Leaving Yet Again...

This is definitely not the first time and I can't say with certainty that it will be the last time I quit World of Warcraft. I made the decision this week and oddly enough it wasn't for the reasons I have discussed here or others have elsewhere. All of the things Blizzard did to drop the ball in Cataclysm still hold true. They just weren't enough to make me leave.

There are three reasons I play WoW and they shack out in a pretty simple priority:

1. Social interaction and friendships.
2. Challenge and competition of raiding.
3. Item upgrades.

While Cataclysm heroics may be actively bending us over on the second bullet right now, our guild of friends is still together and there are plenty of purples to be had. In terms of what motivates and drives me to play nothing has really changed. It was the realization of a concern that is always present when my WoW account is active that drove me to this decision.

At the end of Wednesday's raid I got into an argument with a fellow officer that is not important enough to recount here. After thinking about it I realized I was not upset with him, but with the lack of motivation from our raid. Why can't they take this more seriously? That question quickly caused me to wonder why I was so concerned about it. This topic spirals in my mind once or twice a month when I get frustrated with raiding.

It bubbled over last night though. What is my end game? I end up in full purples waiting for the next content patch, only to start the cycle all over again. Sure it is fun, but the last time I took an extend break from this system was in 2008. The opportunity cost for my free time and sanity alone is crushing me. So as I am want to do, I put it in a spreadsheet. The pie charts above are the result (yuck!). They sealed the deal.

I have a back log of movies, books and games to catch up on and my wife could surely use some more time and attention. It could turn out nine months from now that I am bored and want for purples in the worst way, but for now I am done.

Heroic Raid Stacking

So I get that early raiding in WotLK was easy and that five man heroics were a joke too. I don't have to see it, Dottie. I lived it. My guild absolutely crushed it. So when Blizzard made the decision to ramp up the early difficulty for Cataclysm, some complained, some cheered and I just rolled with the punches.

It is nothing that gear and time can't fix right? For normal modes that does appear to be the case. A month into the expansion and we are at 12 of 12. There were some tough fights for sure. A reanimated Nefarian took us 6 nights and 114 attempts to down. Nothing to wild though. Except when you start heroic raiding.

It is not across the board, but a fair amount of bosses either require that you stack your raid composition or suffer and fail. Look how many druids are in that heroic Nefarian screen shot. I count eleven! Heroic Halfus has been downed by 1,096 guilds as of today (1/24/11). Presumably the easiest boss. Tankspot recommends 3-4 tanks, 8 healers and 12-13 dps. Other strategies call for 4-5 tanks. Where do we get eight healers or five tanks from?

An even better question. Is this what Blizzard intended? We can bring the player not the class all we want. Well not Shamans, but that is not the point. Do we have to recruit new healers for 2-3 fights or suffer through DPS healing in their blue level off spec. Or are we not supposed to be here yet, unless we are willing to go an extra absurd mile? Something about all this feels broken, out of balance and just plain lame.

Cataclysm Changes

Not changes that are coming, but given the reins to Blizzard's MMO juggernaut for a day here is what I would change...

1. Flying
The trek from 80-85 went fast, less than 1 day fast and while that was appreciated from a sleep stand point, it made it feel less epic. Part of that was the ability to fly during these levels. I'm sure Blizzard put a ton of work into the 5 new zones they created, but I barely saw most of it. From 5,000 feet, on the back of a Frostwyrm, it all looked pretty boring. It's why I prefer a good steak to being hooked up to a feeding tube. The outcome is the same, but the experiences are polar opposites.

2. 84 to 85

Those levels certainly zipped by, but not at the same clip. If memory servers it took two hours and one million plus xp to hit 81. Alternatively 84 to 85 took six plus hours and nine million plus xp. Why did we only get five levels in this expansion again? So they could cram three levels worth of play time into one zone? It felt cheap. Twilight Highlands was a great zone, but it dragged after I was half way through it. Add the mobs in the zone requiring me to eat and drink after every two kills and it was near grueling.

3. Tol Barad
Like Wintergrasp before it Tol Barad was supposed to be a world PvP zone. Apparently they were unhappy with tenacity though, so the solution was to only allow equal groups into the zone via que. While that will surely make for a balanced experience, it also defeats the initial purpose. On servers were the faction ratio is completely out of whack (2:1 or more) it means plenty of people don't get in. Currently my server is seeing near battleground numbers of players facing off, think sub 15 v. 15. That is not world PvP it is a server only battleground that only a hand full of people get to play in every two hours.

