Raiding Rundown?

I didn't raid last Thursday. Neither did any of the other Munquis, I'm told.
At least, they didn't do the scheduled Ulduar run. Apparently there weren't enough people around to take on the challenge. It's a shame, but the raid extension still applies to tonight, so if there's a spot for me, maybe I'll finally get to defeat Thorim anyway.

It's dissapointing when raids get cancelled. Obviously real-life takes priority, but it just shows how much guild rely on a main core of players. And if those players aren't around, then things don't happen. I know I wasn;t the only one who knew in advance that they probably weren't going to be able to make it.

I'm sure there would have been more than 10 Munquis online. There's usually more than that online at all times apart from early mornings, or very early mornings. But there weren't enough suitably geared / willing players to make an attempt.

As it gets nearer to Christmas people tend to wind-down their playing commitments a bit. Pick-up-and-play type games tend to get dusted-off. Personally I've been re-enjoying Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, in small doses.
I can't wait to get back in to WarCrack again, but on some occasions, when I've logged on recently I've found myself tapping my foot, and wondering what to do with my time.

I could grind Rep. but I've only really got any use for the Hodir, and that's coming along nicely already. (Not too keen on the Hodir Dailies, but getting there slowly).
I could run Heroics, but there also seems to be less interest in those too. I see HC's as a way to make money. A decent team can easily make money from doing them, and while it may not make as much as grinding dailies, at least it's team-play, social, and good for learning your class properly.
I could learn cooking, but to be honest, I'd rarely ever use it. In raids others always have fish-feasts anyway. My cooking is maxed on my Hunter, so I can make them. It just seems a bit of a waste of money to learn it twice.
I could max my Engineering, but that was never the point in taking the prof. It serves me well at it's current level. I can AH in Dalaran, and can make repair-bots if I can ever be bothered to. I don't intend to spend the money on a chopper, and the bonuses from maxing the profession don't really tally with the costs in my opinion.
I could earn some cash and buy Epic Flying. But why? I can fly around already. And my aura gives me a boost too. My Hunter has the epic skill, and I resented spending the gold on it to be honest.
The moment I bought it, I thought.... "Wow! Don't I look the dogs-bollocks!"... and then never noticed it again.

But Ho-Hum, I guess I'll turn up for the raid tonight, and hopefully there will be a full team. And if I'm in it, hopefully we'll kick Thorims ass, I think the score is 9-0 to him as it stands.

More Tanking Tales

I managed to make the tankign team for Ulduar last night. That's quite a few weeks in a row now, on either my Pally or My Hunter, so I'm expecting to be sitting out a run sometime soon. But at least I can now claim to have Tanked, Healed and DPS'd a big percentage of the whole place.

First stop last night was Hodir. A couple of fairly quick wipes , I'm still not sure exactly what was going wrong, but we had a few new people in the team, so maybe it was just the learning curve. 3rd time lucky, and on this attempt I tried to tank him close to the entrance door, so we'd be quicker to recover from any more wipes. But that time he went down.
I've got to say I found him quite hard to tank, the constant moving, the occasional frozen blows, it just seemed a little messy. But maybe it was just down to the new finger positions on my keyboard.

Then it was on to Freya. No problems here, I've tanked her before, and knew exactly what I had to do. She went down first go, and apart from a few squishy deaths on the trash before her all was good.

Next up was Thorim. I was taking the tunnel team, and Bronze the arena team. I'm not fully sure why but I would occasionally lose aggro in the tunnel, and a mob would wander off after one of the others. i think it was minaly the Acolyte mobs, so it could have been when I was changing sides of the tunnel, they weren't, and by leaving my aggro range the DPS were tipping the scales. On 2 of the attempts it got a little messy, but the other 2 were no problem at all, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.
Although 1 reminder for the squishies out there, if a mob attacks you, don't attack it back, run to the tank, and stand next to him / her for a few seconds. The mob will soon leave you alone. Our taunts have quite long cooldowns so we can't always save you with a single click.
In case of emergency, stun / slow them... but never... ever... attack them. It just makes it harder to get them off you.
I think we had 4 tries overall, in 1 case the tunnel team wiped. And in the other 3 it was the arena team. Vind and Bronze switched tanking roles for the last attempt, but it didn't seem to make much difference. Hard to judge exactly what's going wrong on this encounter, because without being able to see the whole team at once, who knows what's happening.

So the raid-lockout has been extended, and Thursday we should be picking up where we left off.

A Whole New World... of Warcraft

In all the years I've been playing WoW, I've never realised how good looking it is.

I'm not a graphics whore, and as long as the FPS stays high enough for me to be able to play effectively, it's never really bothered me.
But my new system blows my old one away. On the maximum possible graphics settings, I get 30-40 FPS mid-raid, with spells flying around all over the place, and even manage 20-30 FPS in Lagaran. Although it does dip a little more when it's very busy.

But the main thing is the quality of the graphics and effects. The game looks fantastic with all effects turned-on, and with the maximum view distance. Even just flying around the place it feels like I'm seeing it all properly for the first time.

I never knew how much my weapon glow really glowed. It's almost like having a light-saber!
The sparkle of the spells, the flames on the floor from my consecration, it's all stuff I've never seen.

While fighting the trash mobs before Freya last night I saw spells being cast by the mobs. I always knew the spells were happening, but this time I actually saw a giant bush streaming out from the treants and heading to the players. Normally, I saw nothing at all.

It opened my eyes to just how much work really has gone in to the development of the game, the graphics are never going to be ultra-realistic, but if you've never seen them on the full settings it's a bit of an eye-opener, and it makes me want to go and run some old dungeons just to see them how they were really meant to look.

BTW: My new laptop had a few minor, unexpected, upgrades. 2.1Ghz Dual Core, instead of 2.0Ghz. And it came with the Nvidia 9500, instead of the 8600, graphics. Not major upgrades, but they all count. Now if I can just get the finger-print reader to recognize my print 6 times in a row, and get used to the slightly smaller keyboard, I'll be all sorted.
Apologies in advance for my in-game typing skills for the next few weeks. My Caps-Lock key is now where my 'A' and 'S' keys were previously, so I have a tendancy to stART TYPing in cAPs everytime I reach for the 'A'

Spring / Winter-Cleaning

I'm a minimalist sort of guy. At least, I am when it comes to my PC's.

I like the challenge of pushing them harder than they're supposed to go, and of stripping systems back so that they perform better than they normally would.

The new laptop has got me thinking about which applications I reallly need, and which ones I don't.
I hate clogging up my machines with unused stuff. That's what blank DVDs were invented for. I must have hundreds of the things scattered around my house, With everythign from Films I've never watched to Applications I've never used, and Porn I've never.... Well, you get the idea.

