Paranoid Android

"Marvin: Life? Don't talk to me about life!" Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

It's been a strange old week in the Blog World. Having spent a few months writing blog posts for nobody but me and a webcrawler based in Russia, I have suddenly found visitors at Altaclysmic. Since joining NBI, I have seen a steady increase in the numbers and received a further boost with a link from Biobreak. Possibly the biggest shock of last week was earning a comment from Tobold, I guess it was not a shock that he found me after I wrote a post which included a whole paragraph from his recent post on the NBI.

I started this blog which is not my first, as a means to pass a little time during my Lunch Break. Nobody expects to get visitors when you start, but also you are quite surprised when the world does not discover you as the next big thing. I believe this is how every Rock Band/Musical Troupe must start off on their careers. Most of course do not last the course disillusionment, boredom, and in fighting, only the chosen few make the grade. Authors are a similar breed, and every person believes they have at least one novel in them.

Tonight I am going to see Justin Currie in concert.  Who is that you might ask? Well Justin was and still is in a band called Del Amitri. He is a bit more cerebral than the average rock star, but he also seems to be suffering from a certain amount of mental angst. The band achieved a certain status in the Rock World, but never moved on to global stardom and eventually got axed by their record label. Justin seems a little bit angry at the world and is very self-deprecating (see link to website), but at the end of the day he is still making music and playing in front of his fans. I am sure most people would love to trade places with him.

Anyway back to blogging, if you have any designs on blogging, just do it. Tobold pointed out that if you want the massive number of visitors then find a hot topic, A new game (Diablo III) find your niche and pull those visitors to your website, just be wary that the more niche the subject the more narrow your topics are going to be. Tobold and Gevlon have both sacrificed number of visitors in favour of writing about something else. In fact Gevlon has done this on more than one occasion. BRK now only writes the occasional entry, and mostly on a cooking theme.

Do you want the numbers, or do you want to write about something you care about? Personally I am going to write about whatever comes into my head. If you like it, then good, if not, then there will always be another post that might interest you. We all want more visitors, but at the end of the day Don't Panic, because Nothing Ever Happens, Nothing Happens at All.

Resistance Is Futile

Darkmoon Faire is back in town, and for some of us, especially those with multiple characters it is a good time to get a boost to some of our professions. I am in a particularly good place with maxed out primary professions, plus Cooking and First Aid on all my toons. In the past it would be absolute madness to try to level fishing on more than one character. Now with the aid of dailies I have 10 alts all with a minimum of 200 fishing. I believe that 100 is the minimum for fishing in pools, so at least they can stop off and fish the debris and salvage pools if they come across one. The main reason for leveling is something to do in the lull before the call up to LFD or LFR. After awhile I then start setting minimum targets, all characters minimum 100 then 200 and the latest is 261 so that the colour changes from red to orange on the Altoholic addon. The reason any of this is possible is due to Blizzard over time reducing the difficulty of fishing. 1-25 used to be absolutely painful, the time delay between a miss and a hit was minuscule indeed. After this it got easier because you could add lures and better rods, but ultimately you only needed one character to catch all the fish for all your characters. In vanila there used to be a quest at level 225 in order to get the final proficency from 225 to 300. It was estimated that it would take about 300 catches across 2 continents to get all the rare fish needed for the quest.

The Darkmoon Faire affords the less motivated the chance to gain 60 Skillup points in all the professions during the course of a year. Whilst this is not a super bonus, it is not bad if you are no rush to max out the skills.

Mists of Pandaria, if the message is to be believed from Blizzard, is about progression through doing the parts of the game that you want to play. In theory this is going to be a major leap forward, but the average gamer will use any tricks in the book to achieve the passage of least resistance. Daily Heroics in WotLK became de rigueur, and became part of every players routine. The reason for this was that they took 15-20 minutes and gave out maximum rewards - in the form of an Emblem of Whatsit.