4. Common Raid Lock Out
I have previously expressed some concerns with the shared raid lock out system. To date I had not experienced any issues with it though. Until last night. Blizzard's reasons for changing the system still don't make sense to me. Outside of that their go to example is the 25 man raid that starts the week with 25 players and has to split the raid into two 10 man groups. What about the 25 man raid that only gets 22 people for the first night? Has to bench two of their players to form two ten mans and then can not expand a raid back to 25 players the following night. Our group is effectively locked out of 25 man raiding for the rest of this week. I'm sure the two players that got benched last night and the three that show up tonight are thrilled to be relegated to PUGs or a "C" team for the rest of this week.

5. Early Healing
The biggest play mechanic to change in Cataclysm was healing by far. Damage dealers still hit things hard. Tanks still stand there and get hit. Both at roughly the same pace and with the same pool of resources. Healers got a rude awakening though. Our heals did not scale with our level, they cost bunches of mana and our main challenge is not running out when the fight is only at 50%. Gear helps a ton, from an average ilvl of 329 to 347 I have seen that challenge become much easier. For healers who might not read EJ all the time or are stuck running heroics with the random dungeon finder, life is going to be hard. What will ultimately end up happening is there will be less healers. We are already a slim bunch, but up the barriers to entry and you will see even less players sticking with it.

6. Archaeology

Want another time sink profession that takes forever to finish, but offers ten times the reward that fishing ever did? No, what do you mean no. I'm never getting Tyrande's Favorite Doll, at least not while it would still be useful to me in this tier. Technically this is a bonus profession. With a few more hours or sacks of gold I will have my two main professions to 525. Eventually relegating them to once a week or month efforts. The return on Archaeology will never be that easy. I thought this expansion was about things you shouldn't feel you have to do (see: Common Raid Locks). Well is it or isn't it?

Around the World in 85 Levels

Way back in September I was under the impression that Cataclysm would drop in November. I was also under the impression that the only way to get it was at a Gamestop at midnight. Both of those turned out to not be true. It ended up coming out last week (Dec 7th), I shifted my pre-order at Gamestop to another game and just bought it directly and digitally from Blizzard. I was still prepared for a three day slog of no sleep though. A near 72 hour leveling binge that would leave me with only fragments of my sanity. That didn't happen either.

This time around things were different. For Cataclysm, Blizzard went with a common release date/time in the US and Europe. So I could not start until 3am EST (12am PST). I was upset about this at first. After finding out I didn't have to go out in the cold at midnight though, I just went to bed at 11pm and woke up at 2:30am refreshed and ready to level. I was 81 before 5am and 82 soon after that. By 5pm on Tuesday I had hit 84 and logged off to be with my family for the evening. I was back on at 9pm and before 3am Wednesday I had hit 85.

So all five levels in less than 24 hours with two breaks to be a husband and father. This was a much different experience than 2008 and a welcome one. Sure my lovely wife gave me the go ahead to do as I wished with my staycation (wowcation?), but not having to beat myself up in doing so was awesome. The rest of the week saw me getting a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. Sure I filled my day with 5 man heroics and daily quest, but I did it on a normal sleep schedule and ate proper meals.

After a weeks time I have already hit superior and grabbed two epics. Tonight is our first 25 man raid. The first two ten man raids did not go so well, but everyones gear is getting better by the day. All I know is Toxitron better drop some bracers.

Just like in 2008, I'll do the numbers...

Days to 85: 1

Purples Replaced: all

New Purples: 2

Coolest New Purple: Earthmender's Boots

Special thanks goes to...

• My beautiful wife for being supportive and understanding given my addiction to not just WoW, but all things geeky.
• My son, to be honest he never knew what I was doing. I was always there when he was awake, but he is awesome enough to get my thanks anyway.
• Chort for leveling with me up to 84, he almost got realm first warrior after I logged off, but missed it by that much.
• My brother, for being a champ and heading into work at 5am on Tuesday. He wanted to level, but took care of his real world obligations instead. He still hit 85 by Thursday though.