So, knowing that I'm going to wipe every hard drive I own very soon, I've been compiling all the apps and utilities that I'll be installing on to each system.
This will be for my daily-use Laptop, my server ex-laptop, and the Old Desktop PC that's being donated to family. Here's what I've come up with;

On all of them:

Windows 7 (Obvious really, I love the new OS)
Open Office (Does everything you need from an Office Suite, and it's free)
K-Lite Codecs (If you don't know what these are, you probably don't do much with videos)
Advanced System Care 3 (This is a system maintenance app. It's freeware, but it's great. Beats most paid-for ones hands down
ClamWin (It's an AntiVirus, and it works, and it doesn't eat half your system)
Firefox (Duh!)
Skype (I don't use it often, but I do need it, so does my son, and so will the sister-in-law)
7Zip (WinZip alternative, handles more file formats)
uTorrent (My .torrent handler of choice)
Infra Recorder (Freeware, but excellent, CD/ DVD Burning software)

That should just about cover everything the 3 systems need to run. But there'll be a few additions to my daily-use laptop too:

Adobe Premiere Pro (It's not the latest version, but I like it, and use it a few times a year at least)
Daemon Tools (Too complicated to explain, if you don;t knwo what this is already)
SpyBot S&D (ASC3 has one built in, but I've always liked SpyBot, in it's passive mode)
GameBooster (Another freeware app, from the team behind ASC3, does exactly what it says on the tin)
World of Warcraft (Not an App, but definitely essential)
Ventrillo (For the singing)

The list looks quite long overall, but it's not really. And most of the apps are either passive, or have a tiny footprint.
Hopefully I'll soon be experiencing the Ulduar raids with graphics that update faster than the GCD.

Whack-a-mole

Ulduar, for me, again last night. And I got to bring my Pally.

To be honest I thought I'd be sitting it out last night, because I've been the last few times in a row. But we were mysteriously short of healers, so my Pally was drafted in that role.

Fine by Me. That's what dual-spec is for, and it's not like I'm a total noob at healing.
However, this was my first time raid-healing since Karazahn. And while Prince Malchezzar didn't stand a chance against my leet Healing skills, Ulduar is still a bit of a learning curve for me.

A quick check on my healing gear shows that I'm un-enchanted on most things, so 200g on the AH and rep-vendors soon sorts that out.
I'm still using a few blues, which would hinder me a bit, but generally speaking I should be at least able to hold my own. I don't mind being the lowest healer, as long as I can still contribute to keeping the raid up.

Bronze was our RL last night, and I warned him in advance that I was a little out of practice and undergeared. But since there was no one else anyway, I don't think it really mattered.
Tins and Manda were the other two healers.

So how did it go?

Flame Leviathan - 1 Shotted.
     I took a tanking role in the vehicles for this, since I knew the encounter and Arg was the second tank, and he was an Ulduar Virgin. I died right at the end of the fight, but generally the boss stood no chance.

Deconstructor - 1 Shotted.
     My first taste of real Raid healing, and if I recall correctly, we only lost a couple of squishies. I was on MT healing, and there wasn't really a problem.

Kologarn - 1 Shotted
     Again I was on MT healing, which in these first 2 fights is pretty straight forward, as there's very little unpredictable spike damage. No problems here either, and apart from the laser beams frequently picking on me, it went very smoothly.

Iron Council - Failed
     I think it was Iron Council 4 - Munquis Nil by the time we moved on. We tried a few different healing rotations, but the tactics just weren't falling in to place. Damn.. but "Oh Well".

Auriaya - 1 Shotted
     No problems with this at all. Don't think we lost anybody, and I even got to throw a few Consecrates down for the random adds.

The healing went much better than I expected it to. The meters aren't as straightforward as they are for DPS, but showed me as the top healer overall. I think there was only a few thousand HP between all of the healers though. So generally it was a well balanced healing team.
But I was on roughly 45% Overhealing, Tins on 65%, and Manda on 35%. So Manda was probably the most effective healer overall.

I didn't get any new drops, but there's still quite a few emblem pieces I can pick up, so with a bit of time and money, my healing could be massively improved.
I'll be sticking to the tanking mainly, but at least I'm now confident that, if needed, I can switch roles and perform well enough.

I also finally decided on my Pitbull layout, and I'm fully happy with it. It's not the simplest addon to configure, but I got there in the end. Fingers crossed that the transition to my new laptop goes well, or I'll be back at square one with my Ui.

My New Rig

I finally bit the bullet yesterday.

I've been using a Laptop for a few years now, and unfortunately it got dropped about 12 months ago. Since then it's been slowly coming up with more and more faults.

The battery is screwed, and now it won't work unless it's plugged-in to the mains.
Even when plugged in it won't boot the first, or usually second time. Sometimes you've got to power it up 3 times before it kicks in.
You can't re-boot it. For the same reason as above.
The screen first developed a fault where there was static all over it. I rigged something to hold the earthstrap closer to the screen and it worked for a while, but now it just wont have it.
And the hinges on the screen itself have fallen apart. So now the screen is actually loose from the base. I've got it held in place with a little mechano borrowed from my sons kit. So It looks liek a little construction site with cranes is holding my screen to the base. (Yes Mecano really is useful stuff).

So, all in all, it's fucked.

I've been convincing myself that it's still fine, and useable. And it is... If this was a post-apocalyptic world and this was the last computer on the planet, it'd be worth an absolute fortune. It still 'works' it's just not a useful or aesthetically pleasing as it used to be.

So... after lengthy discussions with the better half... I bit the bullet and ordered myself a new one.

And here it is: (note this isn't mine, just a review photo, of someone overclocking one)

Acer 16in AS6920

Intel Core 2 Duo T5900 processor

3Gb RAM

250Gb hard drive

16in WXGA Acer CineBrite TFT LCD display

DVD SuperMulti double-layer drive

NVidia GeForce 8600GT graphics

802.11 a/b/g/n WIFi

Bluetooth 2.0 EDR

0.3Mp CrystalEye webcam

Fingerprint reader

6 in 1 card reader

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium.

So why did I choose this one?
Well...

Dual Core 2Ghz processor (Nice)
3Gb Ram (Not bad to start with, and easy and cheap to upgrade)
250GB HDD (Drive size wasn't considered as I have a server PC too)
16" Screen (Not the 17" that I have now, but a nice screen, and a sturdy looking build)
DVD Writer (Meh, a writer's a writer for my needs)
NVidia 8699GT (Nice reviews on this, decent performance, and the only alternative laptop had a 9300m which although 'better' only actually performs roughly the same)
WiFi (It's WiFi, who cares)
BlueTooth (Not considered, but a nice extra)
WebCam (Not considered, I don't use them often, but as long as it's got one built in it'd do)
Fingerprint Reader (WTF? A nice 'geeky' extra, not sure if I'll use it though)
6in1 Card Reader (IMHO A requirement on laptops nowadays)
Vista (This will be removed as soon as I receive it, and replaced with Windows 7)
HDMI Output (Handy although not essential)
Dolby Approved Speakers (Very Nice, My current Laptop sucks ass in this department)
Touch-Sensitive Media Controls (I like these, and they glow blue.. how cool is that!)

The downsides - Shiny screens and cases are Fingerprint magnets, but I can live with that. Battery life probably won't be great (Meh, as long as I can actually walk away from my sofa occasionally it's an upgrade). No FireWire (I dont have this on my current Laptop, but was hoping for it on my new system. I do use it occasionally).

The new rig should arrive on Monday, so expect to see me online and happy at some point.

So what to do with my Old Laptop?

Well I currently have an old desktop PC in my sons room, which I use as a server, and he uses for surfing and playing the odd game.
I'm going to donate that to a family member, and then put my old laptop in his room as my new server. I'll probably detach the broken screen and use a spare LCD monitor I have instead.

It'll make an unorthodox type of server, but it'll even have it's own built-in UPS (since the battery will last upto 30 mins on it's own). And because it's knackered anyway, I'm not too worried about it overheating.

So I get a new Laptop, my Son gets a PC upgrade in his room, my server improves, and my sister-in-law gets my old PC which makes her, and Mrs Smythy, happier.

On the very downside it's £55 a month for the next year.... Bugger.

