character of any race or gender he ever plays)…the list goes on and on.

It’s like an epidemic that I am oddly immune to. Believe me, I’m not complaining. This post was spurred by a friend who tried to play an alt only to have another player latch on to her and dog her heels for about an hour, spamming group invites, “helping” her kill mobs, and emoting crudely at her.

I can’t be sure that he was attempting a romantic encounter, but it’s funnier if I do.

Surely some of you have had similar encounters, or tales of woefully offbeat advances while on your characters.

Tell me, oh blogosphere, what rules would you add to the following list?

Rule 1) There is never any situation in which the /lick emote is appropriate.

And I mean that wholeheartedly. I don’t care what you do in the relatively public depths of Goldshire – at that point you should be more imaginative anyway.

Rule 2) The /flirt emote is funny, not attractive.

Rule 3) Spamming guild and group invites (or requests to duel, for that matter) are irritating, not romantic. I’m not sure if there is a subset of the gaming population who does appreciate a constantly spammed invitation in the game, but everyone I know finds it unbearably rude.

(Points if you read the title in Arugal’s voice.)

Another great blog closes its doors today – Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick.

Bre, the mind behind the blog, will still be kicking around the Azeroth blogging scene on the Twisted Nether Blogcast, and will be devoting more time to her personal site as well.

Although I’m sad to see the blog closing, I’m glad to say that Bre will still be around.

<3

So, not going to lie. Of all the stuff in patch 3.1 (and there’s a ton),  I’m prolly the most excited about the new Feat of Strength “Insane in the Membrane”.

The achievement awards the title “the Insane”, probably because you’d have to be insane to complete it.

I’m going to get it.

Why? Mostly because I’m regularly called insane. Sometimes it’s because I actually enjoy farming, sometimes because I level characters at breakneck speeds, and sometimes it’s the great lengths I go to as an Achievement whore.

So how do I get the title, “The Insane”?

To get this Feat of Strength, it requires you to be at a certain level of Reputation with the following factions :

Honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers

Exalted with Booty Bay

Exalted with Everlook

Exalted with Gadgetzan

Exalted with Rachet

Exalted with Darkmoon Faire

Exalted with Ravenholdt

Exalted with Shen’dralar

Dinner with Bloodsail and desert with the Goblins

Now, I’m going to assume that you have to be Honored with Bloodsail and Exalted with the Goblins at the same time or this Feat of Strength won’t be that impressive in my eyes. Simply because it’d be super easy to grind your Bloodsail Rep to Honored then get your Hat and Title then grind the Goblin Cities back to Exalted without doing the crazy dance.

And honestly I don’t even think that’s the hard part. DM North Runs can give around 425 Rep to each Goblin City if you’re lucky enough to find the Key to Free Knot, as it’s repeatable. The other 75 Rep comes from the Repeatable Quest for the Orge Suit, and it doesn’t trash your Bloodsail Rep. While it may take a while it’s in a completely up to you to do it, no one else to compete with less your buying the Rugged Leather and Runecloth off the AH.

A trip to Darkmoon Faire

Darkmoon Faire rep comes from turning in some of the Repeatable quests at the time of the fair but the “easiest” way is going to be turning in Decks. Which is either really expensive or really time consuming if you have an herbalist and you or one of your friends is an Inscriptionist.

Getting mugged for junk

Ravenholdt Rep comes from turning in Junkboxes for the repeatable quest Junkboxes Needed. Just in case you are curious, it turns out to be 2,870 boxes needed to go from 0/3000 Neutral to 999/1000 Exalted. Makes me glad I have a Rogue to go farming for em. If you have a Rogue it’ll be super easy – if you don’t, I pray for your wallet.

And left for dead

Now here comes the scary part, the part the really makes this title called “the Insane.” (What? Surely you didn’t think those last reps were the hard part!)

Shen’dralar is located in Dire Maul. You only get rep with them from two quests in Dire Maul and then with Book turn ins. Your class book, which was a Fire Resist Trinket and a random stat, as seen here on the Shaman Trinket, and I love the book name.  Sadly you can’t do that one more than once and you can’t turn in other class books. So you’re stuck with 3 repeatable libram turn ins, Libram of Focus, Libram of Protection and Libram of Rapidity. You need around 84 Librams to hit Exalted, worst part is they are unique so you can’t get carry in a bunch and do a bunch of turn ins. You have to do it one at a time unless you have a Engineer Friend who’s willing to come drop a portable Mail Box for you and you spam click like you’ve never spam clicked before.