Update: Resto Shaman 4.0.1

More thoughts on what I've been reading and playing as of this Tuesday. First a quote from an EJ thread on this very topic:

Most Shaman argue that Deep Healing doesn't have much value in the current state of the game. Incoming damage operates still under the LK model. Damage is really spiky, a missed GCD may result in player deaths and mana is not an issue. Most of the time, this results in players being at nearly 100% health or dead. In both cases, Deep Healing does not offer additional benefits. It will be a lot stronger in Cata, when player health will range between 100% and 0% for a significant amount of time.

My raid experience Wednesday night was cast from this very same die. Granted we only had 20 raiders on a 25 man raid. We had six healers though and lost a tank on all five of the sorry attempts it took us to kill heroic Lord Marrowgar. A fight we have had on farm for months was causing our healers heart burn. As a Shaman, who wears whatever hat my raid needs, I was having a hell of a time keeping the tanks up with my new tools.

Thankfully we are back on break from raiding till the expansion now. Where my new tools will be better suited.  For now it is back to my silly Mage.  He is crushing it by the way.

Resto Shaman 4.0.1

Hey remember when this bee log was about World of Warcraft. Forever ago right. Well my trajectory has been up and down since my last post about frozen bone dragons. I quit for the month of September when raiding content finally dried up like a raisin. Wait, that makes it sound sweet and delicious. Uh, think of a better simile that describes no new content for five months. Scratch that, moving on.

I got a wild hair last week to reactivate my account. This was without the knowledge of the changes in patch 4.0.1 by the way or that it would be out this week. I came back with the silly idea to level my Mage to 80 and drop 5,000 gold for epic herbalism flying. My timing was perfect for coming back to re-tune my Shaman.  New spells, talents, glyphs, reforging, crunch overload! So I rebuilt him, ran some heroic five mans and healed in ICC 25.

My out of the gate build was 0/2/34, something I drummed up a week before the patch without any research. Last night after raiding for two hours I left and respeced to 2/3/31.  My first impressions are as follows:

• Chain Heal feels weak for situations where the raid is not grouped up. You might say "duh that is the intent", but prior to the patch it was not the case. The first hit is much weaker now, so in these case the new Healing Wave is actually a better option, from a mana perspective at least.  Granted running the new Glyph of Chain Heal doesn't help either.
• Healing Surge seems like the go to spell, though I have read it gulps mana at 85. For 80 though I could spam it the whole fight. High cost, fast cast, big heal. Sold!
• Riptide used to be a "use on every cooldown spell" and now it seems it is even more valuable. Greater Healing Wave and Healing Wave both seem painfully slow without it. Glyph of Riptide seems to be a better option than it's counterparts too.
• Focus Insight seemed like a perfectly worthy 3 points in the 2nd tier last week.  That was until I saw first hand and read about just how situational it is.  First, you don't get the benefits of the shock if you miss with it. Second, any free GCD you could use to shock could be used to heal.  Third, if everyone is topped off and you can DPS you lose the benefits of the bonus healing in over heal.
• Telluric Currents, see Focus Insight.

Lots to play with still, mastery, reforging to get mastery, best bang for my buck stats, gemming, etc.  More as I play it.

November 2nd Cometh

I had a strong feeling that the next WoW expansion would be on the back half of this year.  Finding out this week that it was six weeks away was a bit of a surprise though.  Actually I just cancelled my account to go on a break. While Blizzard decide to do they same by not offering new raiding content.  Scathing commentary from a jilted lover? You bet your buns.

Back to the expansion.  My plan has always been to go on a binge the likes of my WotLK vacation in 2008.  Mind you that is tempered with a healthy understanding that I do not want to lose my wife and son in the mix.  So this time it will be slightly less hardcore, but still hardcore by most normal folks account.  A Tuesday release date makes that even easier, as my rule of thumb goes, if my son is around and awake I'm not gaming.

I'll admit this expansion has me less excited than the last.  From a lore perspective Deathwing has only existed in books for the most part.  They weren't the best WoW fiction on offer, to be fair, but I'm excited by it.  Just less than Arthas.  Only getting five new levels kind of sucks for the way I play WoW.  I stick to one character and attempt to max said character out to the best of my ability and time available.  Revamping the whole trip from 1 to 60 doesn't really offer me anything save a bored hour or ten flying around the world months after I've hit 85.