Nobody has indicated what the easy options are going to be yet, but I have no doubt that the gaming community will find it and very quickly.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 3

On the subjest of the Newbie Blogger Initaitive, Tobold recently wrote, "With the genre itself stagnating, what is there to write about on a new MMO blog which hasn't been written about hundreds of times on other MMO blogs over the last decade? Does anybody really still want to read about the adventures of your Jedi consular, or Charr warrior? About the guild drama which ensued when the guild leader favored his girlfriend over the most loyal guild member in loot distribution? About the endless hardcore vs. casual debate? If I wanted I could design a "MMO blog Bingo" card which would have a guaranteed hit on 95% of the MMO blog entries still to be written for 2012".

He is of course absolutely right, but just when I was starting to feel good about writing the blog, I am now cast into a position of doubt about why I am writing in the first place.

So why am I writing a blog? My personal feeling is that the content is starting to dry up and instead of consuming everybody elses content that it was my turn to flesh out my thoughts and feelings about the game I love. I have no new takes on the game, I am not a theorycrafter, I can't mash the equations into a working theorem. I am merely writing a diary of my thoughts which is open to the general public, with the anonymity of the internet. The few people who actually know who I am have no interest in reading this, I don't work with gamers and presently I have no other outlet for my thoughts. I have already discussed my current guild status and how little communication I actually partake in.

Most people live relatively mundane lives, why else would we be so obsessed with Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll? My standard working week is pretty much divided into chunks of time:

• 7 Hours Sleep
• 1 Hour Breakfast get ready for work
• 1 Hour Commute to work
• 8 Hours Work
• 1 Hour Commute home
• 2 Hours Family time Evening Meal
• 4 Hours Leisure

This blog is about what happens in that 4 Hour Leisure period, I am pretty sure nobody wants to know about the problems I have had at work today, what new laptop I have built, how to build a wiki server. Similarly the least exciting part is the 7 hours sleeping, which is pretty similar to the 2 hours commute. Not every day is spent playing WoW, I have tried that and my wife still occasionally twists those pins she put into that voodoo doll.

I have a confession to make, I am a World of Warcraft addict, and I have not played for 3 days now. With only 4 hours "me time" everyday it is easy to see why people can just plug themselves into an alternative reality. I am sure if Better Than Life existed I would be hooked up to right now.

Ok so just at a time when I am starting to get visitors to my computer game centric blog, I take a short break from playing that game. This obviously does not give me a great deal of material to write about.

I filled my time with my wife, I watched some television, 2 football matches as we support different teams, 4 more episodes of Dollhouse. This comes highly recommended but remember there are only 27 episodes because the series got canned, which seems to be an occupational hazard for Joss Whedon. Firefly was cancelled after 11 episodes and it gained critical acclaim and a large fanbase.
I also rewatched Torchwood Series 3 - Children of Earth.

Next week I plan to make some bingo balls so I can pluck out blog stories at random.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Today I did something unusual. That something is self promotion. I am a shy and retiring person and wouldn't normally seek out the limelight. Today I found myself at the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and being a Newbie Blogger, I decided to put my details into the forum page. So If you have discovered the blog from that site, then Welcome to Altaclysmic. There is nothing too heavy going on here, just writing what I see in World of Warcraft.

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

"Nostalgia is not what it used to be". It's funny that we all look back at some mystical time when everything was better. For some it is the groovy music of the 60's, the peace and love movement, flowerpower. For others the 70's is the golden era, Glam Rock, Disco, the anger and disillusionment of Punk Rock. The 80's was New Romantic, big shoulders, even bigger hair, loadsa money, riots. The 90's Britpop, Girl bands, Manufactured pop, and Grunge. The Noughties, Guitar bands, get famous quick schemes, Britain Got (No) Talent, Pop Idol.

I was born in the 60's, the 70's was a mass of brown and orange clothes/furniture, 80's was a time of depression and no money, The 90's was work and party, The Naughties was work and no party with smelly nappies on top.