I know some newer players have seen a Libram, gone “whats this?” and probably discarded it without ever thinking about it. Nowadays, they aren’t that special and have a completely random drop rate. I know of no location to go farm on end to get the books. Your best bet is to hope they drop in Dire Maul while you’re repairing your Goblin Rep and scout the AH. I’d stay away from Libram of Rapidity if possible due to the turn in needing Blood of Heroes. Those are never fun to farm due to the fact they have a good habit of blending in with where they are, spawning underground in other objects and what have you. It’d make it rather annoying to farm.

You may even want to recruit a buddy for the libram farming DM for Goblin Rep because nothing is going to drive you nuts more then having one of the librams in your bags then another one dropping wherever you are.

I’m currently prepping this grind on my Shaman. I’m trying to get all the Goblin Quests taken care of get keys and what not ahead of time so I don’t trash my Bloodsail Reputation.

I’ll be keeping you guys up to date with my progress most likely.

In other news my Shaman is 5 Achievements away from his Red Proto Drake! Color me excited.

Till next week.

~Zasp

Non-Warcraft post ahoy!

Some of you expressed an interest in knowing if/when I got that choose-your-own-adventure style webserial off the ground.

Well, the first poll is up, and I reckon I can only polish the windows so many times before I flip the “Open” sign.

So…*deep breath*…It’s ready!

http://tamimoore.com/choose

This is the only post I intend to put up on Ego about the other site – I know that most of you are here for Warcraft, not for creative writing projects.

Anyone who was curious, feel free to scamper over to the other site and vote, vote, vote! The first poll is one of the most important – we have to decide what setting the story happens in!

*fingers crossed* Let’s have some fun!

Information on new class changes (it’s just now hitting the PTR, don’t get too excited JUST yet) is now available!

Credit to MMOChamp for the info. The italicized bits at the end are my comments.

• Glyph of Psychic Scream — Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 2 sec. and increases its cooldown by 8 sec. (Old: Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 1 sec.) Eh. I don’t solo, and I don’t pvp. This doesn’t affect me, and I’m not sure if the 8 second cooldown nerf would be worth the 2 second duration boost.
• Glyph of Fear Ward — Reduces cooldown and duration of Fear Ward by 60 sec. (Old: 30 sec.) Woo. *lifts hands and shakes them in feigned excitement* Give it up, Blizz. You nerfed this spell into the ground as far as PVE is concerned. For shame!
• Glyph of Fade — Reduces the cooldown of your Fade spell by 15 sec. (Old: Increases the duration and cooldown of your Fade spell by 50%.) Note to priests – stop stealing aggro, mmmkay?
• Glyph of Inner Fire — Increases the armor from your Inner Fire spell by 50%. (Old: Increases the charges on your Inner Fire spell by 20.) Does anyone even use this spell for the charges or armor? PVP, maybe?
• Glyph of Mind Control — Increases the duration of your Mind Control spell by 30 sec. (Old:  12 sec.) Again, PVP? Maybe some priests doing 25-man Naxx will find this useful, but I have to wonder what Glyphs they’d have to give up in order to boost their output on a single encounter.
• Glyph of Smite — Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks  while casting Smite by 100%. (Old: 50%) Probably a good glyph for leveling disc/holy priests.
• Glyph of Dispersion  — Your Dispersion ability now also clears movement impairing effects and makes you immune to them for its duration. Go, go gadget Shadowpriests!
• Glyph of Guardian Spirit *new*  — If you Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec. That’s actually not bad. Guardian Spirit is the Holy talented ability that can turn a tank death into a 50% health tank. Being able to use it more often if it wasn’t necessary should make it be something that’s used more often instead of being carefully hoarded. I approve.
• Glyph of Penance *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec. Rawr! That’s what I’m talkin about!
• Glyph of Mind Sear *new*  — Increases the radius of effect on Mind Sear by 5 yards. Wow, very nice! Takes the AOE priest ability and makes it even shinier! No good for me as a healer, mind you, but should up shadow priest dps on trash pulls!
• Glyph of Hymn of Hope *new*  — Your Hymn of hope provides 3 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter. Egads, math. Let’s see, multiply by three, divide by two, carry the…ARG. Right. More mana back, less time spent – nice, nice. Probably still friggin useless. My drae priest weeps, Blizzard!
• Glyph of Pain Suppression *new*  — Allows Pain Suppression to be cast while stunned. Great for PVP, I’d imagine. I don’t really spend scads of time stunned in PVE, though.

