Where does your guild fit in?

Earlier today Blizzard released a new poll asking a seemingly simple question:

"What kind of guild do you belong to?

• I'm in a friends-and-family guild. We all know each other and can just be ourselves.
• We’re a progression guild that focuses on raiding. We’re coming for you, Deathwing!
• I’m competitive, so I found a PvP guild. It’s all about the honor.
• Role-play is where it’s at for me. My guild is supportive of it and has a great culture going.
• I’m in a large leveling guild. It seemed like a great place to start and there are always plenty of people around to do things with.
• I’m in a PvP/RP guild. Like the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, we're rare but we DO exist.
• We’re an old guild that has existed for many years. We defy definition.
• Currently looking for a guild, /w me!
• I’m not part of a guild. I just haven’t found one that fits me.
• I’m not part of a guild. I have no interest in them.
• None of the above. (I’ll write it in.)"

Since the poll only lets you pick one option it poses an interesting question. If you honestly answer the question how easy is it for you to pick just one? For me it's not so clear.

When talking in terms of how I picture the guild I'm in, Shenanigans Inc, I immediately think of the first option. Friends (not family) that know each other very well and enjoy each others company. However the guild is really there for a different reason as well, sure playing with friends and having fun is highest up, but we are a progression guild that focuses on raiding. We're starting to push heroic modes now. Can't we be both? Is it even possible?

I'm not assuming or even suggesting Blizzard thinks these two things can't coexist, but it certainly got me thinking. A group of friends that enjoy each others company, but as individuals really push themselves and expect nothing less from the others they consider friends. That's what Shenanigans Inc is. We're both the first choice and the second. Where is that option?

Honestly I don't even care about the poll, it's not HUGE news anyways, especially with the 4.0.6 fiasco(s). I just think there is something to be said about the balancing act between pushing progression ideals and pushing "friends-and-family" ideals in a guild. I'm not so sure it's easy to balance them and maybe something has to be put in front of the other? I need to put more thought into it. I guess it all comes down to what you consider the Guild of your Dreams, what do you think?

Thoughts on Armor Specializations, Picture time!

A new beta build was deployed today and while there aren't a huge number of unexpected changes to the feral talent tree, they did release information about armor specializations.

Essentially armor specializations are Blizzard's way of rewarding players for wearing the correct type of armor (cloth, leather, mail, plate). Basically if you wear the correct armor type in all of your item slots you get a percent "bonus" to one of your primary stats. Does anyone else think this is really lame...?

As a feral druid this basically means NOTHING. If you wear all leather, and why wouldn't you, you get 5% additional agility in cat, 5% additional stamina in bear, and possibly 5% agility overall? Well first of that's a bit confusing, does that mean all druids just randomly get 5% extra agility for wearing all leather, even non ferals? Not that it matters much which is actually my point.

It's not any different than having a random talent deep in each section of the druid trees that reads: "Increases your (agility, stamina) by 1/2/3/4/5%". It's not interesting or unique at all, it's just a zero-thought attempt at making sure each class/spec wears the correct armor type. Honestly I'd much rather them just restrict armor types better based on class/level. If you are a leather wearing class, you only get to wear leather, there are enough drops in the game, or should be, to handle that type of requirement.

Here are the specializations for druids:

Leather Specialization - Increases your Agility by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
Wild Leather Specialization - Increases your Stamina in Bear Form by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
Wild Leather Specialization - Increases your Agility in Cat Form by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
Astra Leather Specialization - Increases your Intellect by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.

So it's a baked in 5% agility and for all feral druids and then an extra 5% agility for Cats and 5% stamina for Bears. I think the real reason this rubs me the wrong way has to do with the new mastery system. Everything that isn't directly a talent just increases something by X amount or X%. There are so many class specific/spec specific "modifiers" nowadays.

The 5% stamina increase for tanks could not possibly be missed if it's never introduced, so why even bother. I can't possibly view the specializations as a reward for wearing the correct gear. Max level gear restrictions aren't impossible to implement, they should have gone that route.