Potentially Potent

For weeks now I've been trying to find the '+20 Strength - Potency' enchant for my 1H-Sword.

In my opinion it is most definitely the enchant of choice for a Prot-Pally.
Thanks to the Paladin design, and talents, +20 Strength also provides +12 SpellPower and extra Block Rating. So it's a kind of 3 in 1 deal.

After spending weeks asking around and occasionally joining the dreaded /trade channel, I'd come up empty. And almost given up hope. But I got a whisper from Dray last night (for those who don't know her, Dray is one of the long-serving Munquis, and friend of the Tribe, who also has several other alts with different guilds).

I'd asked her if she could do the enchant a few days ago, and she couldn't. But she then took it upon herself to go and find it. No easy feat in itself, since it was a rare TBC world drop.
So a quick link of the mats, a trip to the ah, about 100g in material costs, and my brand new sword, now has a brand new enchant to go with it. Thanks alot Dray. It was very much appreciated.

Apaprently she'd already tried to sell some of the enchants, and nobody seemed to be interested. I admit, that I had to do a little research to find out about it myself. It just seems to be one of those things that are so simple, yet very few people know about.

With Mat costs of about 100g, it's not overly expensive. It's a TBC enchant, so you don't even need to be max'd to make it. And you could easily sell them, as scrolls, for 150 - 200g a time.
But I suppose if no one takes the time to learn about their class, then they're not going to take the time to find the best enchant either.

Such a shame. Most Pallies I've seen go for the Titanium Weapon chain, but is it really the end of the world for a Prot Pally if he loses his sword, just for a few seconds, every now and again?
Alot more of your spells rely on your shield rather than your main-hand anyway.

If people invested the time in to learning their builds, I'm sure a lot more people would be asking for the potency enchant. And that would give the good people like Dray, a steady Market to work with.

At least I now know where to go to get my next sword enchanted too.

Another day, another raid

Well, I did manage to raid last night, but not quite how I wanted to.

I managed to get online at a decent time. Pick up my gem, and get myself back above the Def cap, so I was ready and waiting for the invite. But then the unthinkable happened. Others didn't turn up.

We were missing a Tank / Healer and a ranged DPS. There was no other way around it. Reserves were called-in, and I was asked to bring my Hunter to the group instead... ... ... Bugger.

But, I'm not the kind of person who spits their dummy out about this sort of thing. Although I did make it clear that it wasn't my preffered choice. I relogged on to the Hunter, the reserves arrived, and things got under way.

Thorim, Freya, and Hodir were taken out and a couple of great tanking pieces dropped... Bugger... Again... Bugger, so I obviously didn't get a chance at those.

And a nice Hunter item did drop too. I won the roll for it, but ended up handing it over to Vedds rogue instead. It just makes more sense to do that. It's the second time that I've passed on Ulduar epics for my Hunter. I gave up a Tier roll item to Flow a week or two ago.

My Hunter is still in some Heroic blues, he's nowhere near geared enough for Ulduar really, but he makes a decent back-up ranged DPS. I can only pull off an average of 2.5k DPS with him in there, which looks pretty weedy compared to most of the others, but any damage is better then no damage, I suppose.

I don't want to use my Hunter for raiding (except in cases of emergency), so for me to have accepted the drops would have taken something away from the rest of the team.
Vedd is one of the Raid Leaders, so his rogue is going to be a pretty regular sight in raids. And Flowersz healer is another of the regulars. So by passing on those items with my Hunter, who's a rare attendee, it should improve the overall effectiveness of the rest of the team.

Sure, if I'd taken them my DPS would have improved for that day, and maybe for the next time I'd brought him too. But overall the benefit to the team would have been minimal.
If I'd been on my Paladin, then it would have been a different story, an Upgrade for him would have been better for the whole team, since I plan on raiding with him. But that doesn't mean that I would always jump on a small upgrade if it meant a much larger benefit to the team in general. In all the raids I've ever been in, I've tried to consider 'how-much of an upgrade' something is before going for it.
It also made more sense to pass on any Frost -Lotus to Lisje, since she makes pots for the team all the time. Where as to me, they're just a source of income.

I think that's a good policy to have in raids, and it's a shame not everyone thinks like that.
It also makes more sense when you think about it properly.

If you want to progress, you have to do it as a team. That team might have 15-20 in it, instead of just 10, because of player rotations.
So if I can get an upgrade that will provide me with +100 DPS, that's great for me, and good for the team. But if by passing on it, it means that someone else can get +300 DPS, that's great for the team.
It may not be so good for me, directly, but at least it means that we should be able to progress quicker. And next time we can down the bosses easier, making the chance for personal progression much higher.

Of course, if we reach TotC or even the Citadel, my Hunter is very unlikely to be on the back-up list, simply because he'll be so badly undergeared. But as long as my Pally continues to get the occasional drop, he should be up to scratch.

On a side note: I also managed to squeeze in some dailies for a little extra cash, and gemmed up my Healing set. Now if I can just bolt on a few enchants too I'll be all set as a reserve raid-healer. The few blues he has left aren't really going to limit my healing by too much.

The Cost of Victory

As per my previous post, things went very well in Ulduar on Thursday.

I'm looking forward to tonights second half, fingers-crossed that I get a place in the squad, and can live up to my tanking duties resepctfully. Since I've played with my Spec a little, and fuiddled with my Glyphs and rotations a little, I've seen a slight improvement in my tanking skills. I haven't been monitoring them with meters or anything, since that's pretty hard to do. But I've definitely struggled less to grab aggro, and keep it.

What I didn't mention in my previous post is that I actually won a few drops from the last Ulduar run too. A got a couple of Tanking pieces, namely bracers, and a new sword. And a couple of Healing pieces, mainly because no-one else could use them, so it was that or DE'ing them.

My healing set is pretty much just thrown together but, through almost total chance, is now mostly epic. It's badly gemmed (or even not-gemmed, in some cases) but it serves well in cases of emergency, or adequately in Heroic 5-Mans. I haven't found one that I can't heal so far. The bonus to that is that my Healing set requires practically zero cash. Once I'm fully satisfied with my Tanking set, or feeling rich, I'll sort it out properly, but for now it's good-enough for day-to-day use.

My Tanking set is undergoing constant change. Upgrades are coming in from Ulduar, and my stats are generally constantly improving.
The downside to this is the cost. I had some of the best gems and enchants on my gear, and having to replace them on each new tanking piece is costing me a small fortune.
Not only that, but some of the upgrades are not direct stat improvements. For example, my new sword has much better overall stats than my previous one, but the new one has absolutely no +Def on it. Where as the old one had a nice big lump of it.
That leaves me in the position of having to switch my gems again, to put some +Def back in to my other gear.

Unfortunately, that's now left me almost Bankrupt. I haven't done any dailies in weeks, and the costs of flasks, respecs and upgrades has taken it's toll.
I'm now sat at 539 Def, so need the extra point before being crit immune again. I'm in need of an Enduring Eye of Zul gem, to bring me back above the cap. And now it's all going to be a bit rushed.
I have stuff on the AH that should provide enough cash for the 160g price of the Gem, but I'll probably be late online tongiht anyway, so will need to be quick if I'm to cash in at the mailbox, buy the gem, and make it to the raid in a decent time.

