Really?

Paint is so limited to what you can do with editing, and ya know I just didn't feel like using my laptop this morning.

Anyway, I just wanted to write down some thoughts about dungeons and the Dungeon Finder because there are some things bothering me.

Okay first of all, I made it through Oculus! I still hated it, but I thought I would give it a try. It still took 4 attempts to get someone to stay in the instance, but eventually, we had a group. We got killed by the final boss 3 times as well. Fortunately, after the 2nd time, someone told us what we were supposed to be doing up there and we were able to get through that big boss dragon in the sky.

Vehicle mounts in quests and in dungeons just aren't all that user friendly. I don't like the controls and it just feels wierd compared to a regular mount to me. I could be completely off base here, but I don't care for the vehicle mounts Bliz has created. I suppose now that I have completed Oculus, I would do it again maybe as a random, but never as a dungeon I've selected. It still sucks.

I don't really know what you could do to make that dungeon better for the mass majority that still apparently hates the living hell out of that instance. I say make Cataclysm destroy it entirely and replace with something more linear. We like linear!

I can see some long term effects from doing strictly dungeons. Some of the things I noticed is that you miss out on much of the learning of the game. By learning, I mean that there is not an abundant supply of everything you might need for crafting, and there are also no flight path teachings. You build a character with nice gear, you are left with a stupid toon that can't make any real money and can't travel. Fortunately, I have the knowlege of where to train for most of the professions and I know how to walk or ride to just about anywhere, so I am sure I will have more on that subject as we get further along with my lowbies.

Fighting in Pugs seems to be the latest fad. Almost twice a day, there will be a kick for someone being a general "ass" to the rest or some of the group. It is all about who is in charge. Some people like to kick for different reasons. I remember one this morning where one DPS guy, who was obviously way over geared was talking mean to the Tank guy. The DPS guy was pulling about 4,000 while the rest of us are about 2,200 or a bit higher. Apparently the Tank was feeling less then loved and left the group. The DPS guy decided to tell announce to the rest of us that our server was "bad". I am not sure what he meant by this, but the next thing that happened was a vote to kick the DPS guy. I wasn't sure exactly what he had done, but then I realized the other 3 people in group with me were in fact from the same server as my own.

The leader of the group said he was being too insulting and that he should keep his server comments to him self. I was thinking this was a bit touchy, but okay, he was being kind of a pain for a DPS. I always think of DPS as just going along for the ride, but apparently this guy wanted to be in charge. Maybe he should be a tank?

The bickering is just out of hand sometimes. I like the groups where no one says anything and we just go through the dungeon and get it done. Sometimes, two or three people will start arguing about how this way is better, or that way. Arguements about peoples spec choices, DPS, gear, what you can need on and a multitude of meaningless chatter that just makes me want to crawl under a rock and die. I think there should be more in the way of Dungeon Etiquette training in game. Somehow explain to dungeon goers that if you are a jackass, you might just get kicked.

Now, sometimes, you might get kicked for just not doing your job. Mostly the healers and tanks get ridiculed for their lack of keeping things moving along. This is something that can also be taught. Not everyone has the "talent" for being a tank or a healer. You have to watch a lot of stuff, and pay attention to things the rest of us are oblivious to. We DPS just want the tank to run in there, and put them all in a nice tidy pile so we can blast all of them at once by any means possible. The healer just needs to keep that guy alive long enough for us to finish dumping all of our mana on them. If the tank fails to keep aggro on a group, it is a nightmare and if the healer fails to notice the entire party's health or lets the tank die, then death for the rest of us is eminent.

I have a lot of respect for the good tanks and healers out there. I am glad I don't have to do either job. I am playing around with some level 15 tanks and healer toons, but I don't know that I will ever be that guy who will take on those roles.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the Culling of Stratholme instance. Would someone PLEASE put a fast forward on that instance? OMG, it is like watching grass grow after the 3rd time. Fix Pls, Kthx!

Tobold had mentioned somewhere in this lengthy blog post that Bliz needs to make 10 and 25 man Pugs use the same type of functionality as the Dungeon Finder. I agree that this needs to happen, but I am not sure how well they will work out. Finding a 5 man can be stressful at times, but trying to keep 10 or 25 people from "bailing" I think is a pretty tough task. I used to run the dungeon after winning the Wintergrasp battles, and the failure rate was very high. I don't imagine if we made IceCrown Citadel a place with easy Pugs, that it would be much different.


Last but not least, we reveal the new Mydnightstar. Her name adjusted down to Myd, and she has a much nicer look. I would love to see WoW revamp the whole character creation process to something a bit more like AION. The choices are just too limited in WoW. Everyone looks about the same. I am not saying AION's creator is perfect, but it has a heck of a lot more versatility and you can really make exactly what you want.

Anyway, Myd got her Bronze Drake this morning, and her DPS is frequently over 3,000 now. I guess I that people take some things for granted. They say, you can do something wearing a specific armor or have a specific weapon, but they didn't mention that if you also have DPS trinkets with over 450-600 spell power, and get everything on your person ENCHANTED, then your DPS will skyrocket. I've got tanks asking me to tone it down a bit because they can't keep aggro. WTH?

And on that note, I will leave you with a couple of nice screens of my flying adventures...




That's all I got...