DISCIPLINE

Skills

• Divine Spirit is now a baseline spell. Finally!

Talents

• Penance (Tier 11) Damage increased slightly across all ranks. Does this mean “damage and healing” or just “damage”? Not that it really matters. As a healing spell, I never considered it underpowered.
• Grace (Tier 9) now lasts 15 sec. (Previously lasted 8 sec) Thank heavens. Priests have enough to worry about without trying to keep a stack of Grace on a tank. I mean, it’s still going to happen, but maybe there will be less unnecessary healing done in order to accomplish it.
• Rapture (Tier 8 ) revamped. Now a 3 point talent. When your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly energized with 1.5% of your total mana, and you have a 33% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% total mana, 8 rage, 16 energy or 32 runic power. This effect cannot occur once every 12 seconds. NOOOOOOOO….KHAAAAAANNN! I know, I know, I should expect mana regen nerfs, but I didn’t think they’d mutilate Rapture so badly! *sob*
• Focused Will (Tier 7) now increases spell critical strike chance by 1/2/3% in addition to its previous effect. Is this an all over 3%, or just after getting critically hit yourself? That’ll determine whether or not I take it seriously.
• Reflective Shield has been moved from Tier 7 to Tier 5. It is now a 2 point talent and causes 22/45% of the damage you absorb with Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker. Pretty sure this talent was mocked before the patch. This talent was considered useless for PVE raiding before, and this doesn’t really seem to change anything. Still decent for solo-work though.
• Enlightenment (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent and now increases your total Spirit by 2/4/6% and increases your spell haste by 2/4/6%. (Previously a 5 point talent) I’m a fan of making me spend fewer talent points to achieve the same effect.
• Meditation (Tier 3) now increases mana regeneration by 17/33/50%. (Previously 10/20/30%) Required Talent is Now More Required. News at 11.
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude (Tier 2) now also increases your personal stamina by 2/4%. Neat! It’s like getting fudge sauce on your sundae for free!
• Unbreakable Will (Tier 1) now reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 6/12/18/24/30%. (Previously 3/6/9/12/15%) Sorry, still don’t care. Probably makes PVPers happy though.
• *New Talent* Improved Flash Heal, Tier 7, 3 point talent – Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 5/10/15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 4/7/10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health. Seriously? Did we need this? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great, awesome, fantastic, yay for buffing the healing spells, but I don’t think it’s going to urge priests to pick some other spell for people over 50% health. It just means that under 50% health, you’d BETTER be using Flash Heal.
• *New Talent* Soul Warding, Tier 5, 1 point talent – Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 sec, and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%. OOoOOooOh, Vonya LIKEY.

HOLY

Skills

• Prayer of Healing is now a targeted spell that heals the target’s party. LOVE!
• Holy Nova mana cost reduced from 27% base mana to 22% base mana. That seems…incredibly incremental to me. Am I the only one who prefers round numbers? What is this 27% stuff?

Talents

• Circle of Healing (Tier 9) healing increased across all ranks. *approval*
• Test of Faith (Tier 9) now increases healing by 4/8/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health. *approval*
• Serendipity (Tier 8 ) changed to: When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 6/12/20%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec. Wait wait wait. They removed the mana return portion of this talent? Oh, that’s not good. Looks remarkably similar to the current Improved Holy Concentration, doesn’t it? This is NOT a valid trade-off, Blizz!
• Holy Concentration (Tier 7) changed to: Your mana regeneration is increased by 16/32/50% for 8 sec after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal or Renew. (Previously had a chance to grant clearcasting effect) We knew this was coming as part of the mana regen nerf.
• Blessed Resilience (Tier 7) increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 1/2/3% along with its previous effect. Again, as with the Disc spell change – is this only after being critically hit?
• Improved Holy Concentration (Tier 9) removed from the game. Not surprising, but sad all the same.
• *New Talent* Empowered Renew, Tier 9, 3 point talent – Your Renew spell gains an additional 5/10/15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 5/10/15% of the total periodic effect. And THIS may actually make me go back to holy healing, or at least not argue too strenuously if we find ourselves with another tank-healer. This would make raid-healing as a priest MUCH easier. *happy sunshine hearts and flowers*