I'll play it none the less though, there are tons of cool things to see and do and I have less time to do them now anyway.  So bring on the expansion!

P.S. My local GameStop already sold out of collectors editions, WTF!

Yet Another Frost Wyrm

Chalk up another pixel dragon for my growing list of pixel achievements. I know it's not a real life success, but the pleasure centers in my brain are firing none the less. Do they fire or release chemicals? Lets ask this brownie I'm about eat. Sorry, back on topic, our raid group completed Glory of the Heroic Icecrown Raider last night. Which meant getting my second frost wyrm this month. This guy.

Frost Wyrm, I Choose You

Last night I earned the Reins of the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher (say that 3 times fast) for completing the meta achievement Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player). The feat took me the better part of six months considering I didn't have much of a 10 man group to speak of when ICC was released. With it I have come one step closer to having nothing to do in WoW till Cataclysm. A sad fact, but at least I will be flying into the expansion in hideously reanimated bone dragon style.

WoW Raiding and Motor Learning

World of Warcraft raid content or the "end game" more broadly has been a topic I've been churning over for a while now. The concept of how we learn specifically as of late and more over the time it takes for us to learn in WoW. In 1967 Fitts and Posner introduced a three stage model of motor learning. Reading over this is like a time machine to my one and only college psych course. The topic seems much more interesting when placed in the context of video games though. Before we dive into how a paper written in the late 60's applies to a MMO developed in the oughts however, lets briefly review what Fitts and Posner presented:

Cognitive Stage (1): learners attempt to form the overall concept by gaining information through the senses.

Associative Stage (2): learners understand how parts of the movement relate to one another; movements begin to appear efficient; errors are fewer; quality practice produces refinement of skill.

Autonomous Stage (3): learners movements appear automatic, stable, and somewhat effortless.

The stages are roughly analogous to most every guilds raiding progression. From the macro level of an entire instance to the micro specific boss that might put a halt to progression for weeks or even months.

The cognitive stage is the one I'd would presume to have the most variance depending on the guilds status as a leader or follower. Leaders being guilds that are seeing content on the PTR or mining boss abilities from patches prior to their release. Followers being the rest of us. The vast majority of guilds that watch the "leaders" kill videos and guides. It is simply a matter of how you collect information. Research and trial/error for leaders and by example or instruction for followers.

The associative stage is where the rubber meets the road. It is the difference between world first kills and shouting "we did it" months behind the rest. There are very few guilds that can take what they have learned in the cognitive stage and start to apply it immediately. Rectifying mistakes on the fly and creative problem solving are the tools that reward them with top honors. Members of the leaders can't just rely on their best players to get it done, the worst members have to carry their weight too. From top to bottom they have to be a well oiled machine.

For the followers, it takes repetition. Simply identifying mistakes can take a while, let alone resolving them. There is the potential to accomplish task through rote learning even versus actual understanding. The long and short of it is that it takes time. Guilds that are not skilled enough to get it early, can go through the sometimes grueling process of attempting the same boss over and over again until there is eventually progression. Folks that are not willing to put in that time will usually just end up waiting for the next dungeon to be released. That or see their more skilled member migrate to greener pastures.

Finally there is the autonomous stage, or in the world of PVE MMOs, farm content. Once you have been successful in a task enough, in this case a boss, it is time for everyone to get fat and happy with loot. Consider this the refractory period between dungeons, were guilds have the potential to get geared up for the next big thing or bored out of their minds. Member attrition during this stage is less stressful than in the associative stage. That is unless you lose enough knowledgeable players that you regress back to cognition.

Downsizing Azeroth

The raiding environment has come a long way since the original World of Warcraft. Forty man raids went to 25, separate 10 mans raids were introduced (e.g. Karazhan) and eventually we were given 10 and 25 man version of all raids in WotLK. It is with this knowledge and the experience of raiding through all of these changes, that I ruminate on the new raiding changes for Cataclysm. If you haven't read the blue post yet, it has been summarized nicely on MMOC and quoted below:

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

The assumption or hope that they will be able to balance the difficulty of 10 and 25 man raids seems wrong. Getting 25 players to move in sync is a much more difficult task than doing the same with 10. Space available to spread out is also less taxing with 10 players, unless they plan to scale dungeons based on the raid size. The amount of HPS and DPS required for gear check fights will always tip one way or the other for raid size. Add management is another difficulty that scales poorly. On almost every fight currently available I can't imagine equal difficulty being achieved. It certainly won't happen by making bosses with more health, that hit harder.

