I’m sure we’ve all heard the people in general chat saying things like, “LF4 More, Heroic MgT” or “LF2 More for H UB, need tank and heals.”  Why you would announce that you’re looking for more when you have neither of the most important classes, I have no idea.

Anyhow, no, I’m not actually looking for 24 more for Black Temple.  BT is, however, in my near future, I hope.  I raid in an alliance of about 5 guilds on the Whisperwind server.  None of the guilds can effectively run 25 mans on their own, so for some time we’ve had this alliance.  It start with Gruul, and moved on to Mags, SSC, TK and MH.  Now, we are set to hit the Black Temple.

Now then, I don’t agree with our progression, but I don’t have any say in these discussions, so my opinion doesn’t mean jack.  For some time we were running Gruul, Mags, SSC and TK pretty regularly.  We were spending 2 nights a week on TK and SSC, and we got to 5/6 in SSC and 2/4 in TK.  (That could be wrong on TK, don’t quote me on that.)

I have only participated in a couple Gruul and Mags runs, but I have been in a LOT of the SSC runs.  I was in the group that first killed Morogrim, FLK and Leo.  I was also in the first (and maybe only, I’m not sure) group that even took a crack at Lady V.  Personally, I wanted to continue down that path.  2 nights a week in SSC, the first night hopefully getting at least the first 4, then the second night taking out the last boss and then working on Lady V.

It hasn’t worked out that way.  You see, it was slow going at first.  It took us a couple months of 2 SSC runs a week to get to 5/6.  There was a LOT of wiping going on, as a lot of people had to learn the various fights.

2 months ago, I didn’t even have to sign up.  I could just log on shortly before start time, and they ALWAYS needed one or two more people.  Around the time we took down Leo for the first time, and got to have regular success in SSC, signups exploded.  Where before we were sometimes struggling to fill runs at all, we now had 30+ signing up for every raid.  We also took a hit in our efficiency, since many people each week were totally new to the instance.  I don’t think we’ve seen Lady V since.

Anyhow, shortly after that, the Alliance leaders decided to switch up our targets.  One night each of SSC and TK were dropped in favor of MH runs.  I don’t agree with this, but as I said before, I have no say.  I wish we could try to be at least a LITTLE more selective and make some honest attempts at the last T5 bosses, but that ain’t happening.  Instead we are moving on.

So, anyhow.  This Saturday, we are going to make our first foray into the Black Temple.  Now, I am already signed up, and though I disagree I am excited to finally see this instance, but I have a problem.

I need to get to 9k unbuffed HPs by Friday.  I think I can do it, but it will take some work.  I have an old pair of Earthsoul leggings that I can gem for stamina and swap out my present badge legs, and I also have the blue boots from MagT just sitting in my bank.  I don’t have the playtime to farm furiously for badges before then, but maybe I can pick up another useful piece or two.  Hopefully I can get there.  If I do, I will certainly blog about it!  Also, if anyone has any recommendations on what I could do, you can go ahead and peek at Pummra’s armory in my sidebar.

AH Insanity is killing me.  Honestly.  I had fun leveling my warrior for awhile, got him to 40, and said “yay, time for plate!”  Then I saw the AH.

You have GOT to be kidding me.  10g for a pair of level 40 plate bracers of the Wolf?  25g and up for anything of the Bear or Tiger?  SERIOUSLY??

I mean, aren’t I going to be using this for, like, 5 levels or so?  Which at the present rate of progression amounts to about a week of playing?  /scoff  I guess I’ll be rocking the mail for awhile longer, until I can get some good quest rewards or something.

What I’ve found is that the insanity is all over the place.  Yes, I realize Blizz dumped a crap load of cash into the economy with the SSO dailies, but this is getting ridiculous.  My shammy, now level 45, is still wearing bracers and gloves from level 30.   I refuse to bow to ridiculous prices, and farm with my 70 to outfit an alt.

Now, in some ways I understand the ridiculous prices for, say, level 29 BOE blues.  I know the twinkers fall all over themselves for those.  But this craziness about other sub 70 stuff must end.  How long do we spend in those midlevels anyway?

Now, people -  the only way this will change is if YOU change it!  You must agree to not bow to ridiculously priced green stuff on the AH!  If we work together, we can move mountains, you and I.  We shall overcome!

I’m the Part Time Druid, and I approve this message.