SHADOW

(Note : I’m not going to comment on these – those of you who are shadowpriests know your tree FAR better than I ever could)

Skills

• Shadowfiend now creates a shadowy fiend to attack the target. Caster receives 5% mana when the Shadowfiend attacks. Damage taken by area of effect attacks is reduced, and the Shadowfiend has a reduced chance to be hit by spells and melee attacks. Lasts 15 sec.

Talents

• Dispersion (Tier 11) now clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed.
• Shadowform (Tier 7) now gives your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit.
• Darkness moved from Tier 6 to Tier 1.
• Silence (Tier 5) range increased to 30 yards. (Previously was 20 yards)
• Vampiric Embrace (Tier 5) now lasts 5 mins. (Previously lasted 1 min)
• Spirit Tap (Tier 1) now increases mana regeneration while casting by 87%. (Previously 50%)
• Improved Spirit Tap (Tier 1) increases mana regeneration while casting by 17/33%. (Previously 10/20%)
• *New Talent* Improved Devouring Plague, Tier 6, 3 point talent – Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 5/10/15%, and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 5/10/15% of its total periodic effect.

I leave you with one final note : WHERE IS MY AOE BUBBLE?!

One of my favorite WoW blogs, Resto4Life, is closing its doors.

Phaelia has long been one of the guiding lights in the WoW Blogging community. Even though she has perfectly sound reasons for taking her leave, she will very much be missed.

I’ll be keeping her blog on my sidebar – Resto4Life is still one of the best places on the net to find information about Druids. Besides, that link has been up there for as long as I can remember – my sidebar would look all naked and sad without it. 

Big *hugs* to Phae. 

She’s promised one more doozy of a post before closing altogether – the proposed close date is March 19th. Keep your eyes peeled for it!

Bear with me, as I’m a little new to this dingus.

Screen shawt

I apologize if you can’t handle my awesome.

Next time I do this, maybe I’ll have a diagram, and little pointy arrows, and circles, and a goblin bouncing around laughing at you.  As it is, you’ll just have to follow along as best you’re able.

Here are my ADDAWNS.  Apparently Enchantrix is not loaded.  I don’t know, and I don’t care.  That should give you an idea of where this is going.

What you can’t see is my use of tinytip, which lets me know EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU just by glancing, or hovering the cursor over you.  Can you feel it?  Can you feel the arrow of doom, wafting through the air just above your face?  It lets me know EVERYTHING.  But in a cute, dainty little compact compartment for easy lifting and storage.

Bartender 4 allows for the most splendid placement of my bars.  They are well tended.  There are not nearly enough of them, but I was told to cut back.  As it is, I can scroll through them and have any one I choose be my main action bar at a moment’s notice.  This is fun for switching from healing to “Oh snap, I’m the only one left standing.  I had better dps.”  You’ll note, there in the center at the bottom, there are a few buttons for city life.  They include my delicious macros for waving, looking, pointing and laughing.  They are fun, and deliciously overused in Dalaran these days.  For such simple gestures of mockery, they are actually rather complicated code.  Maybe next time I will share with you the grandiose series of lines which make up my ‘point and laugh’ emote – it makes even jerks who are elitist become envious.  Envious jerks.  Yes, that was me.  I’m the one that made them change the website.

