Wrath of the Righteous - Start of Act 3
11 hours ago
Showing posts with label achievements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label achievements. Show all posts
There are a lot of interesting discussions going around regarding elitism in WoW, how things have supposedly become so much easier, how those that complain about it are meanie mcmean elitists, etc etc etc.
Much like politics, what always concerns me about these sort of discussions is the lack of any real middle ground.
If you think WoW is too easy these days, you must be an elitist. If you think it's great that it's getting easier and less grindy, then you are a, gasp, >CASUAL< (haha I love The Guild...).
What if it's neither of the above?
Elitism
I leveled my two 80s back when you got your first mount at level 40. Back before the xp bonus was increased significantly, so it took a lot longer to level. Back before the BoA XP bonus items. And I'm rather proud of that.
Does that make me elitist? Does it make you elitist if you are proud of the challenges you faced? Does it make you elitist if you want to preserve the challenges?
There's ease, and then there's accessibility. I believe that what we are seeing from the developers these days is less about ease, and more about accessibility. If you wanted the best gear in Vanilla, you needed a 40 man raid - very difficult for most people to manage, organize, and maintain. Then, in BC it was reduced to 25. And now, in Wrath, we have the option for 10 OR 25. With each succession, we find that more and more people, from small guilds or large ones, are able to access the instances that provide the best gear.
Because people are able to access more difficult scenarios, they are becoming better at playing their class. I know people will disagree with me on this, and I certainly do not think it is true in every case, but overall, people are becoming much more aware of how to play their toons through more and better experience. Dual speccing allows them to more easily practice with other specs. Everyone is a raider these days - and the blogging community has flourished under this change, though we've definitely lost a few of our best.
But, much like capitalism, someone has to be poor in order to make someone else feel rich. There have to be people who HAVEN'T accomplished the things I have in order for me to be proud of it. Otherwise, who cares? It's just something that everyone else has done. That is where elitism comes in. Some call folks who feel this way elitist, and imagine them sulking and pouting in the corner of the room. I, however, have some sympathy for their situation.
We are generally most proud of those things that go above and beyond the norm. It's not just the difficulties faced in raids themselves... the advent of "less grindy" rep battles inevitably means that those of us who worked so hard to finish that grind will outwardly appear exactly the same as those who breezed through it once it was nerfed. To use an Economics analogy (because I see a lot of economics analogies in this debate), the supply is suddenly bloated, and therefore the demand is lower, and each achievement has a decreased value.
Granularity
I remember doing my first heroic dungeon in Burning Crusade... and it was HARD. We spent 4 hours in there, and it was considered the easiest of all heroics. Back when crowd control meant something. Back when healers really *did* run out of mana. I have not used Shackle Undead once in a dungeon or raid in Wrath - and with all the undead running amuck, I fully expected to.
Do I think that Blizz is making WoW too easy? Not necessarily. I think they are increasing the granularity of game challenges. Perhaps the thought is that Heroics don't need to be so hard, because you can simply pop into an OS, Naxx, or VoA pug right after hitting 80, and you'll see more challenge. The development of 10 man options along 25 man options, and then even further into 10 man reg, 10 man heroic, 25 man reg, and 25 man heroic, along with hard mode options on top of all that - THAT is what I call granularity.
However, along with this granularity we have a very muddled progression path. In fact, one might say there is no progression path at all anymore. You can get everything, up to and including the top tier from running heroics, with no need to step into a raid, thus inspiring the new fad of "heroic grinding". Can you imagine "heroic grinding" in BC? I sure as hell can't. Shudder.
All that having been said, I did not enter the raiding scene until late in BC. To be honest, I didn't think I *could*. I was a n00b raider, and who wants one of those?