The value proposition that is currently on offer and the one being presented for the future are moving away from each other. Currently my $15 subscription fee buys me three nights of 25 man raiding a week and 10 man raids as time permits (3-7 hours a week) . Mind you $15 isn't doing much to break the bank, however some simple math shows the discrepancy:

WotLK Raiding: 56 avg hours/month @ $15 a month = $0.27 an hour
Cataclysm Raiding: 36 avg hours/month @ $15 a month = $0.41 an hour

No matter how the value shacks out for each individual's play style, at the end of the day there will simply be less time spent raiding. Less time means you get less for your dollar and that just plain sucks.

Having both 10/25 man raids pull from the same loot table does not completely remove the incentive to raid with 25 players, but it takes steps in that direction. It is easier to schedule 10 people than it is 25. That is the reason they started 10/25 man versions in the first place. Removing the option to do both though will ultimately leave some folks out in the cold. The example used in the blue post:

...if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation...

Assumes that your normal group is 25 man, but can down size to 10 if need be. It usually takes 4-6 people posting out for us to be short handed. If that was the case we would have to have the perfect group structure and off specs to run two 10 man groups successfully. Otherwise 6-7 people will be left with nothing to do.

This may sound like the same complaint people made when the raid size was reduced from 40 to 25. I never subscribed to that argument though. In that case 40 man raids were being eliminated, 25 was your only option so you were forced to adapt. In this case 25 and 10 were both options and now you will be forced to choose. Raid with your 25 friends or cut the fat in a attempt to be more successful. All for the same gear.

King Slayer

Almost 17 months have passed since the release of Wraith of the Lich King and my guild and I have finally downed the boss for which the expansion is named. A month after started Arthas we had our first successful attempt, last night and yours truly got a shinny new mace (Royal Scepter of Terenas II). We will be moving on to hard modes next week, but for now it is nice to revel in the satisfaction of kinda sorta finishing this expansion. Pay no attention to the un-killed boss behind the curtain (Algalon the Observer).

Rusted Proto-Drake

What sounds like sophomoric sex slang is actually my newest flying mount by way of Ulduar's ten man hard modes. The Rusted Proto-Drake is my reward for completing Glory of the Ulduar Raider Friday night. A task that I got started a month behind on and took the entire summer to complete. Granted if my focus had been solely on this achievement I probably could have done it months ago. The time constraints of a daily 6:30am Kaden wake up call don't really lend themselves to post 12:30am raiding with my ten man group. Thankfully there is no uber achievement in ToC 10 man, so my desire for a third 310% speed mount can wait until Icecrown Citadel. A Proto-Frostwyrm maybe?

Saturday night I learned that I no longer have das juice in the arena. To be fair I had a loose association with les juice in the past on my mage, but I was probably being carried. Apparently I can't even be carried these days. In my mix of Hateful and Deadly I tried to get carried to a Furious totem by my friend and possible* season 6 gladiator the Chort. All I needed was a 700 personal rating. Easy enough if the Chort's rating wasn't putting us against folks who would rather see my face on the business end of their boots. I would get rolled in seconds and he would almost solo the two folks rolling me. After about 4 to 5 plays of the same song I decided to get off the merry go round. Hey the Deadly totem can be bought for honor, perfect!

To wrap my WoW things up, I am toying with the idea of leveling my mage again. He is already 71 from the last time I toyed with said idea, but now I need a herbing alt. Tooling around on a ground mount in Northrend might sound fun to some, but I'd rather pick my flowers from the sky. It will most likely take a while (see Appendix 16.3: I Had a Baby), but I figure I can keep my Shaman swimming in flask for a while before I have to hit the auction house.

*I say possible because Chort might or might not have been screwed over by the recent arena calculation that has apparently gone horribly wrong. He will find out soon and when he does I will post here about it.

Farwell to Hard Content*

While normal Ulduar has created a moderate enough challenge for most raiding guilds the hard modes have been a true measure for only the elite of the elite. When we last left this topic, WoW Progress was lending some numerical insight into the 25 man raiding scene. A quick update, 20,067 guilds have completed the Siege of Ulduar to date and only 755 of those guilds have gone as far as unlocking Algalon's room, with only 268 actually doing the deed. How does revisiting this topic warrant a new post? Only 1.3% of all the guilds who are even taking Ulduar half serious have killed all of the bosses offered within. Yet today marks the fifth week of Trial of the Crusader.