Top left, I am desperately trying to smile for the close-up camera.  Not working so well, as my hate and sarcasm make my smiles look less than sincere.  Promise to work on that.  No really.  Just for you.  X-Perl was the photographer, and it seems they almost missed.  At least they didn’t cut off my head like what usually happens with Thomas.  This addawn allows me to see mana, health, experience, and reputation.  You see how it says “None Watched”?  That’s because I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.  Stupid druids.  A little deer-blood on the hem of the skirt and everyone’s all “KILL DA ALF!!”  Then the running and the screaming and suddenly there’s MORE blood on my skirt.  This stuff will never come out, I just know it…

Bottom right is all the logistical buttons.   My bag is a cacophony of terror and lost dimensions.  I use Bagnon to consolodate my junk into a single pack so I can find my quest stuff, food, water, and that silly flute that makes everyone around me dance.  Bwahahaha.  Ahem.  Please ignore the icons for cooking and sewing…  /cower

Above that, there’s my handy-dandy quest tracker.  What?  I’m on my OWN out there, at least give me a tourguide.  And a Tomtom.  And map coordinates.  These are all addons too, if you were having trouble keeping up.  They give me a step-by-step process to follow when killing thousands of seals and rhinos and shoveltusks and eagles and deer and bears, oh my.  Whew.  

Speaking of maps, due note that if I’m to have my face burried in a map whilst I traverse such terrain, it had better be blasted pretty to look at.  Thus…sexymap.  Ohyes, it is my precious precious pretty map, yes you are.  Apparently it comes in Druid Mint flavor, and Mage Bloo, probably Death Knight Licorice.  But mine is a giant jaw breaker of hate and fire.  And I love it.  You can customize the joker a bit, but I chose a rather simple, direct, IN YOUR FACE AND TAKE NO PRISONERS SHOVE IT IN YOUR EAR UNTIL YOU THINK ONLY BURNING THOUGHTS OF RIGHTEOUS FIRE -

Yes, well.  It’s a map.  It’s pretty.  That’s really all there is to it, I’m sure.

And yes, still 68.  I’ve been lost in Dalaran for days.  Please send food.  Maybe it’s because Enchantrix isn’t loaded…

Wait what? We want strange people from teh internets to join our guild?

It appears to be that way.

We recently took a hit in membership. Some of our members have played musical chairs and now we’re looking to pick up two DPS roles.

We are particularly interested in a Retribution Paladin and a Survival Hunter. Yes I know a hunter, but we don’t have any that aren’t alts.

By the way, before any Hordies get excited-  we are Alliance. Sorry.

Kwane note: “These two classes are what we feel would best round out the 10 man death machine that Vanguard is and will be. However, same as those classes and being 80 is preferable, what we really want is the player. A certain mindset, willingness, drive and aptitude. All are listed better below, but it is something that should be mentioned up front.

As an example, the SV hunter wanted fills a ranged dps role. We feel this would be best filled by a hunter. If, however, a player the caliber of Aensu showed up to melt faces, they would likely not be turned away.

We are also looking to pad the rank and file a bit, so people that just want to have a green channel of like minded individuals, please feel free to contact us.” /end Kwane

A little info about the guild, Vanguard.

Vanguard has only been around since August, 2008. We may be new to the server, but most of us have been playing World of Warcraft from the very beginning. We intentionally keep our guild small, because we prefer to run with the same people. This allows us to keep us a strong, cohesive team.

This also means we are rather picky who we invite the guild. Case in point, we currently have a total of 10 accounts. (11 if you play the technicality game but he’s a social friend.)

We are not simply looking for warm bodies to fill raid spots. We are looking for like minded people that look to push the limits of their characters in order to reach full potential. Even after content has been on farm for several weeks or months and a player no longer has loot to attain, we expect everyone to bring their A game. This means on time, fully buffed and raring to go.

Each of us follow the theorycraft discussions for our respective classes on sites like Elitist Jerks. While not mandatory (we don’t assign homework), we do expect you to have an appropriate knowledge of your class. This means squeezing every ounce of DPS out of your character possible.

This isn’t just hyperbole. With this mindset, we were able to get all 11 members of our squad an Amani War Bear from ZA in 12 tries while still working on Kara/ZA/Badge gear. This should give you an idea how we play this game. We set goals and accomplish them, we play hard, we play fast and we have fun doing it.

In WotLK it took us one weekend with 8 people to clear up to 4 Horsemen in Naxx.  Second weekend ALL of WotLK was cleared.