Maybe there is validity in the comment that raiding has just become far too easy - that you shouldn't have to hold your hands behind your back, jump up and down on one foot with a blindfold dosey doeing to Achy Brakey Heart in order to get a challenge (what? You didn't have to learn how to Dosey Doe to Billy Ray Cyrus in Elementary School? Must be a Texas thing...). Personally, I think granularity is a good thing. But I also rather agree with what MoarHPS said - that one of the big problems now is that you can buy tier items from badges, whereas you could not pre-Wrath. Tier tokens only dropped from certain bosses, so you knew you had to progress to those bosses in order to put together your set. I suspect that this is part of why the progression path is so non-existent these days, and I think it's one of the best points I've heard in some time.
Much like politics, what always concerns me about these sort of discussions is the lack of any real middle ground.
If you think WoW is too easy these days, you must be an elitist. If you think it's great that it's getting easier and less grindy, then you are a, gasp, >CASUAL< (haha I love The Guild...).
What if it's neither of the above?
Elitism
I leveled my two 80s back when you got your first mount at level 40. Back before the xp bonus was increased significantly, so it took a lot longer to level. Back before the BoA XP bonus items. And I'm rather proud of that.
Does that make me elitist? Does it make you elitist if you are proud of the challenges you faced? Does it make you elitist if you want to preserve the challenges?
There's ease, and then there's accessibility. I believe that what we are seeing from the developers these days is less about ease, and more about accessibility. If you wanted the best gear in Vanilla, you needed a 40 man raid - very difficult for most people to manage, organize, and maintain. Then, in BC it was reduced to 25. And now, in Wrath, we have the option for 10 OR 25. With each succession, we find that more and more people, from small guilds or large ones, are able to access the instances that provide the best gear.
Because people are able to access more difficult scenarios, they are becoming better at playing their class. I know people will disagree with me on this, and I certainly do not think it is true in every case, but overall, people are becoming much more aware of how to play their toons through more and better experience. Dual speccing allows them to more easily practice with other specs. Everyone is a raider these days - and the blogging community has flourished under this change, though we've definitely lost a few of our best.
But, much like capitalism, someone has to be poor in order to make someone else feel rich. There have to be people who HAVEN'T accomplished the things I have in order for me to be proud of it. Otherwise, who cares? It's just something that everyone else has done. That is where elitism comes in. Some call folks who feel this way elitist, and imagine them sulking and pouting in the corner of the room. I, however, have some sympathy for their situation.
We are generally most proud of those things that go above and beyond the norm. It's not just the difficulties faced in raids themselves... the advent of "less grindy" rep battles inevitably means that those of us who worked so hard to finish that grind will outwardly appear exactly the same as those who breezed through it once it was nerfed. To use an Economics analogy (because I see a lot of economics analogies in this debate), the supply is suddenly bloated, and therefore the demand is lower, and each achievement has a decreased value.
Granularity
I remember doing my first heroic dungeon in Burning Crusade... and it was HARD. We spent 4 hours in there, and it was considered the easiest of all heroics. Back when crowd control meant something. Back when healers really *did* run out of mana. I have not used Shackle Undead once in a dungeon or raid in Wrath - and with all the undead running amuck, I fully expected to.
Do I think that Blizz is making WoW too easy? Not necessarily. I think they are increasing the granularity of game challenges. Perhaps the thought is that Heroics don't need to be so hard, because you can simply pop into an OS, Naxx, or VoA pug right after hitting 80, and you'll see more challenge. The development of 10 man options along 25 man options, and then even further into 10 man reg, 10 man heroic, 25 man reg, and 25 man heroic, along with hard mode options on top of all that - THAT is what I call granularity.
However, along with this granularity we have a very muddled progression path. In fact, one might say there is no progression path at all anymore. You can get everything, up to and including the top tier from running heroics, with no need to step into a raid, thus inspiring the new fad of "heroic grinding". Can you imagine "heroic grinding" in BC? I sure as hell can't. Shudder.
All that having been said, I did not enter the raiding scene until late in BC. To be honest, I didn't think I *could*. I was a n00b raider, and who wants one of those?