Raiding is a gold-intensive sport. It's fun to do, but it costs more and more gold the higher the level you do it at. If you imagine Herocis as being your neighbourhood football team, it costs you bugger-all to go and see them play. Naxx would be your local heroes, who have a stadium, it costs you more to see everything, but nothing that would keep the locals away, and then you have Ulduar and Above. The Premiership, or the European Teams, who can charge an arm and a leg for entry, because even if you won't pay it, they know for a fact that someone else will.
David Beckham might be worth a fortune, but I bet if you added up all the in-game gold spent on defeating Yogg Saron, it'd put some transfer deals to shame.
Not to mention the amount of real money spent on subscriptions to play the game in the first place.

Fingers crossed for tonight. Raids going well = extra gold. And I don't mind grinding the dailies if it's for a good reason... like the enchant on a new shield.

When things just go right

Raid night, last night. I signed up to go, but didn't actually expect a place.
In fact, i didn't get a place, but someone didn't turn up so I got called up as the 2nd tank.

I have to say that I was a little nervous after my last attempt at Ulduar. But yesterday was a totally different kettle-of-fish.

Leviathan - 1 Shotted
Razorscale - 1 Shotted
Ignis - 1 Shotted
XT - 1 Shotted
Iron Council - 2 Shotted  (1st Wipe was only due to unlucky zone drops)
Kologarn - 1 Shotted
Auriaya - 1 Shotted

7 Bosses downed, with very little fuss. Even though there were bosses that some of us had never seen before, everything just seemed to work.
I think part of that is down to Vind. He's a great Raid Leader, and he's always got his eye on what everyone else is doing in the raid, as well as what he needs to do.

Just to prove that experience helps just as much, if not more than, gear. Alot of the bosses in Ulduar have similar traits to bosses in previous raids. So if you've been ther and done that, and reach a new boss. The raid leader can just say "This is like...." and you'll have a pretty good idea what to expect.

Leviathan was alot like that for me. The description wasn't sinking in, but as soon as someone mentioned 'Big bad wolf' from the Kara days, it all clicked in to place.
And with Ignis, having never tanked him before, the description 'Kite him like Grobbulus' was enough for me to understand the basics of the encounter.

Alot of the early boss encounters in Ulduar seem to be pretty straight-forward. At least from the tanking point of view. but having said that, the first time I went, I was very panicky, but this time was much more controlled.

The only slight moment of madness was during Razorscale when my mouse went haywire and started spinning my screen around, leaving me dis-oriented in the middle of the fight. But the fights themselves all felt very controlled.

On both my runs, so far, Vind has been in control of most of the adds, while I take the bosses. This suits me fine, since I get to learn the encounters. But add control is a much messier role for a tank, and I'm sure the encounters would feel different if I was in that position.

As a tank I'm finding it a little more frustrating that I can't speak during the raids. Sometimes it would just be so simple to shout out something I've spotted, like yelling at a caster standing in a void-zone, or at a healer to 'keep me up' before I have to pop my LoH.

But it's just not going to be possible. I play in my living room, with my laptop on my knees. And I'm pretty sure Mrs Smythy (to be) wouldn't be impressed if I started yelling "Flowersz, HEAL ME!" while she's watching 'Peter Andre: The Next Chapter'.
I already get dis-approving looks for not talking to her, much, during raids.

I like the layout of Ulduar too, with teleports to the various areas. Kara had this with the Library, but you had to clear half the place before you could reach that. With Ulduar, you can jump to wherever you want to be, as long as you've progressed enough. And it means that on wipes, there's no long run back. Fly Up - Run In - Teleport, and you can be back in the action within about 60 seconds.

The extended raid lockouts are a great idea too. Giving you a second week to continue clearing the place makes alot of sense. Especially for the non-hardocre guilds like ours.

So, fingers crossed, the Munquis will soon master Ulduar and then it'll be on to bigger and better things.

Broadening my Horizons

In the world of MMORPG's I'm pretty much a stay-at-home kind of guy.
I've been playing WoW for years now, and apart from the brief trip to EVE and City of Heroes, I've barely even left my own backyard.

Oh, sure, sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of a sexy new neighbour, and think "I'll definitely have to pop over and check them out". And I might even stay over for a few nights to get to know them more intimately. But before long I'm right back in the World of Warcraft, safe and warm, and feeling like I belong. (Or at least that I belong there more than anywhere else).

But there's things about Warcraft that I hate.

I hate the way she limits me to spending time solely on her. I've got other things to do, and a life of my own, but if I don't put in the time with her, next thing I know she'll be happily giving all her best bits to everbody but me.
I hate the way she washes her hair at the same time every single week. And it always seems to be at times that I want to have some fun.
I hate the way she makes me spend my hard-earned cash on her, not just every now and again, but every single month. No cash, no fun. It's almost like living with a hooker.
I hate the way she changes every so often, and all the hard work I put in to making myself the best I can possibly be just becomes time that I'll never get back.

Basically, if WoW was a woman, she'd be my wife. And all the other games out there would be the mistreses that looked a lot more interesting. But no matter how often I'd get lead astray I'd 'probably' always end up back at home with her.


Ok, enough of the analogies now. Here's the more serious part:

I'm always interested in looking at new MMORPG's. I don't play many, but I'm usually willing to give them a try if they have a free trial.

WoW isn't going to last forever... I know... It's a shock when someone says it out loud, isn't it.
WotLK was a great expansion, and brought a lot of new stuff into the game. And for a few months it relieved all of the boredom that was beginning to set in with TBC.
Cataclysm could be even better. Alot of the features they're bringing in are exactly what I would have asked for... ... ... But... ... ... ...

At the end of the day it's still the same game I've been playing for years. I know it inside and out. And the challenge is definitely starting to fade. Sure, I could get better gear, and move on to bigger and badder dungeons. But they're really only as difficult as the gear you're wearing, or the level you're at.

Deadmines was a fantastic instance, and at level 18ish it was just as hard as any raid dungeon. But a couple of levels later, and with better gear, and it was simply a push-over. Raiding is no different (apart from staying the same level).
Anyone who'd mastered the Magisters Terrace in TBC could have walked back in to Kara and laid the smack-down much more easily than they could have at the same level but with lesser gear.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to experience something totally new. But there's a few things holding me back.

1) The Graphics - I don't care if the graphics look super-realistic or like simple cartoonish blobs. I'm old enough to know that 'you can't polish a turd' no matter how much you try. Graphics are a nice 'extra' to a game, but shouldn't be the focus of it.
But, on the downside, my current laptop isn't exectly shit-hot, so would struggle to cope with some of todays latest and greatest.

2) The Gameplay - It doesn't have to be WoW. But I like to see the other people around me, doing there thing, and maybe even making a mess of my plans. it all adds to the randomness. EVE, for example, felt more like a single player experience. There was very little point to the nice graphics. it would have functioned almost as well with nothing but a text interface. So it needs to FEEL like an MMO.

3) The Storyline - LotR didn't interest me at all. I couldn't care less if the Orcs were eating babies in the Shire. It's been done to death. EVE didn't even HAVE a storyline to speak of. Here's your ship, go do stuff. It felt more like a sandbox than a game. The RPG in MMORPG is important.

4) The Impact of ME - WoW has only just started to introduce this with Phasing. But even so, it's very scarcely used. I might have helped bring down the biggest baddest monster in the whole game, but give it a few days, and nothign will have changed. The Wrathgate questline is the most impressive in the game, it really feels like you're making a difference to the world. But apart from that, and the Hodir questline, I can't really think of any others.

5) The Munquis - Unfortunately, I don't think I'd be tempted enough to leave them. If a new super-game came along, and the Munquis decided to give it a go, I'd jump at the chance. But it's unlikely.