What does this have to do with WoW? Not a lot really, but I have noticed that the content to read around the subject is diminishing on a daily basis. On a nostalgic trip I still pine for some of the WoW blog writers of a few years ago.

The creme de la creme was the indomitable Big Red Kitty. BRK was more than just a Hunter's Blog, it spanned the musings of a very funny and clever writer. I was quite fortunate to have discovered BRK way before his appearance in WoWinsider. The love and venom this created was unbelievable he regularly recorded 100+ comments for most of his posts at a time when his colleagues would only get half that many. BRK has returned to playing but his general blog Brain Needed Space is rarely updated and mostly contains cooking tips.

Another big loss was the Pink Pigtail Inn. Larisa gave very regular updates and had her finger on the pulse of the WoW community. Larisa always had the best reading list on her blog so if you needed to read somebody new or different it was an excellent jumpstation. In many ways she was a central character in the WoW community and all the other prominent bloggers liked to bounce ideas off her. In my opinion nobody else has managed to fill this void.

Alongside Larisa, a regular contributor and possibly one of the best writers was Tam at Righteous Orbs. I have chronicled in the past how difficult it was to get this through company firewalls and proxy servers, but on a few occasions I did they made for highly amusing reading material.

Several other bloggers have changed direction and so are no longer fulfilling my WoW needs. In particular Tobold and the Greedy Goblin. These two are polar opposites but at one time they were neatly entwined at opposite ends of spectrum of course. Tobold still writes about MMO's but has stopped playing WoW and has rediscovered a love for D&D. Gevlon at the Greedy Goblin has changed direction more than once, but the latest incarnation is no longer based on WoW but a new found interest in universal domination in EVE.

Currently my favourite reads are Armageddon's Coming!, when he can be bothered to post. Blessing of Kings, when the topic is WoW and not those pesky other MMO's that inhabit our world. Orcish Army Knife when I understand the topic. Troll Racials Are Overpowered, can sometimes be painful but is mostly worth it. Big Bear Butt has been around forever and his rants are absolutely legendary.

If you know of a good read, please somebody let me know.

The State Of The Union

The above graph is from Wowinsider who in turn stole it from GuildOx. The Graph is very interesting and focuses on those people who have obtained an average PvE iLvl of over 400 (heroic Dragon Soul). The runaway class partaking in Heroic is the class with Dual Wield Legendaries, big surprise for all those that dusted off their Rogues.

The middle ground is occupied by Priest, Paladin, Druid , Hunter and Shaman. No real surprise for the 2 true hybrid classes of Paladin and Druid, or for the ever popular Hunter class, however Priest and Shaman is a bit more of a surprise, though I guess there is more need for Healers than Tanking classes.

The ugly ducklings are Warrior, Death Knights, and Mages, bringing up the rear is no surprise Warlock. Cynwise has recently been writing an excellent series of articles on the reasons behind the dearth of the Warlock Class.

The graph above is a census of Level 85 classes pulled from Warcraft Realms.com. The 2 most obvious points are that Rogues are massively over represented in DS Heroics compared to the percentage of Rogues at max level, and that Warlocks really are in a very bad place. Also it is interesting to note the normalising effect on Death Knights during the course of Cata. The number of max level DK's is only 11% compared to their hugely popular status during WotLK, and they are not well represented in the Heroic Dragon Soul category.

The graph on the left shows the breakdown of the class specs and provides a real insight into what is going on in the raiding world at the end of this current expansion.

Warrior

Although difficult to judge it would appear that Protection Warriors are just about holding their own in the Tanking stakes. Arms Warriors are viable, but Fury Warrior is in a very bad place.

Warlocks

Cynwise has suggested that there is not a lot to choose between the 3 specs, with all 3 viable and none of them outstanding. Maybe if one was outstanding people would return to playing the class.

Shaman

Resto Shaman is by far the dominant spec for raiding. Elemental makes a reasonable showing with a poor showing for Enhancement.