As is often the case with a post of this nature, I had a lot of further thoughts and things I’d wished I had included once I hit the “publish” button.  It’s the nature of the beast, I guess.  So here are some further ruminations on Why We WoW.

One of the key points that came up with people when I discussed my post yesterday, both in the comments section and in the BA Chat Room, was the idea that WoW doesn’t mean all that much.  There were people who were vehemently in opposition to this thought, and they felt that there was real meaning for them in the game in one way or another.

There are some ways in which I agree.  I agree that the “good feelings” you get from accomplishments do in fact mean something.  I generally have what I’d call an “expansive” or “spiritual” way of thinking, and IMO having positive thoughts and experiences is VERY important.  I know that I generally “feel good” about things if I have a successful night in WoW, and I know a lot of other people feel the same.

So yes, “silly” accomplishments in the game can affect your life.  Heck, maybe you have a great night in SSC, and the next day at work feel uber IRL, and get yourself a raise. 

Entertainment or Hobby?

I think something that comes up again and again in reaction to my post yesterday is that WoW is much more than your standard movie or television show.  After all, those are passive entertainment activities, and passive WoW would be no fun at all.  I mean, you don’t make any decisions in the movie theater beyond “butter or no butter,” and you aren’t affecting the outcome of CSI by making decisions for the main characters.

In WoW, however,  you are playing an active role.  Isn’t WoW more a hobby than entertainment?

One of things that people who don’t play WoW don’t get is that it’s more than entertainment.  Many people look at WoW the same way they do television.  To them, we are spending hours and hours a week doing nothing more interactive or enriching than watching the Food Network 24/7.  (In defense of the Food Network, there are times that it’s all I watch!)

Would they think differently if they thought of WoW as a hobby?  I think so, but that might prove difficult.  Say I like to make model cars as a hobby.  If I spent 3 hours every other night painting wheels, nobody would look down on me, ask if I was addicted, and insist I was ruining my life.  The same could be said for most hobbies, too.

If I spent 20 hours a week reading, I’d be enriching my vocabulary, not hopelessly addicted.

If I spent 20 hours a week crocheting, I’d have beautiful blankets and wouldn’t have ben “wasting” my life.

If I spent 20 hours a week painting, people would admire me no matter how crappy said paintings were.

If I spent 20 hours a week raiding in WoW, I’m ruining my life, I need help, and I’m a loser.

Sound about right?  That’s the rub.  How do we convince people that WoW is a hobby, and NOT just entertainment?  I honestly don’t know.

For me, I was only successful convincing my wife that it had some merit once I started this blog, and soon had over 100 regular readers.  Needless to say, I make sure to let her know how my readership grows all the time.  This has largely let me off the hook.

In general, though, it’s hard to convince people that this is a hobby and not entertainment.  We don’t have any visceral “product” at the end to show people, really.  They don’t share our triumphs when we take down a new raid boss, or win the roll on a shiny new epic.  They don’t understand that we develop REAL relationships in game.  That we often talk of things other than WoW, that we share experiences with others.  They just don’t get it.

I guess, in the end, the answer is simple.  Get them to start playing WoW, as the more people that play, the more people understand and value this wonderful game.  (And yes, I have tried this tactic with my wife, but she absolutely refuses to even give it a look.  She can be stubborn sometimes, but it’s one of the reasons I love her!)  I know I value WoW.  Hopefully yesterday’s post didn’t make you think otherwise.  Thanks for reading!

I’ve been leveling away on my Shadow Priest, making the push to 58 so I could hit the Outlands.  I was just a bit into 57 last night, and spent the next 2 hours doing various quests in Winterspring.  A large amount of dead Yetis later, I reached my goal and hit 58.  I promptly turned in my remaining completed quests, dumped a bunch of stuff I’d never finish out of my log, and headed for Darkshire with the intention of hitting the Outlands the next time I logged on.

It got me to thinking.  What exactly had I just accomplished?

I had set a goal for myself, and upon reaching that goal I was happy, and excited to push into the BC content, where I knew far better gear awaited me, along with much better zones to level through.  But I had a bit of an empty feeling.

Had I really accomplished anything?  I thought some more.  Do we ever really accomplish anything in WoW?  Let’s say I was in a guild and we just downed Illidan.  Did I really accomplish anything even then?

Sadly, I kept arriving at the same conclusion.  No.  Even if I had just picked up the most uber of uber drops, I wouldn’t have accomplished anything.  How is the staff or whatever that Illidan might drop any different from the staff I had at level 1?  When you get down to it, aren’t they both just a collection of 1s and 0s, in developer parlance?  The only thing that really differentiates them, in the real world, is some ID number on a  server deep within the bowels of Blizzard.