As far as progression goes, we have only one encounter left in WotLK’s current raid content, and that’s Sarth 3D.

Effort and learning means a great deal to us. If you have great gear but a stupid spec, you WILL be told so. If you wont hear it or cant learn you’ll be invited to use the door. We aren’t mean, but we aren’t kidding about what we’re looking for, either. If you don’t know but are willing to learn, we are absolutely willing to teach. If you want handholding or a free ride, we recommend you look elsewhere.

Basically, we would rather have a player doing great than a body filling a role and collecting gear and dust. We would rather have an empty slot than dead weight in any role. This may sound repetitive but it bears repeating; we are recruiting players, yes, but we would rather have an empty slot than fill it with a screen-licking mouth-breather or emo-cry baby.

Especially if that body just wants to collect loot and then move on to a bigger guild, we’ll just skip the first part and let you move on now.

If history dictates anything, we won’t be needing all the allotted time to clear the instances once we’ve learned them. Currently we use about 4 to 5 hours total to clear Sarth 25, Sarth 10 1D, Naxx, Maly and VoA 10 man. We haven’t used the third raid night in many weeks, but we like to keep it open just in case.

Loot

We have a priority loot system in place. We often gear our Tanks and Healers with set pieces first as its for the betterment of the raid. This simply allows us smoother progression. Main Spec before Off Spec at all times; rogues won’t be taking ranged items over Hunters. In our group everyone carries their weight, and since we are a small group we gear up quickly.

We currently have no plans to move on to 25 man content. Our official focus at this time is 10 man content. Please keep that in mind.

I’d like to stress gear is not an issue here, as we’ve recently played the musical chairs game and I myself have switched to my third character. I am now the Resident Resto Shaman and I will be gearing up through Naxx like any fresh 80. We plan on gearing the raid up to par again then going after Sarth 3D before Ulduar hits.

A little info about Drenden and the Emberstorm Battlegroup.

Drenden is a PvE Server, now supposedly Medium Pop server due to the recent free transfers off of Drenden. Last I knew Alliance out numbered Horde. Our realm is normally stable, but is known to have it’s hiccups from time to time. I can’t speak of the pug environment too much as I don’t partake in it often, but I have been able to Pug 25 man VoA on a regular basis without any wipes so far, so I have to assume it’s fairly stable. Although we do expect our raiders to spend time outside of the raid getting upgrades, heroics are typically available within the guild without having to resort to pugs for those who ask.

I haven’t noticed our economy doing anything stupid as of late but every server’s economy is normally so different it’s pretty much a moot point. Our trade chat can be rather spammy at times with random BS, but on every server I’ve ever played on it’s always been like that.

Emberstorm Alliance Side, AV as of late has been 40-15 in favor of the horde. We control Wintergrasp fairly regularly. AB, I’ve been in a lot of winning games Alliance Side when I bother to queue. WSG pretty much the same. I have not touched EotS or the new BG SotA yet but if it’s a factor of you transferring here I’d be more then happy to look into it for you.

If you have any questions feel free to push that handy email us button up on the right hand side and I will be sure to reply asap.

How to Apply

If you don’t have so many questions and just want to fill out an application and transfer asap, well go here and see this post again with some instructions at the bottom. Follow them!

But please don’t transfer till all parties involved agree it’ll be a good fit. We’d hate to waste anyones time or money…what with the economy and blah blah sky is falling…

Looking forward to hearing from some people,

Zack

aka Zasp, Nyisa and now Kafive.

Throwing the Book at Them

I like the dictionary. It’s a fabulous book. Sure, I’ve never read it, but I’ve skimmed it a time or two and it makes both a wonderful doorstop and a brilliant weapon if dropped from a second story window.

However, I believe it has been detrimental to the Warcraft raiding community.

Those of you who have read debates on “Hardcore” versus “Casual” raise your hand.

Okay, you don’t have to raise your hand. Especially if you’re at work. You might attract attention.

Fun With Grammar!

I’m going to make an analogy. Raiding is like Reading. (See how close the spelling is? That’s how you can tell it’s gonna be a top-notch analogy, right there).

Hardcore is like Fantasy novels, and Casual is like Romance novels. They’re both raiding/reading, but they’re different genres.

