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EDIT:  I’d like to point out, after an exchange with Brig, that his preferred raiding spec is MM and not BM.  He, like me, really just shares a disdain for the elitist pigs that infest our Azerothian universe.   I decided to add the edit here at the top so as to maintain the fluidity of the original post.  As many of you can probably tell, it takes some prewriting for me to produce a whole post and sometimes adding something in often negatively impacts the overall unity of the message.  As always, I am forever grateful and joyfully relieved when anyone shares what I like to call “good guy syndrome” no matter his personal play preferences.

I think it’s safe to say, many of us learned a valuable life lesson last week, and we learned it all from our involvement in WoW.  We often go months with little more than the posts on boss strats, paladins being facerollers, or news that isn’t really news breaking like, “Ghostcrawler took a shower before he went to work.”  In many ways, this is the kind of stuff that keeps the community alive and ticking when times are boring, but it also causes many people in our lives to shake their heads and wonder how we get so engrossed in a video game.  The problem is those that try and understand rarely can make it long enough to a week like last week, when WoW brings philosophical answers about our lives and how we live them.

Keeping the Good Guys Around

Everyone’s favorite warrior Veneretio retweeted a few days ago that only 30% of players who start playing WoW become one of us.  It came via mmpow, and when you stop and think about it, though very impressive when you consider Blizzard’s success with WoW, it’s not really all that hard to imagine.

I find it exceptionally easy to believe with all the asshats infesting the realms.  Any legitimate question asked in trade, once a new player realizes they can ask a question in trade is often belittled.  Any of you now rolling your eyes thinking trade isn’t for that sort of thing can suck it.  Trade gets spammed with murloc movies and Chuck Norris jokes.  A new player, or even middle level players who are learning the nuances of the game can’t exactly ask a question in general chat all the time, and if you insist on being a purist, well I would argue I am trading information to a noob for good kharma, so put that in your pipe, smoke it, and open a bag of Funyuns.

The question for every experienced player becomes, “which guy do you want to be?”  Do you want to expose new players, often their first time ever in an MMO, to asinine ridicule or toss a simple tell helping them to enjoy the game both you and I spend our free time in?  In case you are ever worried you might be one of the few good guys in WoW, I would suggest bookmarking one of my favorite forum posts, and going back to it whenever you are fed up with all the fucktards in-game.

Being a good guy in WoW, just like in life, is a choice, and you get to choose the kind of person you want to be. Are you making the right decision?

The TGC “Break”

As most of you know, this week another site, whom I am never afraid of linking back to recently confirmed the post Stompalina asked me to make back in November.  They did so after brushing off the rawrcast as rumor mongers, and then as Oz pointed out, never even offered so much as a nod to the original break of the seemingly inevitable parting of ways between Blizzard and Upper Deck.  I mean c’mon, did anyone not think this wasn’t going to end exactly like an Angelina Jolie/Billy Bob Thornton marriage?  Blizzard, like Angelina, was married to someone who they were WAY too good for, and no matter how many times Upper Deck told themselves, and the rest of us, just how good the marriage was, Blizzard was bound to pull a Steve Walsh and send Joe Montana packing so he could play with his new toy, Steve Young.  And make no mistake. Upper Deck is, respectively, no Joe Montana.

It was said by Oz and it was said by Stomp and Haf on the podcast this week.  The Rawrcast does not sell itself as a news site, nor do we intend for you to think of us as one.  Most of the pieces here are opinion or “reports” on our in game adventures, and rarely much more.  When we do report on news as news alone, we take it seriously.  I don’t know squat about the trading card game, and everything I was able to acquire in the few days I had before the post was, at best, quick research, but it was research nonetheless.  Were we “lucky” in the eyes of some when we hit the nail on the head?  I am sure we were, but I truly never felt we were starting rumors for the sake of creating traffic, and if anyone read the post felt that way, I sincerely apologize for the tone.

I hope our readers evaluate this situation and walk away knowing we are in no way shamelessly self-promoting ourselves at the expense of others.  There is no “fansite competition” and most of us don’t feel it is a “needless cutthroat business.”  In the history of the Rawrcast, Stompalina has made efforts to promote community in all its various aspects, whether that is community here on the Rawrcast, the overall community with work on Azeroth United and Child’s Play, the pod casting community by both hosting guests or joining others as they host their own, or organizing real life meetups for WoW players here in the DFW area.  If anyone would like to believe the Rawrcast does anything less than promote the WoW community as a whole should review the resume of this site.  Disagreeing and vocalizing those disagreements should in no way be perceived as destructive to the community.  As long as it promotes discussion and involvement, it should be honored as a promotion of the World of Warcraft we all spend so much time in.