There's a few games on the horizon with the potential to pull me away from WoW. Fallen Earth looks good and the new StarWars MMO has alot of potential (although the thought of all the fanboi's puts me off a little).

My prophecy of doom sees WoW starting to lose major numbers of players by Christmas next year. It's had it's run, and I'm sure millions will still be playing it for years to come. But given the choice, I'd rather get in at the start of a new game rather than switching when everyone else is already an expert.

Fingers crossed, the super-game will appear soon. The Munquis will all agree, and we'll be off to kick some ass in outerspace, post-apocalyptic earth, or somewhere else that's not Azeroth. And plant the Munqui banner in some Hordie / Mutie / Alien scum suckers.

World of War-CRAFT

Keen, from Keen & Graev's gaming blog posted something I agree with quite alot.
Brainstorming ways to make FE even better

Now the post relates to Fallen Earth, which looks like an interesting MMORPG. Definitely one I'll try at some point. But the points he makes really apply to most MMO's.

I'm mainly talking about his reference to Crafting.
In WoW, Crafters are really a so-so requirement. Nobody has to use the services of a crafter... ever. There are numerous ways to obtain armour and weapons of a higher standard then even the greatest crafter can make.
Gems and Enchants require someone to create them and are of a limited time use. Eventually you will find a better piece of gear, and then you'll need to buy that uber enchant / gem again.
But for Weapons and Armour that doesn't apply.

Keen suggests that Durability should be added to Fallen Eath. And I think it should also be added to WoW.

WoW already has a sort of durability, but that's really just a hidden gold-sink for Blizzard to control the amount of cash in-game. And with the amounts of gold available just from dailies, it's a pretty pointless function. It's extremely rare that people can't afford their repairs, no matter what the cost.

In fact I'd bet most people don't even bat an eyelid at paying a 30g repair bill to a vendor, but would be disgusted if they had to give 30g to another player every time they needed repairs.

But why should they? It's the same amount of money, it's not hurting you any more than paying a vendor.

Keen suggests that all items should degrade over time. Make crafted epics the be-all and end-all of quality. Give them the ultimate stats, give them alot more choices, but make every single item degradeable.
In WoW, I'd add 'Take out the huge penalty for dying in your gear'. Does the hit that kills you really need to cause more damage to your gear than the million hits that didn't?

That would create a steady market for Crafters, where people would come to them regularly for their gear, and also return to them for repairs, or renewals of the same gear.

And what if the stats of your gear reduced depending on it's durability? 50% Durability = 50% of the stats?

Or, if you didn't want to go as extreme as that, just remove the NPC vendor repairs from the game. And make it so that only blacksmiths / leatherworkers / tailors can repair the relevant gear. (Of course it would still have a mats cost to make the repairs).
Alternatively, add 'repair-kits' as a craftable item, that way, people can stock up on them, but they'll always be in demand.

I've always seen the crafting system in WoW as a bit weak. That's why, in all the years I've played,  I've always avoided being a BS, LW, Tailor, etc... My Pally is the first toon to get a highish level as an Engineer, but that was a choice relating to the AH in Dalaran, the chance for repair bots, and the low costs involved.

I have never once made anything that serves anyone else but myself. It's just not worth it.
And the few rare items I've required the services of a crafter for (apart from Gems and Enchants) have been more a case of lazyness than neccessity. Rather than spend weeks grinding heroics for the best gear. I simply dropped alot of cash on the AH, and for Mats, and bought myself a bit of a boost. Almost all the stuff I've had crafted has now been replaced anyway.

But what would the mobs drop, if crafted gear was always going to be better? Tokens, and gold. You spend the tokens on special materials, or plans, required to make your gear.
If anyone has played any of the Fallout games, they'll have heard of Power-Armor. It's one of the best gear sets in the game, but you can't use it until you've been shown how.
You have to complete a specific quest chain to gain access to that training, and before then, it's nothing more than heavy trash (expensive trash, but still trash).

I actually preferred the old 'attunement' system for raids. It meant that you were more prepared for what to expect in the raid itself.
So if you scrap gear-drops, you could make Naxx drop gear tokens, which could be spent on any level of gear. But. Until you'd completed Naxx you could only wear tier 7 stuff. After killing every boss in Naxx you're rewarded with the training to use t8 gear. Malygos rewards t8.5, and Ulduar t9.
Remember, they're not rewarding the gear itself, just drops to make it with, and the training to be able to use it.

In that way, someone who grinds Naxx constantly, can amass a huge amount of tokens, but they can't just go and spend them all on the best gear in the game. They need to 'progress'. And without spending those tokens to obtain the gear needed to finish Ulduar, they're never going to be able to use t9 gear. Sure, they can spend their tokens on t9 crafting equipment, but they can't put the gear on, because they haven't 'earned' the right too.

So if you see someone in full t9, you know they're not just a wannabe hardcore, they've put in the effort, and achieved a full clear of at least 2 raids to get to that point in the game.

The crafters can make you anything you like, as long as you have the relevant tokens, and they can maintain it for you. But until you've earned the right to wear it, it's just going to be clogging up your inventory.

Return of the Red-Eye's

I ended up in Ulduar again last night. I logged on with my Paladin (who is also now the GM) and offered my services as a Tank / Healer if they were short.

They weren't short of either, but the guild seems to be back in the fix of lacking ranged DPS. So I was ordered to dust off my Hunter for the the benefit of the others.
I was a little unsure if he was geared enough to be honest. Experience counts for a lot, and with it, you can pull off things that gear can only compensate so much for.
My experiences of Ulduar have been very minimal, but since I was the only other one around, what difference did it make?

It didn't go as badly as I expected. My hunter managed to keep up an average of 2k DPS, and usually more like 2.5k, so I was at least keeping up appearances.
But the problem with being Survival spec'd is that you perform best when you can just stand-still and nuke the targets, which isn't a popular method for Raid Bosses these days. So without all the running around, I could probably have done much better.

Leviathan, Xt-002, Agromer, Auriaya, and Hodir were downed. With only a few wipes, so it went pretty well overall. And on Hodir a T8 emblem dropped for my Hunter and I won the roll. Sweet.

But after getting to the vendor I debated a little about spending it, My Hunter isn't my main, so isn't likely to get very much use out of the gear. and the stats were only marginally better anyway. So weren't going to suddenly make my hunter an uber-DPS again.
I whispered Flow, who'd come second in the roll, and asked him if he wanted the token. He faffed a little to make it seem like he was really thinking hard about it, but before long he realised he was being a muppet and agreed to take it.

It made alot more sense for the progress of the raid team, and the guild, for him to have it rather than me. So that's my good-deed for the week done.

It was a shame I couldn't have gone on my Pally again, there were a couple of exellent plate drops for the tanks, but both of ours are already geared up, so the drops pretty much went to waste.
In fact, alot of the gear dropped was marked for DE'ing, which just shows how easy it is to get epics these days.
Oh well, back to heroics for my Pally, 10 more emblems and he can pick up his new pants. Then it's all up systems go for the full healing set and that's almost ready just through random drops.

Due to all the Heroics I've done with him, he's revered with most of the major factions too, so I don't have to worry about grinding for the vendor enchants.

Vindiana Caputo and The Raiders of the the Lost Cause

Believe it or not. I went to Ulduar last night.

It wasn't planned, or intentional. I simply logged on, asked if the raid had been cancelled, and before I knew it I had a ticket to tank with the big boys... Nice.

