All Work and No Play...

Update:

I apologize for taking so long to write anything at all. I’ve been dealing with a heavy course load at work as well as personal health issues. It seems that I am suffering from sleep apnea. This would explain a lot of symptoms I’ve been dealing with lately. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s when the body stops breathing for several seconds while sleeping. At least, that’s one of the types of sleep apnea one can suffer from. Typically it lasts for about 10 seconds but it can last as long as a minute. I’ve recently visited a sleep study clinic so that my sleep could be monitored and analyzed. It turns out that I’ve been averaging just over one instance of sleep apnea per minute of my sleep time. I’ve been fitted with a breathing machine called a CPAP (technically a BiPAP) and I’m adjusting nicely to it. It’s taken awhile to get some of my energy back, and I’m still not 100%, but hopefully, I’ll get back to my old self again. Anyways, I haven’t forgotten about the articles I want to write about. But, just to make sure folks don’t forget about the epic Blackbear, I decided to post a short article along with some epic screen shots. However, I will warn you, gracious reader; it does turn into a bit of a rant towards the end.

Wait, how come everybody's so much taller than me all of a sudden?

Oh crap! I forgot the keys! Someone's going to have to go all the way back out the front door and pick up the keys!

BB literally flying off into the sunset. Or, sunrise, I can't remember which.

Epic "high noon" shot. Kind of makes me think of a good Clint Eastwood western.

So, here it is...

4.0 is finally here. I’ve taken my main character, the one I enjoy playing nearly every aspect of the game with, and I’ve made it nearly to the literal end of the road. My main character, for those that didn’t know, Blackbear, is a warrior – currently, fury main spec and pve tank off spec. While it could be argued that I still have some gear from 25 man ICC or even 25 man ICC hard modes that could improve my character, I honestly think that it won’t make that much of a difference, certainly not much towards my dps. Ideally, I think it would be best to focus on pve tank gear, but the gear I have now is “leet” enough that I shouldn’t really need it. I’ve gemmed and chanted my fury gear to the point where there isn’t anything I can do, except get better gear, to improve my dps. And the only “better” gear I can really get that would be an improvement would be 25 man ICC hard modes. Indeed, there have been drops in the regular 25 man ICC that I’ve passed on. Not because I may or may not already have it, but because I already have level 264 gear with the epic Heroic description attached to the tooltip (/ego-flex.) I know and understand my character’s rotation, best application in various situations, and weaknesses. No amount of practice with my rotation will improve my game, at least not for dps. I’ll admit I could probably practice a bit with my pve tanking rotation which is definitely different than the pvp prot rotation. But, no new gaming gear (i.e. Razer Naga gaming mouse) will improve my dps and, by the way, I have the Razer Naga and it is awesome! And, I plan to show that in a future article. No new special instance/gear drop/gems/chants/etc. will make much of a real difference in my character or in how I play the game, although I really wouldn’t mind at all winning the ICC achievements for a really cool mount. In fact, there’s not much of anything I can do with Blackbear that would improve my game on that character.

So, where to now? Where do I go from here?

Well, some have already figured this out and are doing great with the solution. I’ll explain. For me, I first started playing Wow somewhere in the middle of the Burning Crusade expansion (I think.) And when I made my first character, which just happens to be Blackbear, I also made additional classes because I had no idea what those classes were like. I practically had one of every single class except for death knights, which didn’t exist yet. I have my hunter, originally a dwarf, appropriately named: Rugernine. I made a human priest and named him after a colleague at work. I made a mage, rogue, warlock, and a druid and later a shaman (I think at the time shaman weren’t available to alliance, but I may be wrong about that.) I’ve tried all classes at some point and learned whether or not I had any desire to continue playing. In fact, I learned from my druid that I’m really not at all interested in the “night elf” side of Wow.

Now before a particular friend of mine starts calling me a night elf/druid hater let me explain. At the time, leveling was so much more tedious and boring than it is now (oh yeah, that’s definitely possible.) So much has changed since then. For example, leveling at one point, didn’t involve a super-duper-uber-handy function called LFG (looking for group.) Leveling meant grinding away hours of one’s time to reach a particular goal before setting a new goal (either the next level or piece of gear, amount of gold needed, etc.) Now, once your character reaches a certain level, he/she can join others that aren’t even on the same server to hit an instance. Now you can go anywhere in Azeroth, Outlands, etc. yet instantly join in on a BG/instance to pwn or get pwned at your heart’s content. Most players in Wow are now more than familiar with these options and the advantages and disadvantages with this. But I’m getting off track. The point I was making was simply that I needed to remind myself why I rolled practically every class as soon as I created my main, which is, to enjoy as many aspects of the game that I can.