Maybe there is validity in the comment that raiding has just become far too easy - that you shouldn't have to hold your hands behind your back, jump up and down on one foot with a blindfold dosey doeing to Achy Brakey Heart in order to get a challenge (what? You didn't have to learn how to Dosey Doe to Billy Ray Cyrus in Elementary School? Must be a Texas thing...). Personally, I think granularity is a good thing. But I also rather agree with what MoarHPS said - that one of the big problems now is that you can buy tier items from badges, whereas you could not pre-Wrath. Tier tokens only dropped from certain bosses, so you knew you had to progress to those bosses in order to put together your set. I suspect that this is part of why the progression path is so non-existent these days, and I think it's one of the best points I've heard in some time.
Long before Blizzard actually implemented achievements, I had personal achievements I set for myself, such as having every recipe for my professions, or similar. So when achievements were finally added to the game, I was understandably very excited. I absolutely love them... usually.
One set of achievements I just can't get into? Holidays. I don't know exactly why this is... perhaps it's due to the fact that these are limited time engagements, and therefore "everybody's doing it" and the areas are crowded. Maybe it's because so many people do them that they just aren't very special to me.
Whatever the reasons and justifications are, I did very few holiday achievements last year, so I obviously did not finish off What a Long Strange Trip it's Been. I told myself I would do it this year for certain... but even with two weeks allotted for Brewfest, I just can't seem to get into it. Perhaps it's just more of the WoW malaise from which I've been suffering as of late, but I'm also not used to spending a large chunk of in game time at once working on an achievement. Normally I do them a little bit at a time. This isn't something you can really do with holiday achievements, however, as you are sort of on a time limit.
Actually, the only real reason I have any interest in doing the Holiday Achievements is due to the mount awarded at the end. And I DO like doing the mount achievements.
In other news, today is full of utter fail. I deem this day worthy of nothing more than many stab emoticons, and I blame it for my lack of any insight or interesting posting material. I'm sleepy, feel crappy, in trouble at work, and just generally depressed on multiple fronts.
I do, however, continue to get lots of enjoyment out of statcounter. Yesterday I noticed a giant spike in visitors to an old post about stupid loot drama, all coming from a protected forum post for a guild named Lose Your Life. I found this really amusing.
One set of achievements I just can't get into? Holidays. I don't know exactly why this is... perhaps it's due to the fact that these are limited time engagements, and therefore "everybody's doing it" and the areas are crowded. Maybe it's because so many people do them that they just aren't very special to me.
Whatever the reasons and justifications are, I did very few holiday achievements last year, so I obviously did not finish off What a Long Strange Trip it's Been. I told myself I would do it this year for certain... but even with two weeks allotted for Brewfest, I just can't seem to get into it. Perhaps it's just more of the WoW malaise from which I've been suffering as of late, but I'm also not used to spending a large chunk of in game time at once working on an achievement. Normally I do them a little bit at a time. This isn't something you can really do with holiday achievements, however, as you are sort of on a time limit.
Actually, the only real reason I have any interest in doing the Holiday Achievements is due to the mount awarded at the end. And I DO like doing the mount achievements.
In other news, today is full of utter fail. I deem this day worthy of nothing more than many stab emoticons, and I blame it for my lack of any insight or interesting posting material. I'm sleepy, feel crappy, in trouble at work, and just generally depressed on multiple fronts.
I do, however, continue to get lots of enjoyment out of statcounter. Yesterday I noticed a giant spike in visitors to an old post about stupid loot drama, all coming from a protected forum post for a guild named Lose Your Life. I found this really amusing.
After a week of completely purposeful and productive priest posting, I fully expect this week to be lazy posting days. First off, I am sick with my annual change-of-season flu, which means that I'm likely to be sleeping even MORE than normal (which is already a lot - I sleep when I get bored. I get bored a lot). Also, I'm really hoping that at some point this week, my bosses will decide to actually give me some work to do... at work. Crazy, right? Yeah I thought so.
I have actually been spending most of the past few weeks of wow time leveling up Kateranna, my forsaken priest, and pretty much ignoring Jessabelle, only logging on to raid. The truth is, I was suffering from major burn out. If you're a healer, and you have a lot of in-game friends, you may know what I'm talking about (might be similar for tanks too!). Everytime I'm logged in, I get requests to heal something - about every 5-10 minutes, depending on the time of day. From heroics to run throughs to raids... and while I used to make sure to use every raid lockout per week, I just don't feel like doing that anymore.
