I don't want to hear it.

So, I have one extra thought related to the previous post.  I don't want to hear anyone say that Blizzard doesn't listen to their customers, or any "Blizzard doesn't care about their customers" remarks.

Here is the evidence that Blizz does pay attention to what we say.  Pretty much everyone hated the real name forum thing, so they decided to make a change so that real names are not required for forum use.

Good Game Blizzard.

Sorry about the small posts recently, but I have been pretty busy IRL lately.  Hopefully, I will throw up a priest related post soon. :)

RealID and the forums...SIKE!

Breaking News!

Nethaera on Regarding real names in forums (Source)

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that

Every Voice Matters, (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html)and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime

CEO & Cofounder

Blizzard Entertainment

So, it seems reason has prevailed. The WoW forums are no longer going to require you to display your real name.

All I can say is . . . GOOD.

Please disregard my previous comments, as they no longer apply. :)

RealID and the forums + a new addition to the family!

Seems like eveyone is talking about this nowadays, so I give you my thoughts.

This is a BAD idea.

I don't post to the official forums often, because the ratio of good, insightful posts to shitty, trollish posts is pretty bad.  However, I do know, that if this goes live, then I will definitely NOT be posting to the forums at all.  The idea that I have to give out my real name to 11 million potential viewers is pretty terrifying.  Now, I am not worried about anyone cyber-stalking me.  Though, I do worry about my wife and other friends be stalked.  The bigger concern to me is the possible repercussions to my future employment opportunities.  We all know that employers do facebook, myspace, twitter, and web searches on  potential employees.  If your real name is attached to a forum post, then it will show up in a google search of your name.  

So, to clarify, if you are applying for a new job, and you posted with your RealID, then your prospective employer will KNOW that you play WoW.

Many people, myself included, like to keep their real life and their game life separate.  You spend time with your family and friends outside of the game, and you spend time with your WoW friends and family inside the game.  I have lots people who I would consider friends in WoW, whom I do not know IRL.  I won't RealID friend them.  So far, I have only added two RealID friends (and one of them is my wife).  I can really only think of about three more people I would consider adding.

I think the think that really gets my goat (so to speak), is the fact that when RealID was first introduced, it was touted as "optional".  You didn't have to participate, but could if you were so inclined.  Now, if you want to post in the Technical Support or Customer Support forums, you MUST reveal your real name to the world.  Even if you call Blizzard for tech support, more often than not, they direct you to the tech support forums.

*On a happier note*

The wife and I got a new dog over the holiday weekend.  He is a 3 month old chocolate lab named . . . Leroy.  We got him so that Tika (our 6 year old Malamute/Pyrenees mix) will have a playmate/companion for when we are gone all day.

Also, I would like to take this time to introduce Wisdom, my priest.  I got to take him into ICC last night (with a 4k gear score) and he scored a new belt and his rep ring, plus lots of frost badges.  He has a long way to go, but I really enjoy playing with the priest.  So, I may make some posts about the priest form time to time, at least until Cata comes out.

That is, if the RealID changes to the forums don't drive me away from the game altogether.

Making progress

Despite horrible attendance issues, and the release of Ruby Sanctum, we are still working on getting our 25-man Lich King kill.  The majority of the guild has gotten the kill on 10-man, but we are primarily a 25-man guild, so the 25-man kill is important to us.

To me, Lich King is a great fight, where, regardless of gear (or ICC buff), you have to master the mechanics of the fight to beat it.  You can't just power your way through it.  Which is why we are having such a hard time with it, I suppose.  Nerd Rage may not be the best guild on our server, but we DO have the best DPS on our server.  That is one place where we excel.  Take last night for example.  In our many tries against LK last night, we routinely had 6-8 players over the 10k DPS mark.  We can almost blow through phase1 only getting one Shambling (...almost...).  

Despite a freak wipe one Phase1 once, we really do have that phase down and clean.  The first transition is getting cleaner just about every time we do it as well.

Now, Phase2.  That is where the test is.  The second set of Valks, immediately followed by the Defile is rough.  But even that is getting better (if only we could get people to stop dropping Defiles in the middle of the platform).

The big news, though, is that we finally pushed LK into the second transition on 25-man.  Last night was the first time that we got through Phase2.

There is definitely some progress being made.  I truly feel like we are only a few more pulls from a kill.

 

This just in...

Extended downtime sucks!  No raid last night, because Eitrigg wasn't up at 7:30PM.  Or 8:00PM.  Or 8:30PM.

I understand the need for downtime, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when it happens.

 

The Kingslayer!

It has been a while since I posted (mostly because I can't post at work anymore), but I hope to start making more regular posts.

Finally!  After battling this boss for months.  After battling attendance issues.  After all of the people unable to figure out Defiles.

I am finally Gathorc the Kingslayer.

So what if I have only killed him on 10-man at this point . . . I killed that bastard!

My expansion is now complete.  Not that I am planning on quitting until the x-pac.  I will still play, and raid, every week.  We got hardmodes to work on, and I just LOVE raiding.

What 15% will do for ya

Monday night, we have our “last chance” ICC 10 that one of our healers runs every week for people who have not gotten around to doing an ICC 10 earlier in the week. I was slated to go as DPS, as by the time I signed up, there were already 3 other tanks signed up.

“Great”, I thought, “I could use some time on the ‘ole 2-hander”

You know, I was really looking forward to working on my DPS chops, because I have problems pulling the numbers I should considering my gear level. My Ret set has a 5520 GearScore, and I average about the same in DPS.

So raid time comes and goes, and only ONE of the three signed-up tanks is even online. 30 minutes later, I am changing specs and putting my EH set of gear on.

Ah, the life of a tank.

It is now getting close to one hour after scheduled raid start, so we start pulling trash with only nine in raid. No biggie, we are just gonna clear some trash while we wait for more people to logon. With a raid of 3-4 mains, and the rest alts, we commence to one shot Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Gunship, and Saurfang. Not a bad start.

Then our 10th (which is also an alt) logs on.

Next up, Plague wing. One shot all three of those bosses. We are on a roll! Then, we go to do Dreamwalker while we have the heals (you never know when someone will have to logoff, you know). Gravy. Then, the RL announces that we are gonna go ahead and head to Sindragosa. Another one-shot.

At this point we have cleared the first four bosses, Plague, and Frostwing without a single wipe in about 2 hours and 20 minutes. So we head over to the Blood wing, and Blood Queen is the weekly. As a side note, in our 25s, every time Blood Queen is the weekly, we wipe on Blood Princes. We can’t explain it. Any other time, we can one-shot Princes without issue, but if Blood Queen is the daily, we wipe every time. It’s some kind of mental block.

Anyway, so we get the weekly, and head in. Clear the trash without too many problems. Then we commence to one-shot Princes. I got to dps this fight as you don’t need two physical tanks on 10-man. So, curse broken, we move up the ramp to start on the trash leading to BQL and, BAM, wipe. Our first wipe of the night is on a trash pack.

Figures.

So we then down BQL without too much of a problem. Now it is 11:40PM and raid is scheduled to go until 12 midnight. So there is only one thing lift to do. Let’s go have a look at Lich King. Now, this is not the first time I have pull the Lich King, but it is the first time I have done it on 10-man.
So we pull it, get through phase 1, first transition, and into phase 2 before we wipe to defile.

Not too bad for a couple of mains, and a bunch of alts just looking to farm a few badges.