At a certain point raid schedules will have no incentive to keep going back to Ulduar. Gear in the 245 and 258 ilevel range offered up for no trash and limited attempts will eventually cause a tipping point for most of the community. To date even the most casual of guilds have cleared all four boss encounters offered. Tonight Anubarak will be offered up as a final sacrifice to the casual Gods and then it is game on for the actual progression race. Trial of the Grand Crusader is the five man heroic equivalent of normal ToC and promises to offer an actual challenge.

The catch is a limit of 50 attempts (read wipes) per week. So that means you could spend 50 attempts on the Northrend Beasts or get to Anubarak unphased and put in 50 on him. Or anywhere in between. After clearing the instance once on normal easy mode and then spending your 50 attempts however the hard core raiding Gods see fit on heroic modes, you are still left with a good chunk of the raid week intact. For my guild that means heading back to Ulduar to work on hard modes via the new raid lockout extension feature. Eventually, my guess is, we won't be able to sustain it.

Why burn calories going after ilevel 239 gear when the equivalent or better upgrades simply fall out of the sky. Sure there is the thrill of progression that some of us feel (myself included), but most guilds that have a casual core (ours) aren't interested in old progression for sub par gear. The crux being that if your guild is hard core enough to actually care about going back to Ulduar, to tie it up with a neat little bow. You've probably already done so.

Guild Progression
Speaking of the salad days of Ulduar, we have been going back to try hard modes in the weeks leading up to ToGC. We recently downed Lose Your Illusion in what has been a tough Summer of low attendance raiding. It felt good to actually put a hurting on a boss that has been just out of reach for us for going on two months. Our ten man has unlocked Algalon and set out to conqueror him twice now without success. It is a tough fight made even harder by the one hour limit per week. It takes it from rough going to viciously brutal in 60 minutes flat.

Recycled Content

Some how I missed the fact that Blizzard was recycling their old content with greater frequency when the first instance in Wraith of the Lich King was Naxxramas. Granted it could be that it was the only instance I had never been too prior to WotLK. It felt right, the vast majority of the population missed out on the level 60 version, as it butted up to Burning Crusade by less than six months. So why not show everyone what they missed out on, continuity be damned. The recycled instance was one thing, but reusing the same recolored tier 3 gear felt a little lazy. Granted it was gear that looked cool when it came out two years prior, but still lazy.

This spring Ulduar (patch 3.1) was released as a real meat and potatoes instance. All new art for the dungeon, bosses and gear. Really cool stuff. When Trial of the Crusader (patch 3.2) was announced it felt a little too soon after the release of 3.1. My guild had already cleared Ulduar, but it looks like the vast majority hasn't, 6,450 out of 19,521 as of today. Technically only 148 guilds have killed all of the bosses. At this point we are clearing normal Trial bosses and then heading back into Ulduar to work on hard modes every raid week.

Back to the topic of recycled content. Outside the fact that the Trials instance feels lazy, no trash, not much story and recycled WotLK mobs for bosses, the gear is a creative rehash. Horde shaman tier 9 as an example feels like a mix of tier 1 and the dungeon set. Creatively bland is how I would describe it when compared to tier 6, 7 and 8 that came before it. Mind you as long as there are new boss mechanics that most of the WoW population has never seen the lazy gear recycling is a minor complaint. Que the re-release of Onyxia (patch 3.2.2) coming to a WoW server near you. It will be re-tuned for level 80, offer up recycled tier 1/2 art and drop a mount. All of that sounds kinda lame save the 310% speed mount. I have been into the Broodmother's den way to many times then I care to count.

I hope all of this fluff content is a smoke screen for a killer Icecrown instance this winter.

2D Goggles
Is a blog and comic about the fictional adventures of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace by Sydney Padua. It is an experiment in comics, story telling and alternate history. Though they (comics) are not released that frequently it is interesting to see the process explained. Much of the dialogue is inspired by the actual letters and personal accounts of Babbage and Lovelace. Great stuff for a geek who has a large gap in their understanding of geek history. I have never been a biography kind of guy, but I think I might make an exception for Babbage and/or Lovelace.

