What makes Warcraft?

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I’m way overdue a post here. I’ve been commenting more at The Grumpy Elf’s blog than I have developing topics for here. However, I’ve been thinking lately what makes the game? I’ve played a few other games and I’ve not stuck at any of them. What keeps me coming back to warcraft? What makes me play it a lot? What do I enjoy in the game? What do I not enjoy in the game? These questions are all highly personal and very subjective. What someone else loves I might hate and vice versa.

As I said though I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Situations in game change and when they do it doesn’t hurt to have a re-evaluation. So what makes the game?

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Iron Man 3

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I am halfway through writing an LFR post, I get easily sidetracked these days. Anyway, the first installment of phase 2 Marvel has been released. I saw it for my birthday in 3D, so yeah I had to wear the silly glasses. I’d been watching every single trailer/clip/you name it that I could get my hands on prior to going. I wanted to watch it so bad, I really couldn’t wait and so I looked at what I could. In seeing so many trailers I formed some idea of what I thought the movie might be like, the order of events and what I thought would happen. I really should probably have written that part of the post prior to seeing it for real so I don’t get confused. I’ll give it my best shot anyway.

Do not click after the cut if you don’t want spoilers by the way, I’m not responsible if you choose to read.

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Camp NaNoWriMo

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Every November, bar one, since 2007 I’ve gone a little nuts and tried to write a novel in a month. 50,000 words is the goal which isn’t bad for a first draft, as first drafts do tend to balloon a bit on revising. I wrote a little bit about this last November and now I’m going to be writing about it again. “Hey wait a minute! It’s not November!” I hear you exclaim. Yeah that’s very true but this year I will be taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo.

Camp NaNoWriMo is a smaller program run by the Office of Letters and Light, the not for profit that operates NaNoWriMo. Rebels writing anything other than 50k words of a novel aren’t shunned in November, but they aren’t actively supported either. However, at Camp whatever you decide to write, and whatever word count you decide to strive for, is supported. You can put your custom word count goal onto your page, something that is missing (but should be added for overachievers) from the main NaNoWriMo program. This year Camp is in April and July. Today it’s March 31st, the first day of April’s session is tomorrow.

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Triple Spec – A Dream Come True?

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Triple spec has been datamined in patch 5.3. Ghostcrawler has tweeted about it saying that it’s “not announced yet” and to “take anything datamined with a pinch of salt”. So I’m trying not to get too excited. However, I’m pretty sure that on one of these site posts I put a wishlist, and triple spec would have definitely been on it. It’s something I’ve been wishing for ever since my paladin became my main. Towards the end of Cata I was respeccing multiple times a week as I maintained gear sets for all three specs. It wasn’t the gold cost that I objected too, rather the pain of changing my ui each time. I kept a screen shot of each spec for easy reference, so it was doable, but a real pain. Not to mention needing to do it within a raid, and, if I respecced the spec I then had to change back too, I’d then have to hearth out and do it again.

So I’ve wanted triple spec for a long time. Every time I ever mentioned it I’d be told that it would never happen, that it was unnecessary, that a line needed to be drawn and dual spec was good enough. If blizz changes this, what does that mean? What does triple spec mean for the game?

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Busy, Busy, Busy

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Since the last post 5.2 has dropped and I’ve been busy with that, I’ve also been busy with a hell of a lot of raiding. I can now add to my T14 retrospective the seven fights that I hadn’t seen back then. We’ve also started on Throne and have got the first two bosses down, making progress on the third and it’s exciting, and really awesome, to be part of a proper progression team. I’ve also got into PvP a bit, my new raid leader likes to PvP and agreed to run some arenas with me for fun. I’ve never really done this before and it’s really nice to see another aspect of the game, it’s hard and we’re losing as much as we’re winning, but it takes practice.

The one downside, in fact the only downside that I can see, in Mists is that it’s such a time sink. I had been gearing my Brewmaster Monk up, and had got 5/6 MSV with it, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do all I want on my main and keep alts, or even one alt, well geared. My friends can do it, I know more than one person who has at least 3 alts 485+ ilevel and probably more. However, most of what they do in game is the gear treadmill. I find that quite repetitive and boring. I’ve never liked gear for itself, more for what it allows me to do, therefore the acquisition of it is a necessary evil rather than enjoyable in itself. Hence why I’ve decided to drop my alts. Oh I’ll still level them all to 90, and I’ll still play them (and therefore gear them slightly as a side effect) but I won’t play them to gear, I’ll play them just to have fun.

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The Missing Month

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I didn’t write a post at all in February, oh I attempted too, but I didn’t really have anything to say. Actually that’s not true, I had a lot to say but nothing I wanted to post. The guild I’d started just before Mists launched was in trouble, I desperately wanted to stay playing with my friends, but 5 people didn’t make a raid team, and trying and failing to recruit, and pug, and make progress, was killing me. We were going nowhere fast and I didn’t see a solution. I just wanted to play with my friends and for all of us to be happy, but it was looking like a pipedream. This was what was consuming me, when it came to the game this was all I could think about. I stopped doing pretty much everything else, but trying to raid, and worrying about the roster. My anxieties about it might have made words flow, but they didn’t make readable posts. Thankfully this problem is now in the past.