Am I foolish to search for some kind of meaning in my enjoyment of WoW?  I don’t think so.  The time I spend playing WoW is significantly less than many people out there, but at the same time I spend a LOT of time in WoW.  Why do I spend so much time in this game, doing the same things I’ve done hundreds of times before?  I’m not sure.

Is it because I feel some lack in my real life, and I need to “achieve” in some way in a game?  Thankfully, that’s a big no.  I have a wonderful family that’s growing, and a solid career at a great company.  Oh, and I like to think I write a pretty decent blog, too.

Is it because I’m highly competitive, and want to “do better” than other people in the game?  Nope, that’s not it.  If it is I’m failing miserably at this point.  My biggest claim to fame is 5/6 in SSC.  Not all that much in the grand WoW of things.  I’m happy that I’ve at least seen some degree of “end game” raiding, but I’m well behind the curve.  You know, “part time” and all.

Looking at all the classic categories of why we play these games, I only mildly think I like to achieve and socialize.  I like getting new loot and better gear, I like hitting new levels, and I like progressing somewhat into new content, at least content that’s new to me.  I like being in groups and taking down bosses.  I do also like talking about WoW (as evidenced from this very blog) and I spend some time chatting in /g.

Honestly, though, everything I just detailed that I like about WoW is really nothing at all.  Just more 1s and 0s, excepting possibly the social aspects.  So why do I keep doing something that doesn’t give me any benefit in the real world?

Because I like it.  I can’t detail exactly how or why, but I really like it.

Besides, get down to brass tacks.  What other things do you like to do in your spare time?  Watch movies?  Aside from the occasional indie flick with philosophical undertones, that’s largely empty as well, right?  Watch sports?  Yeah, as a Cubs fan I can tell you that there’s not much there, either.  Our uniforms don’t even change.  I have yet to see the Cubs get any loot.  Yet I still watch them, too.

In the end I guess I just have to see WoW just for what it is:  entertainment.  Gripping entertainment, that leaves most others in its wake.  Maybe searching for deep meaning in something like this is folly.  It’s just like a movie that doesn’t end, or a book that just keeps going and going.  Maybe I just need to accept that as a good thing, and not try to find a true “benefit” I get from it in the real world.  Though I can at least say that’s it’s a great way to get away.

Ok, pointless rambling off.  If you’ve gotten this far, bravo!  Maybe you can share with me why YOU WoW.  Now excuse me, I have to go hit the Outlands.

If you liked this, you can read more of my thoughts here, where I get into WoW as entertainment vs. WoW as a hobby!

I was chatting in game the other day as I was playing around with my level 55 Shadow Priest in Eastern Plaguelands. I got the Sister Pamela quest where you have to go find this ghost, and then find the pieces of her ghost doll in a deserted, haunted town. Anyhow, whenever you enter one of the old buildings, the background music changes to this wonderful, haunting melody.

Background music? What’s that?

Well, you see there were these people called “composers” and they were tasked to put together different themes and melodies to help set off the rich, graphical areas that we find ourselves exploring in WoW.

Perhaps you’re an Itunes user, and you listen to the latest Weezer in the background while you play, maybe you like techno, or country, whatever it is, you don’t listen to the background music of WoW.

Why not? I mean, if you REALLY take the time to listen sometimes, there is some really great stuff, like the aforementioned creepy haunted house music in the EP. Listen to this, and tell me it’s not cool. I dare you. What about some of the music in Kara? Pay special attention to the Opera Harpsichord stuff… I love that!

Think of it this way: do you watch a movie but have the background music removed? Would Star Wars be the same? What about Indiana Jones? Music can REALLY add to the atmosphere in those movies, so you don’t do it. You probably wouldn’t even imagine doing it. So why do so many people do it in WoW? Is Kara really better with Enya playing? (Ok, maybe an extreme example, but you get my drift.)

Heck, one guy said that he didn’t think he had EVER listened to the game background music. What??

I can understand if you’re in SL for the 10th time, maybe you want something different. Maybe you need more uplifting music to get into raiding, that’s fine too. (I’ll never forget the day a guy started playing “Eye of the Tiger” during a boss fight in a heroic Ramparts run over Teamspeak. Epic!) All I ask is that you don’t completely discount the music of WoW. Some of it really is good!