Do the Riverside Dance

My dreams are haunted by the Sesame Street songs Kaden watches on DVR these days and apparently my post topics are too. "Do the cucumber dance".

Moving on, our crew assembled on Saturday at the house that Mehtul built for some cycling. New to the group was Ethan, a cyclist, Dad and like minded geek who happens to be related Kevin Bacon style to our group. How our ships passed in the night for so long I can't say, but I have worked with him at the same company for three years. Yet some how we didn't know we had the same hobbies. If that weren't enough, Grant also works with his wife. Long story short Ethan is a good guy and now a member of Pants de Richmond.

Saturday we were two wheels rolling by 8:30am and hit the same Riverside loop we did previously, but in reverse. The ghost of late night video game past came calling for me half way through the ride in the form of a near bonk. The hills of Old Gun are an unforgiving mistress to those that do not come prepared, take heed. A little break and understanding from my fellow riders and we were on our way. The rest of the day was mostly uneventful and we have plans to do it all again this coming weekend. The rest is in the pictures...

Group shot with the "Z"

Grant and Mike

Ethan

Deer

Grant and the "Z"

My ride.

Ethan's ride.

Raid Progression
Well, as I stated Tuesday 3.2 did drop this week. The new raid content was underwhelming in that we cleared all of it and took a trip back to Ulduar in one night. The new epic gems are nice and easy to get and give me an opportunity to actually use my old heroism, valor and conquest emblems for once. The inclusion of triumph emblems is nice, but I don't plan to change my raid logging ways to get them in the daily 5 man quest.

Automata

I have been a daily reader of Penny Arcade for six of the ten years they have been in the business of creating comics. Granted they only post comics three days a week, but I still check back daily for the off chance that they supplement the accompanying blog post with additional post. I am a fan of their day to day work and an even bigger fan of their trips outside that work. Cardboard Tube Samurai stands out as the work they go back to the most, but their PA Present's serious is a great example of the range they can play at.

For the first time that I can remember they put forth three worlds that they might explore per the readers choosing. Lookouts, Automata and Jim Darkmagic. While I am a fan of the New Hampshire Darkmagics by way of the D&D Podcast, the choose came down to Lookouts and Automata for me. My original vote went to Lookouts, maybe it is the recent reception of our first son, but the look and possibilities of the story that could be told appealed to me. The end result was interest enough in both and the promise of more. What resulted was the farming out of Lookouts to Becky Dreistadt and Oliver Grigsby. They did it justice, but still would have preferred Gabe and Tycho tackle it.

They did save Automata for themselves though and it is running this week. Gabe's artwork on this piece stands out as some of his best as far as I am concerned. Tycho is also at his best when he can craft every detail of a world and splay it's innards out for all to see. All in it is a masterful collaboration so far by two guys who know each other and their styles all too well...

Automata
Page 1,Page 2,Page 3,Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

Lookouts
Page 1,Page 2,Page 3,Page 4,Page 5

Raid Progress
We are stuck in the perpetual hell of farm content and hard modes that are too hard for our semi hard core guild to complete. Thankfully 3.2 seems to be just around the corner. As a matter of fact it will be out today or next Tuesday if I am not mistaken. Onward and upward I say. In a pre-achievement WoW we would have been done with Ulduar anyway, well except for Algalon of course.

Visual Display of Data

As of late I have been knee deep in the world of data visualization. To be fair my interest is mostly driven by the work I've been doing for the past year and a half, but it has painted my reading outside of work as well. My amazon cart runneth over with various books on the subject. Expounding on that topic conceptually sounds like a boring post though. So instead dear reader we will look at some graphs on WoW raid progression, specifically Ulduar care of WoWProgress.com.

The first graph shows the number of guilds that have cleared each of the four wings in Ulduar by time. Siege and Antechamber, the easiest of the four wings, have clear exponential curves that speak to their accessibility to the majority of the raid community. Conversely Keepers and Descent require more dedication and repetition to complete and as such are straighter curves with slower progression.