I've been wanting to work on my Loremaster/Seeker achievement for months, but especially since BobTurkey's post about his accomplishment of such a feat. But everytime I've logged in on Jbelle for the past month or two, I've been inundated with tells. To be fair, half of those tells are just friendly hellos - I'm a social kid. And it's not that I'm annoyed by people inviting me to join them on their raiding fun. It's actually that I feel BAD saying no, and I'm always saying no.
See, I have a laptop, and a desktop. Most of the time, I play on my laptop - it is a mac, and I do not use a usb mouse. I trackpad all the way baby - who needs a right click? The only time I use my desktop is for raiding. I prefer playing on my laptop when I'm not raiding because I can sit on the living room couch with the windows open, comfy. Can't do that down in the basement with the desktop.
So when people invite me to heal, most of the time I just don't want to have to get off one computer and get onto another - and I cannot heal very well on my laptop.
I have quite a few healing friends who have experienced similar burnout. See, it's not necessarily that we don't WANT to heal - it's more that we get asked so much, and we have other things we want to do with our in-game time in addition to healing - and we just start to feel guilty all the time.
I have actually been spending most of the past few weeks of wow time leveling up Kateranna, my forsaken priest, and pretty much ignoring Jessabelle, only logging on to raid. The truth is, I was suffering from major burn out. If you're a healer, and you have a lot of in-game friends, you may know what I'm talking about (might be similar for tanks too!). Everytime I'm logged in, I get requests to heal something - about every 5-10 minutes, depending on the time of day. From heroics to run throughs to raids... and while I used to make sure to use every raid lockout per week, I just don't feel like doing that anymore.
I've been wanting to work on my Loremaster/Seeker achievement for months, but especially since BobTurkey's post about his accomplishment of such a feat. But everytime I've logged in on Jbelle for the past month or two, I've been inundated with tells. To be fair, half of those tells are just friendly hellos - I'm a social kid. And it's not that I'm annoyed by people inviting me to join them on their raiding fun. It's actually that I feel BAD saying no, and I'm always saying no.
See, I have a laptop, and a desktop. Most of the time, I play on my laptop - it is a mac, and I do not use a usb mouse. I trackpad all the way baby - who needs a right click? The only time I use my desktop is for raiding. I prefer playing on my laptop when I'm not raiding because I can sit on the living room couch with the windows open, comfy. Can't do that down in the basement with the desktop.
So when people invite me to heal, most of the time I just don't want to have to get off one computer and get onto another - and I cannot heal very well on my laptop.
I have quite a few healing friends who have experienced similar burnout. See, it's not necessarily that we don't WANT to heal - it's more that we get asked so much, and we have other things we want to do with our in-game time in addition to healing - and we just start to feel guilty all the time.
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If you are working on your flame warden achievements, some news from Bornakk again:
"We are in the process of applying an in-game fix that will restart all of the quests associated with the Midsummer Fire Festival event and allow players to complete them once again. If you are in the process of completing an achievement such as Extinguishing Kalimdor, this fix will reset your progress and you will need start over. This fix will require realms to be restarted."
The point of this, I believe, was that many who had already done a lot of the quest components last year were not able to get enough burning blossoms to purchase the items needed for the achievements to get the title this year.
I have interpreted this to mean that any achievements earned will remain, while those that were merely in progress will be reset. Essentially, I believe, you will be able to get the same achievement twice.
Of course, for people such as myself, who had been slowly working through the achievements for Midsummer, I am now spending my morning dailies time scrambling to finish some of them off before they get reset during maintenance window.
Here's hoping that not too many others who spent the weekend working on their achievements will be in the same scenario as I am!
"We are in the process of applying an in-game fix that will restart all of the quests associated with the Midsummer Fire Festival event and allow players to complete them once again. If you are in the process of completing an achievement such as Extinguishing Kalimdor, this fix will reset your progress and you will need start over. This fix will require realms to be restarted."