Being a positive community member in WoW, just like in life, is a choice, and you get to choose the kind of impact you make. Are you making the right decision?

Playing with Pride

Everyone’s favorite hunter, Brigwyn, had what could be perceived as a serious nerd rage last week when he came across a post about the invalidity of BM hunters.  He went on to do not one, but two posts concerning the topic.  The overall theme, at least in my opinion, is “kiss my ass, I’m going to do what I want to enjoy the game, and I recognize there is an opportunity cost to my decisions.”

First, I’d like to tip my hat to Brig.  He finally said what many of us are thinking every time someone tries to tell us exactly what to do.  Now, I will also be honest and say I only partly agree with the choice Brig makes, but it is absolutely his choice to make.  I don’t agree with his love of the BM tree as someone with a hunter alt, but if you were to try and completely gimp affliction, I would feel an overwhelming disappointment in the Blizzard design philosophy.  How can I say this with certainty?

Well, affliction was a gimped spec for most of this expansion, and my former main got shelved so I could level a prot paladin, a resto druid, and a death knight.  See, unlike Brig who insisted playing a spec he loved because he loved it, I couldn’t in good conscious play affliction when I knew how bad it was hurting.  I know some people might scoff at the idea, but I seriously felt like no matter what I did, the lock would never be able to compete on a level playing field until they fixed affliction, so I shelved him.  It sucked, more than you can imagine.  I am positive that deep down, many of us relate to our main in ways we just aren’t able to relate to our alts.  The true answer to how you define your main is often murky and gray because we don’t ask the right question and it is which of your toons do you most relate to or who would you see yourself as if you were an actual inhabitant of Azeroth.  Without a doubt, it would be my little gnome lock, partly because I’m short and sinister and partly because he has been with me since the beginning back on that fateful day I installed WoW.  Affliction is the warlock tree damnit, and I will probably carry that sentiment with me long after the WoW servers shut down.  I’m likely to be casting haunts and corruptions on the crazy ass caretakers in the nursing home I end up in when my mind starts to go, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.

Of course, that’s not my only quirky trait when it comes to my toons.  I have others, many, many others.  Dwarf hunters should have guns.  What about the other Alliance hunters you ask?  Who gives a shit, all Alliance hunters should be Dwarves.  Mages should have staffs equipped.  What is a more iconic representation of a mage than his staff?  Do I understand that my DPS could be gimped if I don’t equip the proper main/off hand combo?  You bet your tabard I do, but I don’t actually care.  I don’t raid with the mage, so maximizing him to that kind of potential is overkill.  If he was my raiding toon, that might be a different story, but he’s not, so I have fun with him.

Brigwyn said it best in his initial BM rage post when he said, “There are many different levels of “Team Sports.” There’s Backyard Fun (Social Casuals), Community/Organizational Leagues (Casual Raiding), Club/School League (Raiding Focused), Collegiate/Amateur/AA Baseball/Farm League (Progression Raiding), Professional (Competitive Progression).”  He also talks about the price you pay for the level of team sport you decide to participate in, and there is the most important, often forgotten aspect of WoW as a hobby, and it is one of my favorite horses to beat over and over and over again, and it is, wait for it: the choices you make should impact your game play.  Big deal if my mage isn’t going to stare down Arthas or have BiS gear.  That’s the choice I make for running random heroics with him and just having an overall good time.  Is that really so wrong?

The answer is of course, it depends.  First, do I want to do that?  Second, am I willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do so?  Third, am I willing to commit to 9 or 24 other people to see that goal through?  If the answer to any of those is no, then my mage with his iLvl 219 staff is doing just fine and I don’t have to answer to anyone as long as I can pull my weight in a heroic, and with somewhere between 4500-6000 trash DPS and 4K boss DPS, I am more than carrying my weight in any heroic.

Being a happy and contributing player in WoW, just like in life, is a choice, and you get to choose when, where, and how you contribute. Are you making the right decision?

A Final Thought

I didn’t even touch on the Ensidia drama, but it also had very much to do with the choices both Ensidia and Blizzard made.  WoW, like in real life, requires us to make decisions that not only impact us, but all of those around us.  If your decisions are hurtful or negatively impact another players enjoyment of the game, you are in no way making the right decision, and if you are so selfish you are unable to consider others in the community both in and out of game, well I would contend you might be playing the wrong game.  Until we have another enlightening week full of action, discussion, and lesson, in the words of Jerry Springer: “take care of yourselves and each other.”