Next is the "easier" tier of achievements, I say easier in quotation because the majority of guilds do not make it this far. The two interesting trends on this graph are Cache and Heartbreaker. Until mid June it is clear that Hearbreaker was the hardest of the four achievements displayed. However post heart health nerf there is a marked spike in the number of guild completing the achievement. The graph quickly goes from slow straight line progression to a stepped progression. Indicating that it became easy enough for guilds to simply attempt the achievement to complete it. The stepping appears to happen on every Tuesday of the raid week. Please not that XT-002's heart may have gotten easier, but it is still a guild killer. The one step on Cache is a result in the time change for the achievement, going from 2 minutes to 3 made it easier. As noted by the slow straight line progression after the step, it is still not a cake walk.

Finally the "harder" tiers of Ulduar achievements, I say harder in quotation because this crap is seriously hard. The vast majority of guilds will not complete this content before 3.2, Afterlife included. Firefighter was nerfed in late June and has since eclipsed 3x Knock as the easiest of this set, noted by it's sharp spike. Alone in the Darkness was thought to be mathematically impossible by all most all of the top guilds until July 7th when Stars completed the task. Since then only 8 guilds have duplicated their success.

Talk about a nerd out, math, graphs and MMOs. I don't know if a round of cycling pictures will suffice to pull us out of this nerd chasm on Tuesday dear reader. Maybe I'll talk about chain saws, boobs and dirt bikes instead...Mmm Nah.

Wars, Wood and Progress

Star Wars Lore
Never a fan of the three newest films and a rabid fan of the original three, I have spent years wondering about the expanded universe. As of late I have taken action to pursue that interest further. I'm currently reading the Darth Bane series, as they are the first books in the Star Wars time line. It is actually really good. From what I've heard there have been enough authors to touch the Star Wars universe that you can pick the best of the best to the bottom of the barrel and everything in between. So to get a good book my first time out was a bit of luck for sure.

My mailbox should have a copy of the Force Unleashed in it sometime this week. The game is set in the time period between Ep.III and Ep.IV and you play as Vader's first apprentice. Sounds cool, although I've heard the actual gameplay got mixed reviews. Finally I picked up the first two trades from the Legacy comic series, which is set years 100+ years after Ep.VI and follows Luke's son. Can't wait to start reading it.

Woodworking
As if I needed another hobby to empty my wallet, I have taken a greater interest in woodworking recently. My Grandfather was a woodworker and carver for at least the portion of his life that he and I were alive. He tried, when I was in high school, to pass along some tools and basswood in the interest of getting me interested in carving, but I was too young and too focused in other things. For Father's Day I got the go ahead from Kaden and Crystal to purchase a sliding miter saw. I have all kinds of other tools I'd like to buy next, but for now I'd like to see what I can produce with just a saw and some handtools. Look for a full post in the future, as I may be tackling my first project this weekend.

P.S. Woodcraft moved in a mile down from the road from us, I'm wallet is doomed.

Guild Progress
Raid progress without consistent attendance is just plain hard. After killing Yogg back in June we started the trudge to Algalon, it has been a tough row to hoe. Previously we had killed Molgeim last and unlocked the quest for Algalon by doing so. Since Yogg, we have downed the following hard modes: Flame Leviathan, XT-002, and Hodir. While accomplishments in and of themselves, Hodir is the only one that progress the guild toward the ultimate goal. It is not for lack of effort that Steelbreaker and Thorim still stand, but without a consistent roster of raiders we are swapping assignments and teaching strats every time we enter the zone.

Down Goes Yogg

The screenshot above is why I raid and play World of Warcraft. We (Afterlife) have been working long and hard on Yogg-Saron, the last* boss in Ulduar, for the better part of this month. The coordination, team work and support required to get 25 people all working toward a common goal can be daunting. The reward of a cleanly executed boss kill is worth it though. Now that the race to Yogg is over, there is still plenty to do, Algalon will take a while to get to I'm sure.

On the lore side of things I started reading Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, Christie Golden's newest WoW novel. She has written my favorite WoW books to date and so far she is delivering with Arthas as well. Ulduar mentioned above has some great lore as well. More info on the titans, old gods and Algalon's plan is to cleanse the planet of flawed mortals (that would be us). I really dig the integration and build up of story and game play elements Blizzard builds into there raid dungeons. Hopefully the next instance won't lose some of that flavor in favor of easy to build tournament style raiding.

In other news, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup Friday night! City of champions! I wish I could have been in Pittsburgh to celebrate it...