Munqui Raiding used to be a lot like that. It was less organised, and more of a case of "if it happens, it happens" but what that used to end up with was pretty much full officer teams. Which put a few peoples noses out of joint.

"Meh" I say.

But that's pretty much what happened last night anyway. It was Officers, ex-officers and Rumido. After a lot of kerfuffle with who was going and who wasn't (we're all too nice and kept trying to offer our spots to others, while at the same time secretly hoping they say "no thanks") we managed to get inside.
Fortunately we had 2 good raid leaders in Vind and Vedd. Unfortunately we also had a few people (myself included) who wouldn't know what a 'Flame Vent' was, even if it jumped up and smacked them in the mouth.

Cue lot's of wipes on the first boss. Leviathan.
They were silly wipes really, the encounter seemed pretty straightforward. And was a sort of re-working of the Big-Bad-Wolf from Karazahns Opera event. But with some interrupts thrown in. Eventually he went down, with a sigh of relief from everyone. (Not to mention hefty repair bills).

Second Boss. Razorscale. Went down first time. Very little problem. And got my first chance to do some real tanking instead of driving a truck. Vind took the MT role (even though he'll swear there was no MT / OT assigned) but it suited me fine, he's the expert and as long as I just did my job everything would be fine. So taunts came when taunts were needed, and apart from a few people standing in the fire too much it all went well.

Third Boss. Deconstructor. Again, a one-shot attempt. I MT'd this time which seemed more sensible, as the OT's job was more complicated. I didn't have to run around like a loony grabbing stray adds. I just had to keep the aggro up on the boss.  All nice and smooth, and another win.

Fourth Boss. No idea. Agromer? Maybe. Can't remember the guys name, but he had big hands and a beard that santa would die for. (If you saw him coming down your chimney at Christmas though, you'd be hoping the next thing you unwrapped was a clean pair of shorts).
I was MT again, while Vind collected the adds. A couple of wipes again on this guy. It was mainly a lack of healing. The healers were too busy dodging his laser beam eyes that they forgot to heal me, never a good idea.
Second attempt, and my Argent Defender had triggered within about 5 seconds, I held on a little longer, but it was a lost-cause.
Third try, and down he went. I was even watching for him grabbing a healer, and managed to bubble Tins when he did, since she'd died every other time.
Somehow things fell into place and we even managed to get the achievement where we killed him within 10 seconds of one arm dying. Vind tells me it's one of the Hard-Mode achievements, I'll take his word for it, but it was a nice way to round off the night.

Expensive on the repair bills, but I also managed to pick up my final epic tanking piece, so I've got new shoulders too. So all in all a good night.


On a side note, I now seem to be over the Def cap. I'm currently at 545, but all except one of my enchants / gems is now +Stam / Dodge / Parry instead of def. And that's before I plant the Hodir shoulder enchant on my new epic, and before I pick up my new Wyrmguard legs that I only need 10 emblems for.

I know that going over the Def cap isn't neccesarily a waste, it still counts for something, it's just not as effective as applying a different stat once you've reached the Cap.

Once I enchant my shoulders, and pick up my new legs, I'll be around 550 Def, so that's 25 Def points I could live without. But no way to not spend them... unless I changed my shoulder enchant?

Rotten to the Core

In the world of raiding, there seems to be a big distinction made between 'HardCore' and 'Social' raiding.

Those who conisder themselves social look at the hardcore raiders, and scoff. They think they waste their lives playing the game wrong. But secretly, the social (or casual) raiders wish they could be as good, and also wish they could have the gear that the hardcore have. They like to think that they have the same skills as the hardcore, but are just nicer people.

Those who consider themselves harcore raiders, lok at the social raiders and scoff. They think that the socials are just not as good as them. And if they weren't so lazy, they could have epic-epix too. But secretly, the hardcore don't want the socials to improve. They prefer the socials to stay at the lower levels of raiding, because that makes the hardocre feel superior. It gives them a justification for investing the time and effort they have, and makes them feel like they are more skilled than the socials.

So where do the Munquis fit in on this scale?

Well, we're a 'social' guild, but 'social' is a subjective word. What I like to do to 'socialize' is not neccesarily the same as everyone else.
All the 'social' means to us is that we're willing to give anyone a try. It doesn't mean that we'll like them, or put up with crap, or drag their lazy asses through dungeons or raids just because we proudly like to call ourselves 'social'.

The tribe is a pretty big guild. So we've got the advantages (and disadvantages of that). If we want to run any 10 man raid, these days, we can almost garauntee enough players of the required class to set it up. If we organise it in advance.
If we don't organise it in advance, we still have a good chance becuase we'll usually have enough members online to give it a go, and have freinds, and other guilds, that we can call on to fill any vacancies.

In TBC, most Munquis didn't make it past Karazahn. In fact, most Munquis didn't even make it 'into' Karazahn. But that didn't stop us reaching the point where, effectively, we had 2 teams that could farm it.
And eventually progress in to other raids was made.

In WotLK we conquered Naxx fairly quickly. We were only just behind some of the hardcore raiding guilds. And we then moved on to Malygos, and now on to Ulduar.
Although I haven't been, I know that Ulduar is still in the learning stages of being conquered by us. Its not on farm yet. But it won't be long, and then it'll be on to ToC.

Now, the 'average' hardcore raider is just mastering ToC at this point so, again, the Munquis aren't far behind. But the average 'Social' hasn't even set foot in Ulduar, never mind made any progress.

So to go back to the original question: Where do the Munquis fit in on this scale?

Let's take something everyone knows about, as an example:    PORN

Don't deny it, you're sat at a computer or digital device right now, and you all know what porn is.
But there's different types of porn, and I don't mean the stuff with Dwarves and Donkeys, and that sort of filth. I mean different ratings.

There's the HardCore Porn. With no holds barred visuals, and usually very bad scripts. but it's effective, and does the job. This is what people usually think of when they think of 'Porn'.

There's also the BBC edited version of sex scenes in mainstream films. It's not really Porn, it's just a little bit of nudity, and usually part of a fantastically scripted story. But it's still too much for some people.
This is what your granny thinks of when you mention 'Porn'. (At least you hope so... although why you and your granny would be discussing porn is another issue).

But in between those two there's the, lesser known, SoftCore Porn. It's not as popular as it used to be. There might be lots of full frontal nudity, but there's also alot left to the imagination. It doesn't leave you in any doubt that it actually is Porn, but it's not as in your face as the HardCore stuff.
Usually the scripts are somewhere between the 2 other versions, with longer storylines, and occasionally 5, or more, minutes where people remain fully dressed.

Now stop thinking about naked ladies (or gents) and lets get back to the main issue:

We're ahead of the average social, and behind the average hardcore. So I'd go with 'SoftCore Raiders'.

We're good at what we do, our experienced members all have the potential to do well in raids, we just don't push as hard as the 'HardCore' do, because that's not what we're about. When we suceed, we do it together, and when we fail, we fail as a team, and try again next time.
We're not in your face, full frontal, 'Raiders'. But we're not pre-watershed, don't let the kids see, 'Socials' either.

So it just goes to show that it is possible to balance 'Social' and 'Raider' at the same time.

You ask any man / woman who's been in the army if they felt closer to their comrades than to any other freind they've ever had. I bet you most would say 'yes'. And for the whole of their time in the military they were being ordered about, forced to do crappy jobs, and putting their lives at risk.

There are always going to be people who disagree. Those for whom the focus, control, patience and effort required to raid are 'not fun'.