On the surface, the difference between the two is obvious, which of course means that it’s a hasty generalization.

Hardcore

Hardcore raiders are the number crunchers, the ones who take the game (too) seriously, the ones willing to raid four nights or more every week and the ones who ride around in their epics and spit on the unwashed masses of non-hardcore raiders.

Casual

Casual raiders are the ones who raid for fun. Whatever spec you want is fine, whatever dps you do doesn’t matter. It’s all about being relaxed and having a good time with your friends. They’re still raiders, but they aren’t concerned with whether or not they get through the content quickly or consistently. They take a very laid-back approach to raiding, and mock those who let the game dominate their lives.

Back to the Books

I did my best to pick up the common biases, negatives, and positives in both of those, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t do the best job in the world. If you stand back and squint your eyes, you could use this as a measuring stick for whether or not you are hardcore or casual.

You can also say that Romance novels are the ones where the core of the book is the romantic relationship between two people, and that Fantasy novels are the ones that have magic in them.

You don’t even need to stand back and squint your eyes for that one – the bookstores and libraries have already separated the two for you.

Applying a Magnifying Glass

The problem comes in when you start actually paying close attention to the two genres.

You take any five people who love romance novels, give them all the same book, and you’re going to get WILDLY different reviews from them. Why? Because not all romances are created equal. Same with Fantasy.

And the same ALSO goes with hardcore versus casual guilds. Raiding guilds tend to give themselves the broad categorization of “Hardcore” or “Casual” in order to attract the right kind of player to their ranks. This is the same as someone slapping a “Romance” or “Fantasy” sticker on a book. It helps narrow down the playing field. Someone looking for a factual historical on the Civil War can pretty reliably avoid those two sections, and someone who thinks books with dragons and magic are silly can avoid the Fantasy section while still finding something they enjoy in the Romances.

But there’s such a thing as sub-genres in books. In romances, you have contemporaries, regencies, paranormals, supernaturals, etc. In fantasy, you’ve got high fantasy, urban fantasy, sagas, myths, comic fantasy, sword and sorcerer novels, historicals, romantics…

The two even cross over fairly closely with the paranormal romances and the romantic fantasies.

No Raiding Subgenres

All of this makes perfect sense. And yet somehow we don’t do the same thing with our raiding.

Hardcore or Casual, that’s the argument. There’s no further breakdown of the options – two is all you get.

I honestly believe the argument between the two terms is frivolous and has managed to obfuscate the problem rather than clarify it.

In what WAY are you casual? In what way is your GUILD casual?

If a guild just says “oh, we’re casual raiders”, I predict a lot of problems. You’ll have people who are willing to tolerate low dps and a complete lack of any kind of theorycrafting with ease. It’s just a game, so playing with friends is the point, right?

Well, some of your casuals may be less casual than that. They may feel that it would be easier to succeed at content if people would do some research, maybe check out some information on spell/swing/shot rotations. But they don’t want to raid every week, and they don’t really demand that people put forth their absolute best, just that they all try.

And then you may have some casuals who don’t really care one way or another, but who absolutely cannot stand it when there are frequent afks for things like parent aggro or taking care of the kids or the dogs.

There are a multitude of ways in which “casual” could and probably should be broken down into subgenres.

Same with Hardcore. Some hardcore raiders theorycraft out the wazoo but cannot and do not want to raid four nights a week. Some don’t want an environment with all the pressure, preferring to do their best without having to hear someone getting chewed out for why they screwed up.

And I’ve seen casual raids that chew out someone for screwing up and hardcore raids where everyone wore Lovely Dresses.

Summary

I’m not saying the terms are useless, but I do feel that they are unnecessarily shallow descriptions.

I think that there should be a better way for raiding guilds to define themselves, and a better way for raiders to do the same.

Much like authors would prefer to find those niche readers who not only love their books, but send copies to all their friends, raiding guilds would prefer to find raiders who are looking for exactly what they have to offer.

I just don’t see that happening when the best descriptors we have are “Casual” and “Hardcore”.

Hi. You’ve reached the Egotistical Priest website. We’re sorry, but Vonya is not available to take your call. She’s under the weather.

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