Turns out, I really am interested in playing a druid now and leveling that class. Mainly thanks to the many changes Blizzard implemented to help new players. Now, a lot of classes get helpful abilities at an earlier time than before. Warriors now get the ability Victory Rush at level 6; much, much sooner than previously available at level 62. Rage power leveling! Druids can now learn travel form at level 16. In fact, apprentice riding is available to everyone at level 20 with just a bit of gold. Thank goodness Blizzard did that. No more endless walking/running to the next zone/quest hub/town etc. Now, I’ve got so much that I want to do in Wow and not nearly enough time to accomplish a fraction of it. Because I no longer have to deal with such long, boring leveling grinds, I really do want to roll a druid and experience that class. I want a gnome mage with engineering and possibly jewel crafting so that I can be “leet” in raids as well as BGs (can’t give up one of my biggest laughs in game.) I want to level an undead warlock with tailoring and enchanting – if only to see the opposing faction content. I want to take an orc death knight and level/gear him for ICC content. And I can’t wait until Cataclysm comes out so that I can follow along with everyone else and make a worgen rogue or druid. I was thinking about maybe a troll shaman (available in Cata) to see the new troll starting area. And who isn’t curious about the new goblin race? And with the new rated battlegrounds soon to be implemented, I’m really interested in a possible “BG team” to learn that experience.

Speaking of opposing factions, I’ve noticed something lately in Wow (at least on my server) that I have to say I really dislike. Yes, here comes the obligatory rant. It concerns people and their attitudes and I’m not just talking about those annoying pug runs or the elitist jerk trade chat trolls, although I’ll admit, trade chat has provided me with some of the greatest guffaws within the game thus far. I’m talking about the dogma that exists within or between some people in the game towards opposing factions. I’ve noticed the occasional player say things like, “I hate all horde (or alliance)” and “If you play both factions then you’re a traitor.” While I freely admit, when I first started playing Wow, I was not immune to experiencing similar hostile feelings; but I quickly identified those feelings as irrational. And I’m not afraid to point out to people how unreasonable those same feelings are. I’ve had a few people I play Wow with try to convince me that their opinions towards an opposing faction are justified. And a few of these individuals are not the stereotypical “teen” player, these are adults. I try to explain to them that it’s just a game and that’s the current game mechanic – two opposing factions.

For example, if I’m in a BG and I’m guarding a particular capture point, I fully expect opposing players to attack me in an attempt to capture that point, even if I happen to know those players. Why not? I’ve done the exact same thing. I didn’t deliberately seek out that player and continually harass them (although some have done that to me) just because I could. But what do some players honestly think will happen if they come across someone that they know in a pvp situation from an opposing faction? It’s silly to think that I would expect that individual to treat me any different than any other player in my faction. I saw a recent YouTube video of a channel owner I subscribe to where he had attended the latest BlizzCon 2010. In the video, he was asking random people what their main character was. Some would reply their main such as warrior, paladin, mage, etc. Then others would specify which faction they play on first, then their main, as if the faction alone somehow made their character that much more "elite." Now I’ve no problem with some friendly ribbing between players, particularly those that know each other. And I have no problem with people that may identify with one faction more over the other. And most players I know aren’t dogmatic about playing an opposing faction. But there are some players that really just go too far with this mindset and have tried to convince me that playing both factions is somehow "selfish" or "mean-spirited." Which is ironic considering it's selfish that a person could think that others should play the way he/she wants them to rather than how they want to and mean-spirited to carry some useless dogma in game.

Everyone has their own playing style. In many ways, each player’s gaming style is similar to other player’s style. But due to experience, latency, computer performance, add-ons, etc. everyone has an adjusted playing style that can be called their own – and that’s the whole point. What one individual player has experienced in the game can be considered in some ways unique to them and no one else. So, what one player chooses to enjoy in game is that individual’s decision to make. I want to enjoy as many aspects of this game as I can. This is partially because, like all things, eventually, world of warcraft will come to an end, but mainly because, the game that I play is my game. I pay my subscription fee and I play my game as I want; not the way someone else wants. This means that if I choose to play a different character in an opposing faction, just to see the content, then so be it. If I decide to faction change that character because of “grind-y” leveling experiences, or perhaps because I want the character to benefit from a particular racial bonus, then I will do so. If I have been harassed by experienced players in pvp, I could choose to remember those experiences with bitterness and ignore that particular aspect of the game, or I could laugh my ass off at how petty some folks are and marvel at the lengths some individuals go in order to feel better about themselves. Personally, I think I’ll choose the latter and not the former. My experiences in game are my own and I’ll make them out (remember them) to be whatever I want them to be. As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to put forth my best effort to make those experiences as enjoyable as possible. I guess that this is just something that some players will find impossible to understand.

So, to all of the elitist snobs out there that can’t seem to understand why I want to play both horde and alliance, in both pve and pvp, in either full raids or 5-man heroics, and spend so much time and effort trying to convince me why I shouldn’t, I’ve really only got one thing I can think of to say…

Cool story bro.