But, if you're one of those people, this isn't the army, no one has a gun to your head, so why raid?

For me, I enjoy being 'SoftCore' and I'm proud of it.

And the point is...

Following on from my previous post, apart from the fun-factor, what's the point in raiding Ulduar?

Imagine a Goblin. He likes making money, and lot's of it. He chooses to always try and achieve the maximum amount of profit from the minimal amount of work. But he's not afraid of hard-work, as long as it pays off in the end.
A true goblin would stay the hell away from Ulduar. If you can farm heroics, which are much easier, to achieve a similar level of loot, then why would you want to go raiding?


According to WowWiki, the time taken on each Heroic is quite high, but speaking from alot of experience, they're not. I think you can easily slash about a third off the times shown on there.
e.g. VH is shown as 24 Minutes, but it's easy to do in 15. UK is 25 Mins, but our runs usually average 11-12 (and occasionally 10).
Even then, I still think that's a little high. Gundrak for example is shown as a 90 Minute run, and it's nothing of the sort.



But applying that to the whole of the list (-1/3 off all the times on WoWWiki) gives a total time of 444 Minutes, or 7 and a half hours. If you run all of them in one day, you would receive 52 Emblems of Conquest, + 2 Emblems of Conquest from the Daily Normal, and 2 Emblems of Triumph from the Daily Heroic.



In Ulduar (10), the Munquis raid twice per week, for around 4-5 Hours per night.And the average raid boss drops only 1 or 2 Emblems of Conquest. (Let's say 2 for ease).
Let's also presume that a good Munqui team can clear Ulduar in the 2 nights. and we'll shave a bit fo the time off too. There's a maximum of 14 Bosses in Ulduar, including optional.

So for Heroics 7 Hours = 54 Emblems of Conquest, 2 Emblems of Triumph, a hell of alot of Reputation gains, and a nice pot of gold to spend on Enchants, Gems etc... And the whole thing can be repeated every single day.

For Ulduar 9 Hours = 28 Emblems of Conquest, 0 Emblems of Triumph, 0 rep gains, possibly some gold (but repair bills might eat in to this), And the run can only be completed once per week.


The next part is easiest to see with a DPS'er. So let's use that as an example.

Let's say the DPS'er has some epic pieces, and can pull off 3k DPS in an average raid. He really wants to reach ToC.

If he grinds heroics, and daily heroics, he's not going to struggle much. It'll be a walk in the park for him, and he can earn loads of emblems every day.
But if he raids, he might get the chance of a random drop which is even better than some of the Emblem gear.

But how much better? Not a lot. And how useful? Again, not as much as it first seems.

Imagine a pair of boots:
The pair you have now has +80 AP. The Emblem / Rep version would have +100 AP, but the random Ulduar drop version has +120AP. That's another 20% increase, that's awesome.. right?
Right, but the Emblem of Triumph version has +150 AP. And you don't get Emblems of Triumph in Ulduar.

Remember though, that you only get a 20% increase in DPS once every piece you're wearing is upgraded too. Until then you only get a small % increase in your stats. There's 11 Equipment slots, not counting tabards. So you'd need 11 upgrades to achieve a full new set of gear.

So, for 3 months of Heroics, the original 3000 DPS -> 3750 DPS in Emblem of Conquest / Rep Gear -> 5400 DPS in Emblem of Triumph Gear


And, for 3 months of Ulduar, the original 300 DPS -> 4500 DPS in Full Ulduar Gear

Even if you didn't get a full set of Emblem of Triumph Gear, you'd still achieve more than the 4500 DPS of the Ulduar Gear. And certainly enough to move on to ToC.

So what's the point in Ulduar?

God Knows, But I'll probably still go.

A tale of 2 Pallies

Once upon a time, in a land far-far away, but that millions of people visited every day, there was a Paladin.

The Paladin had goals. He had things in life that he strived for. He looked at others, and thought to himself 'I want to be like them'.
So he trudged his way up through the levels, until he reached 70. And when he got there, he threw away his tanking gear, that had supported him well up to that point, and began collecting healing gear.

He knew that to get in to groups, he would need to provide something that others couldn't. And at that time, that was healing. There just weren't very many healers around.

He completed long quest chains for some pieces, for others he entered heroic dungeons, to collect random drops, and badges that he could trade for entry-level gear.
Before long he had picked up enough kit, and invested enough time in perfecting his healing, to enter Karazahn. While there he had a great time. Sometimes it went well, other times it didn't. But it didn't matter, it was alot of fun, and for every boss that was killed he would receive random loot, and even more badges. but these could be exchanged for very high level equipment.
The Paladin thought this was awesome, and he could hopefully move on to bigger and better things, which he had no hope of doing without first mastering Karazahn. He didn't make it very far past Karazahn, but he wasn't too bothered. He still felt that he'd achieved enough to sleep at night. And finally, he retired happily.


12 months later, another Paladin was born. This one had similar dreams of glory, so he set off on his mission to reach level 80. Hoping one day to be good enough to enter raids, and experience all the adventures a young-man could want.
But when he got to 80, things weren't quite what he expected.
He also began to complete heroic dungeons, to gather his gear. In this case he didn't forsake his tanking, since it was still highly sought after in most groups.
At first the dungeons were difficult. He felt like he'd been there before, and knew all of the encounters, but being toe-to-toe from the mobs was much different to standing at the back of the crowd and shooting at them.
But before long the Paladin had mastered his art, and along the way he'd collected lots of nice equipment too.
The badges that were dropped by the bosses in the dungeons also provided him with a few extra nice pieces. Until he reached the point where those badges weren't worth very much to him anymore.

So off he went, all psyched up to enter the dreaded citadel of Naxxramas. Only, he found, nobody else was going there. Naxx was no longer a challenge, since the gear that he'd collected from doing heroics was equivalent or better than the stuff dropped in Naxx.
But he wasn't detered, he dipped his toe into the lava pools of Sartharion, and found it no problem, so he set his sights on the mighty gates of Ulduar, confident that he would eventually master it, and then be able to proceed to enter the Trial of the Crusader. Where, one day, he might be found worthy enough to face Arthas himself.

But.... It turns out that the emblems / badges dropped in Ulduar are exactly the same ones that are dropped in the heroics. So he was going to have to rely and nothing but random drops to provide enough equipment to allow him to reach the next level of uberness... ... ... Bugger.

Ulduar was hard, it was difficult. He was sure it would be a lot of fun to do, but the rewards weren't going to be very worthwhile.
But if he stayed doing nothing but daily heroics between now and the time of Arthas's arrival, he'd be one of the best geared Tanks in the land.
The reward for completing those daily challenges was 2 emblems of Triumph. And the only other way to obtain them was in the higher level dungeons.

The Paladin, being good at maths, sat down and thought it through:

'If I go to Ulduar, and I'm lucky, I could get some more emblems of conquest, and the chance to roll on some random loot. But I'd probably die alot, and waste alot of time. And I can only repeat it once per week.'

'But, if I just spent the same amount of time doing heroics, I'll earn tons of emblems of conquest. Probably enough to buy a full set of healing gear. Loads of cash from quest rewards and mob drops. AND if I do the daily challenge at the same time, I'll also pick up 2 Emblems of Triumph every day too.'


So did the Pally go to Ulduar?

Of course he did. But why?



The same reason a man does many things in his life................ Because his freinds were doing it.

Frequent Forum Miles

The use of the Munqui Tribe forums seems to have faded off recently. I'm not sure why that is.