The point of this, I believe, was that many who had already done a lot of the quest components last year were not able to get enough burning blossoms to purchase the items needed for the achievements to get the title this year.
I have interpreted this to mean that any achievements earned will remain, while those that were merely in progress will be reset. Essentially, I believe, you will be able to get the same achievement twice.
Of course, for people such as myself, who had been slowly working through the achievements for Midsummer, I am now spending my morning dailies time scrambling to finish some of them off before they get reset during maintenance window.
Here's hoping that not too many others who spent the weekend working on their achievements will be in the same scenario as I am!
I had a wonderful WoW-filled weekend, and the weekend alone gave me enough content to write about for the next week. However, I shall start with a few randomly awesome things.
1. I can haz moar achievements? I've listed some of my new ones from the weekend on the left. I'm not proud or anything. *puffs chest*
2. My favorite new awful joke from the trade channel: "I was going to tell you a joke about pizza, but it was too cheezy!!!" I assure you, my friends. The more it makes you groan in despair, the more this dwarf over here is bouncing up and down, guffawing in pure delight. Dear trade channel, you are teh awesome.
3. People like me should not be allowed to collect things. I think Blizzard is going to have some serious lawsuits on their hands once I end up in the loony bin. My OCD is just overwhelming me. Mounts, Pets, and Tabards oh my! If you are trying to collect any of the above, whether it be for achievements or anything else, there are a couple of really good websites. For an all-inclusive list and description of mounts, WarcraftMounts is really good. If you like having pets and haven't been to WarcraftPets, you need to get with it, snap snap! And finally, another website I discovered this weekend that is much simpler, but more effective in some ways, is WoWCollect - it shows a basic list of all the mounts, pets, and tabards, with checkboxes so you can figure out what you need for different achievements. I spent the greater part of yesterday afternoon assembling a pretty sweet spreadsheet with mount info. I'm going to add pet and tabard info, methinks, and pretty it up before I post it here. You know you want it.
4. Looks like me and Whitey will be spending less time in the 'Rend, and more time in the Outlands, grinding up rep with factions I ignored before, because I readily admit to being an achievement whore. I never got around to getting my Netherwing mount in BC, mainly because I couldn't be bothered to get a group together for the opening quest, Zuluhad the Whacked. It will likely be even more of a pain to get a group now, but I want me those 6 mounts.
1. I can haz moar achievements? I've listed some of my new ones from the weekend on the left. I'm not proud or anything. *puffs chest*
2. My favorite new awful joke from the trade channel: "I was going to tell you a joke about pizza, but it was too cheezy!!!" I assure you, my friends. The more it makes you groan in despair, the more this dwarf over here is bouncing up and down, guffawing in pure delight. Dear trade channel, you are teh awesome.
3. People like me should not be allowed to collect things. I think Blizzard is going to have some serious lawsuits on their hands once I end up in the loony bin. My OCD is just overwhelming me. Mounts, Pets, and Tabards oh my! If you are trying to collect any of the above, whether it be for achievements or anything else, there are a couple of really good websites. For an all-inclusive list and description of mounts, WarcraftMounts is really good. If you like having pets and haven't been to WarcraftPets, you need to get with it, snap snap! And finally, another website I discovered this weekend that is much simpler, but more effective in some ways, is WoWCollect - it shows a basic list of all the mounts, pets, and tabards, with checkboxes so you can figure out what you need for different achievements. I spent the greater part of yesterday afternoon assembling a pretty sweet spreadsheet with mount info. I'm going to add pet and tabard info, methinks, and pretty it up before I post it here. You know you want it.
4. Looks like me and Whitey will be spending less time in the 'Rend, and more time in the Outlands, grinding up rep with factions I ignored before, because I readily admit to being an achievement whore. I never got around to getting my Netherwing mount in BC, mainly because I couldn't be bothered to get a group together for the opening quest, Zuluhad the Whacked. It will likely be even more of a pain to get a group now, but I want me those 6 mounts.