Rogues

There appears to be a slight leaning towards Combat Rogues with more than 3x the other 2 specs put together.

Priests

Possibly the most interesting class in this study, is the fact that for a class with 2 healing specs it is the Dps spec that is the dominant Raiding Spec. The once dominant Holy Priest is consigned to minor spec, with Discipline taking over as the healing class of choice.

Paladin

The Healer of choice for the raiding fraternity. Once the creme de la creme of the Tank Healers, Now coupled with a useful toolbox for AoE healing, they are the most popular single spec healers. Retribution is positioned as a middle of road Dps class, and Protection is an average Tanking class.

Mage

Fire Mage is the stand out spec, with a handful playing Arcane and Frost are sat on the sidelines in a bucket of ice.

Hunter

They have been up and down in the popularity stakes for 2 expansions, but Survival is now the top dog. BM has been buffed to be as good as MM, and MM has been nerfed to be as bad as BM. Now they have both been deserted in droves.

Druid

This is one class with equal participation throughout. The one issue is Feral, are they Cat or Bear, and the answer is we don't really know.

Death Knight

Last but not least, the once skeletal masses have moved on to other classes, but it looks like Blood is the number one tanking spec.

Summary

Tanking and Healing looks to be in an alright position, but the Dps specs seem to be all over the place. Combat Rogues, Fire Mages, and Survival Hunters are sitting pretty at the top, one assumes that the Dps charts mirror this picture.

At the other end of spectrum Fury Warriors, Enhancement Shaman, Subtlety Rogues, Assassination Rogues, Frost Mage, Beastmaster Hunters and Marksman Hunters need some tender Blizzard love.

The classes needing some attention as a whole are Warlock and Death Knight. In case anyone needs reminding there is a new class on the way that needs balancing.

 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Looking For Raid, it's been a mixed bag in the last few weeks. I thought that maybe things were starting to get better until last night.

The Good

I have actually managed to finish a lot of LFD's this week. The current weekly routine is based around the 6 characters that are attuned (high enough iLevel). BM Hunter and Resto Shaman are now 95% geared from LFD and gain very little from partaking in this event. Holy Paladin and Tree Drood are gearing up nicely. MM Hunter is performing very well with substandard gear, how much better is Marksman than Beastmastery in terms of Dps. I get the feeling that MM uses less spells than any other class in it's standard routine. The biggest disappointment is Frost Mage, so much so that I now have a very uncomfortable Fire Mage, who mashes the buttons, with slightly better results.

The good part is I have managed to complete about 10-12 different runs. Some of them even went very smoothly.

The Bad

My MM Hunter is having terrible luck with gear, 4 runs through the Siege and 2 runs Killing Deathwing. From these 6 runs I have so far won Tier Gloves and a ring, also I have a weapon but thats another story.

I have now witnessed a wipe on all 8 bosses. I am not even sure it is possible to wipe on Morchok, but yes it happened last night. During Earths Vengence phase, I witnessed 4 people run off behind the obstacles and straight into a bunch of adds. The adds took a shine to the tanks and it was game over.

The Ugly

Everybody is aware of the practice of some people needing on everything and then trying to trade after. The other big issue is the last of the 4 bosses means that people can need and run, which makes it hard for the people who genuinely need a weapon off Deathwing. Last night I witnessed a new trick which I consider to be far worse.

My MM Hunter who has had a bad run of luck so far in the quest for gear, was fortunate enough to win Vishanka the hunter's bow. Within seconds I was being petitioned by another Hunter to give it to him. There was no trading of items, he wanted the item and felt that he was more deserving than me. I left raid rather than confront him and continued to receive whispers from him until I logged off and changed characters.

The other night I witnessed a repeat of Darla at the Spine of Deathwing . Maybe this kind of idiocy has gone viral. It is bad that somebody should to do this in the place, but to read it and copy it is beyond believe.