Anyways this is a silly argument, it doesn't much matter so rather than worry about it - I present to you some awesome screen shots from yesterday, as well as my signature that a guild member created for me.

Signature created by Relmesh, he's actually made quite a few for GCR members. Here is mine and some more of his recent work can be found here.

Why I'll always be a druid. (Part 1: Before my druid)

Everyone, even the altaholics, have that one class that just does it for them. Everyone has a reason they play their main and why their main is exactly that. For me it's the druid class, there are just so many amazing things about druids that keep me interested and possibly even more importantly immersed in the game. When I was finally coming to the realization that I wanted my druid to be my main, I stumbled across a very simple and short video that summed up my feelings towards the class and what they meant, and for the most part it still holds true today. I did not create this video, but I applaud the person that did - they definitely get it.

I suggest viewing it at the max resolution, even though it's still not great, and to have the volume on.

We Will Run

Also here is the link to WarcraftMovies, no stream for it anymore, but definitely nice support comments and the authors original intent.

Anyways hopefully that video gives you a better idea of where I'd like to go with these posts.

Before my druid things where much more magical

I haven't always played a druid. When I first started to play WoW I immediately went for the mage class. I didn't even sit at the character creation screen long, I just knew, knew that I wanted to play a big damage magical class, and my brief glance at the character description made Mages (Magi?) seemingly fit the bill quite nicely.

A high school friend of mine introduced me to the game (some friend..). We had been playing counter-strike together for a year or two by this point and we were sick of the cheating and overall just wanted something different I suppose. At first I was strongly opposed to WoW, I knew about the game from people that played CS and everyone knew that those non-FPS gamers weren't 'real' gamers anyways! It's funny how that opinion develops in a game like CS, but not the point of this post..

My friend had started a bit before me with the game before convincing me to give it a try so the first 15 levels or so I was pretty much on my own (like I said - some friend right?). I loved my undead mage, I didn't know what I was doing or how I was doing it, but I seriously loved the class and the spells and the graphics (lol). Coming from Counter-strike 1.6, WoW is actually an upgrade in the graphics department.

Anyways, we started on a random server and then a few friends from work (we both worked at BestBuy at the time) told us about the server they played on, Drak'thul, and so we decided to join them.

I was so sad that I had to start over - I even considered transferring because I thought I had put so much work into my mage already. This just shows how little I knew about the game, I was level 17 or 18 when we started fresh on another server, silly me..

I was almost 60, I think I was around 52-54 when Burning Crusade was released, and by that time I was really starting to get into the game. I played too much, which hasn't changed from now in case you were wondering, and I had no intentions of slowing down. I really enjoyed the Burning Crusade leveling experience, and it felt like the game I was just getting to know just got so much better and more polished. It was exciting times.

I don't want to ramble on much more about my mage raiding history, but suffice to say that I ended up raiding with one of the only guilds on the server to get into Sunwell pre-nerf. Around the same time that we started Sunwell was the time I became incredibly bored with my mage, to the point where I would stand around and spam sheep my target rather than help kill that awful trash in the beginning of the instance. What I at one time absolutely loved was no longer that interesting and sort-of lost it's charm. I had accomplished many things on my mage and didn't know if I wanted to pick another class come WotLK, but that all changed when I finally hit 70 on my druid that I'd been slowly leveling for months.

It wasn't even a sudden change, but my druid just started to grow on me. I tried out healing and actually enjoyed it quite a bit in arenas and the odd dungeon here or there, but my real interests were in tanking, it was like a forbidden thing for my druid, it was so late in the expansion and veteran tanks were so tuned gear wise and experience wise. It wasn't something I really got to experience on my druid in Burning Crusade, but I started out small in Kara and waited until the time was right!

In the next post I'll talk about my first memorable tanking experience in BC and WotLK and how becoming a tank reignited my interest and enjoyment in WoW. And then after that, why I can't just play any tank, why it's a druid that will be my class until I no longer play MMO/RPGs.