All five of us have joined another guild, this guild has sort of consumed my guild and another one, so three become one and hopefully that one will be all the stronger for it. I know people from both, have raided with these guys in the past, they are extremely nice and I’m really positive about the potential for the future. We get to stay together and we get to raid, and this is all in time for 5.2.

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Valor, LFR, 5.2 and the gear grind

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Yes finally another post, I really need to write these more regularly again. I had a couple of separate conversations with people recently, I told them what I’m pretty much going to write in this post. However, as I told them I thought “hey that would make a good post” so here it it.

LFR, has it’s fans and it’s critics. What is it’s place in the game? Valor, is it for raiders or non raiders? How soon is patch 5.2 going to drop and are we ready for it? Oh and gear, and more gear, it controls everything.

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Mixed Bag

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I haven’t blogged in a while and I think I’ve finally worked out why. WoWInsider posted that they were accepting applications for a writing post. Now I love writing, and a job working from home writing would be amazing. I considered applying for it, who wouldn’t right? However, this scared me stupid and it’s like I seized up. I couldn’t think of anything to write, and even if I had a topic, nothing I wrote seemed to make sense. I didn’t apply obviously, I guess I just wasn’t ready.

I still can’t put together a longer post, I have a box of drafts right now with varying amounts of words. Therefore I’m going to go with what I did last time and have a mixed bag, things that I’ve been thinking about, things that in other circumstances I’d expand to their own post, but just have little snippets right now. So here’s the mixed bag (take two).

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Emergency Update

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I haven’t blogged yet this month. I haven’t blogged in two weeks. That’s seriously not cool, and it’s not like I ran out of stuff to write about, that’s kinda impossible. Anyway I need to update but none of my “need to think about this” posts are done and so yay for random ramblings?

The Grumpy Elf, who is my favourite Warcraft blogger hence why I mention him a lot, does a post called Monday Random Thoughts. This has all his random thoughts in, sometimes it winds up making a post of it’s own, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s always interesting to read though, it’s a stream of conscious, like a window into someone’s mind. So what are my random thoughts?

Well, not Warcraft related but I finally saw the Iron Man 3 trailer today. You say it’s been out since October. Well who knew? I’ve been in novel land. I am seriously excited for this movie, little bit scared that Pepper Potts is in danger, but yay more Stark. He is my favourite Avenger, I have a spot soft for Black Widow but Tony Stark is in a league of his own.

Back to Warcraft. Raiding is not going as well as I’d hoped. Due to the month of December being one of social obligations, work/school deadlines and demanding families, we’re struggling to make a raid team. By struggling I mean it’s not happening at all. I’m worried that if it keeps not happening that the new recruits, the people I don’t know so well and who aren’t as invested in the guild/people here, will leave. I don’t want this guild to implode and I’ve seen it happen when raids don’t go as planned even for a week or two. I’m trying to keep people included in the guild by running other activities but I don’t know if it’ll be enough. I’m also trying to recruit more people and just generally do something to make it better. Fact is there’s no easy solution and it’ll likely be January before things pick up again. I’m trying not to worry about it, easier said than done for me, but I’m trying nevertheless.

Aside from raiding, and my weekly Ulduar runs, I haven’t really done much in game for a while. I used to play a lot, likely a lot more than I should have, but I cut down last month for novel writing. I don’t really want to go back to playing all the time. Actually that’s a lie, I sort of do. I look at my list of everything I want to do in game (it’s massive!) and it’s like I never make a dent in it at all. So what I really should do is write a ‘to do’ list, and then cross stuff off when it’s done. If I prioritise the list then I should be able to chip away at the massive pile of content.

The only problem is there’s almost too much stuff to do. That’s a stupid thing to say right? Yeah I know I told everyone that there’s no such thing as too much content, as you can always do it later. That’s sort of the problem though. When there’s so much stuff, it feels like you don’t make an impact, like it’s a giant that can never be slain, so doing any is less appealing. I visited my friend last week who I haven’t seen in over a year though we talk online. He introduced me to new games and so I’ve got hooked on Warcraft 3 Gem Tower Defense. I also got Terraria and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. So many games, so little time, especially when I’m trying to cut down on gaming so much.

Oh I finally broke and installed the Curse Client to update my addons. My friend who introduced me to the game told me not to get it, said it was insecure, but that was several years/versions ago. Anyway, no problems yet and quite frankly it’s one less thing I have to worry about.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to create a ‘to do’ list page. Seems strange that I need a to do list for a game. However, given how nuts I am about achievements/completing stuff, it sort of makes sense. I guess that’s just how I roll. Anyway /end rambling I promise to update with a proper post soon. This was just a “I’m not dead/this blogs not dead” post.

November’s End

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I’ve been a bit absent this month, with the blog and in game. My guild have been incredibly supportive with it, and haven’t complained once. You guys are awesome! I’m interrupting the Warcraft posts yet again with this. Maybe I should change the tagline to ‘A mostly Warcraft blog’ as it’s been mostly not this month. I’m not going to go back to playing as much as I was, so I need to organise my playtime better so I actually get things done. Dailies, I am looking at you, I haven’t done you in a month, haven’t capped valor in even longer. Oh I’m a bad Warcraft player, but I just need to be a little more organised. Can’t do everything, but could do more.

Anyway, the month of November and the challenge of NaNoWriMo are coming to a close. So it’s time for a little bit of a recap on how the month went.

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