The in-game activity still seems to be pretty high, with good numbers of guild members online. Usually at least 10-20, and sometimes reaching 30.
But the forum seems to be slowly dying. People either aren't bothering to read what's written on there, or they have no interest in the guild other than as a place to find groups in-game.

It's a bit of a shame, because the forums used to be a good place to have a chat, or a whinge, or just generally piss about when you were supposed to be doing something else... The good old days.

Luckily, I don't just have to tell you that this is true because I say it is. Brast was kind enough to give me Admin access ages ago, so I can pull some stats from the admin tools:

So here they are: (Keep in mind, these are only since the forum reset, where the original service provider went bust).

Registered Members: 123
Total Shoutbox Posts: 598
Total Forum Posts: 2398

Top Posters:

• 393 - Smyth
• 318 - Knicks
• 184 - Night
• 158 - Vind
• 155 - Funk
• 153 - Vedd
• 139 - Bronze
• 123 - Lewt
• 117 - Flow
• 106 - Rad
• 53 - Bolle
• 38 - Brast
• 38 - Zuchi
• 37 - Biafra
• 29 - Spud
• 27 - Grenthal
• 21 - Rumido
• 21 - Trig
• 16 - Tinsell

So what do those figures tell us about the forums, and about the guild itself?

Well firstly, Apart from Tins, I only counted people who've made more than 20 posts. So thats 18 People. So out of 123 registered members only 18 of them have been 'active' on the forums. Although it depends how you define 'active'. The forums were reset at the beginning of January, so 20 Posts is still only an average of 2 per month.

Secondly, if you add up all the posts that those 18 have made, you get 2110 posts. That's 88% of the entire forum community being provided by 14% of the members.
It gets worse if you raise the bar to, let's say, 50 posts (around 1 per week).That means 11 people have posted 1899 times between them. So the figures change to 79% of the community being provided by about 9% of the members.
Effectively, only 11 people are investing any real time and effort in to the forums. And 2 of those are Rad and Bolle, who are also in other guilds.


Next, let's look at 'who' is doing the posting, and their status within the guild. Unsuprisingly, the officers and ex-officers are generally the most active. (Above 50 Posts)
The ones with between 20 and 50 are generally the long-serving and loyal members of the guild.
And the ones with less than 20 posts are a mix of everyone.
Maybe the Officers and loyal members feel more inclined to contribute to the guild, rather than just using it for their own ends. That seem to be the case in game, with things like the guild-bank. Officers and loyal Munquis often contribute to, but rarely take from, the GuildBank.

Finally, if you raise the bar for considering a member to be 'active' to 100 - Still only an average of 2 posts per week. It means the whole forum is being maintained for the benefit of just 10 people. And those 10 names at the top of that list are generally people who also have lots to say to each other in-game, and least likely to need the forums.

And as a P.S. to all this... Tins only has 16 Posts since January?!?!
What the hell is going on there? In-Game you can barely get her to shut up.
And Myself and Knicks need to shut-up a bit more on the forums. But if we did, maybe things would be even quieter.

Anti-Raidism?

To raid, or not to raid. That is the question.

Vind asked me a couple of days ago "When are we going to see you in Ulduar with us?"

The answer flew off my fingers without thinking about it. "Whenever you want me."

My Pally is geared enough now to cope with the basics of raid tanking. He still has blue shoulders, but one night of raiding would give me enough emblems of triumph to replace them quickly anyway. Apart from that, and a couple of 'better' epics I can still get through emblems of conquest, I'm as geared up as I can be at this point.

I'm Def capped, my average HP in a 5-man is a little under 40k, I've got my macros all worked out and my layout and Ui configured well now. So what's stopping me going raiding?

Do I really want to?

I've enjoyed the laid-back approach to Heroics. You know that you're never going to be commited to the game for more than 15-30 minutes per time. It's rare that a run goes badly wrong these days, so emblem grinding is more just a case of scooping them up of the dead bodies every few minutes.
I just find the heroic-scene very sociable.There's no pressure, there's no fuss. There's very little discussion of boss tactics, apart from the occasional "shall we try for the achievement". Things just happen, smoothly, and it feels like things are being achieved.

While my Tanking set is almost where it should be, my healing gear is much more mis-matched. It's pretty epic. I know I've only got a few blues left anyway. But I'm in plate, and mail, and leather, and there might even be some cloth in there too
I know that armor type isn't as important for healers. My last Pally was a mis-match in Kara, and he healed just fine. For healers, it's stats-stats-stats. But it's all wrongly gemmed and I know there are better upgrades out there if I look for them.

Having said that, if I dropped some gold on the AH, I could probably gem my healing gear up nicely, and at least cope as the 2nd / 3rd healer in a 10-man.

I'm also a big believer that skill and experience can make up for lack of gear. There's no point trying to convince me otherwise. I know that it's the truth. The voices in my head tell me.
But in Ulduar, I have no experience, and since I've never even set foot inside, my skills are generic.
It'd be like dropping a freshly dinged level 80 in to the Noth encounter in Naxx. 2 seconds in, WTF, and the group wipes... I don't want to be that nooby.

Tanks are generally the group leaders, it just goes with the territory. And I can't lead what I don't know.
I'd be sat there waiting for Vind to tell me what I need to do, when it would just be simpler and probably more effective for him to do it himself. Why should every body else wait for me? And why should they have to die just because I don't know the encounters that well? They've done their dying, and paid their repair costs to reach the point they're up to.

So do I want to raid in Ulduar?

Yes.

Will I?

I'm not sure right now.

But until I make up my mind, I'll be available for heroics almost any time you see me online.

The Importance of Being Patient

Continuing from my previous post on cornering markets, here's a few extra tips for you.
They're a little bit anti-goblin, so if you're in to mass production and accepting low profit margins, this is not going to be for you.

Let's say that you've managed to pick up the Titanium Plating plans. (They're only 15g, but I just noticed that you also need Exalted with the Vanguard too... not too big a deal).
If you suddenly start churning out loads of them, people will start to notice. And you might do quite nicely out of it for a while. But before long, people are going to realise there's money to be made and start undercutting you.

Tobold posted something similar recently. And I agree with his theory.
If something is expensive, people will only buy it rarely, and will be less willing to part with it, or buy it more than once. But if it's what they need, they will still buy it at least once.
If something is cheap, people will buy it over and over and over again. But they'll also buy something else if it suits them better.

So which is better?

The Goblin (Gevlons) model is mass-production. Make something as cheap as possible, and sell it as cheaply as possible, but in large quantities. Almost all markets end up this way in the end.
But they don't need to start off that way, and if you're starting up a new market, the last thing you want to do is devalue it too quickly.

Think of  DVD players. When they first came out, they cost hundreds of pounds each, that soon dropped below the £100 mark, because more people wanted them. Now, you can pick up a brand new one for about £10 from ASDA (Walmart).

So when you start posting the Titanium plating, keep supply low, and prices high. If other people start undercutting you, undercut them. And not by a few silver. Halve your price. If they go for 120g this week, other people will want a piece of the action. So they'll invest all the time and effort into their production. When they do, slash the value to 60g and they'll be much more wary of competing against you. Because their expectations of profit will be badly shaken.
Repeat the process until the point where either they stop competing, or you can no longer make a profit.

Once the war is over, slowly raise the prices again. If the competition re-appears, lather-rinse-repeat.

So make sure you keep supply low, and only a couple of them on the AH at any one time. Make sure they're priced high. And make as much money you can before the competition tries to muscle in.