Young Welsh player achieves Stood in the Fire every night

Ten-year-old Connor of Wrexham, Wales, has adored World of Warcraft ever since he began watching his mother Emma play during The Burning Crusade. Today, Connor plays a worgen frost mage and has even raided the first three bosses of the Terrace of Endless Spring with his mom's guild. "We have always encouraged him because it helps with his literacy skills," she says.

So when it came time to find out Connor what he wanted on his bedroom wall when the family moved to a new home, the young fan was adamant: Deathwing, and plenty of it. Thanks to the talents of family friend and local artist Rachel West (more of her other art at faceART), that's exactly what Connor got.

"He loves his pet battles and enjoys looking at older raid content," Emma reports. "All the people in the guild are lovely with him and have helped various times so he can see content of the game." Still, his family seems content to let him get Stood in the Fire every night when he goes to bed ... That's one boy you can truly describe with a "well done, young man, well done." Tags: Deathwing-art, featured, wall-mural, wow-art, wow-artwork, wow-crafts, wow-fan, wow-fan-art, wow-fan-made, wow-fan-made-art, wow-fan-made-artwork, wow-fans, WoW-wall-mural

Filed under: Arts and Crafts

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Will the new LoTRO Player Council work?

If you hadn’t heard, LoTRO’s developers Turbine [are imitating EVE Online](https://www.lotro.com/playercouncil), and adding a new Player Council to give the developers direct feedback on improvements.

But will it work? Is the devil in the details? Will players be able to talk to the developers often enough and early enough to make a difference?

Veteran LoTRO blogger Doc Holliday took a look at the new proposals, and comes up with some very interesting points:

> “On the positive side, there’s quite a bit of detail to the makeup and roles of the council. Also the timing seems good as they’ll be able to interact with the team pre-alpha which should be early enough to actually make changes. It also seems like the council will more or less be the funnel for the community to really focus attention to the areas Turbine needs to pay attention to. The size of the council (30 to 50 members) should certainly be good enough to get a good cross section of the community and also not overly task any single member.

> However, I think the biggest issue will be the lack of feedback from the Council to the community. Again, this is another NDA protected avenue such that even though we’ll know who’s in the council, we still won’t be able to get an idea of what the council is actually doing.”

Read [My Hopes For The New Turbine Player Council](http://docholidaymmo.com/2013/03/22/my-hopes-for-the-new-turbine-player-council/)

Tagged as: player council

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: Lord Of The Rings Online

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Will 7 fresh days draw an old player back to Azeroth?

He thought he got out. But Blizzard might just have sucked him back in.

Yes, The Ancient Gaming Noob has once again returned to Azeroth’s increasingly blocky but still comforting shores, courtesy of Blizzard’s free 7-day re-trial offer. (The same one, I might note, that they keep offering me – someone who still has a subscription. But I digress.)

And it was good! He was taken in again by the quest design, by the slick UI, by the familiarity. But will Azeroth succeed in reclaiming another blogger?

> At the rebel camp I was greeted with several familiar quests. If Red Ridge had been almost completely redone, then it looked like Northern Stranglethorn had retained a large number of its old stable of quests. There was the one for the jungle remedy and for finding documents in the Kurzen camp along with the pointer quest to the Nesingwary campsite. I started filling up my quest log, then ran along to add in the expected hunting quests from the Nesingwary expedition.

> And I got what I expected. There was a quest for croc skins along with the panther, tiger, raptor (10 each please) hunting quests. The first real surprise was the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest. Once a wonder in its inventory clogging ability, it now needs just one drop. It appears that only page 14 is still missing from the book, and it showed up with my first kill.

Read [The Seductive Comfort Of Azeroth](http://tagn.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/the-seductive-comfort-of-azeroth/)

Tagged as: mists of pandaria, returns

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: World of Warcraft

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A Massive, Fascinating MMO Player Survey

Want something seriously meaty, research-based, insightful, and debate-starting? Then you’re in the right place today.

Rowan Blaze conducted a huge survey of MMORPG gamers in September last year, and it has taken him this long to write up all his results. But now he’s done so, the results are massive, fascinating and sometimes unexpected:

“Another perennially hot topic you may recall from this summer is the issue of, shall we say, inappropriate costuming for female characters in our various games. I saw more and more complaints about the dearth of body-type and armor-coverage options as the year went on. People don’t all want their avatars to run around as if they’re part of a Frazetta painting. I myself am of two minds here. There are times when I am perfectly OK with a skimpy costume on an attractive female computer generated model. However, I also find that sometimes the choices are ridiculous. Take for instance, the high-level female human cultural medium (and light) armor in GW2. I find myself clothing my females in “practical” garb, unlike some people.

In asking the following question, I wanted to find out how people feel about about how gender/sex is portrayed in the games they play. I wasn’t concerned about non-gender costume issues like oversize shoulder pads or unrealistically huge swords.”

Read the rest of the article here

Tagged as: survey

If you enjoyed this article, check out our other posts from these categories: General MMO Interest

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Where Are They Now? 2012 personalities, including the blind player and his 'guide dog'

At last, our look back at five years of WoW personality interviews rolls around to the duo everyone's been asking about: Hexu and Davidian, the British soldier blinded in Iraq and his redoubtable "guide dog" guildmate who steered him through full participation in current raid content. Their story exploded across the internet after we interviewed Davidian here on WoW Insider, and Blizzard recognized the dynamic duo with in-game helms with flavor text alluding to their inspiring bond of friendship.

Hexu and Davidian are both still playing World of Warcraft -- but the duo is together no more. As of the new year, the ever-energetic Hexu has been raiding on a new rogue, Dirtypawz, in Unqualified on Stormrage (EU). "I know!" he replies to my unspoken exclamation of surprise and sadness. "It was just that people were only raid logging, and it got boring -- but it was all amicable and cool. I still speak to people in Die Safe. I just wanted to do more than raid three nights a week." Hexu/Dirtypawz says a "very nice bloke" named Vatic is serving as his current raiding "guide dog" helper. "The people in the guild are all nice people," he adds, "and there [are] always things going on."

We'll visit with Hexu/Dirtypawz next month about how he's settling in and dig into his tips for the many sight-disabled players who've written to us during the past year trying to reach him for advice.

Meanwhile, Davidian reports that the year since we interviewed him has been packed with recognition and encouragement. "The publicity was just unreal," he says. "Even to this day, I get people coming to our server just to say how much the story inspired them and restored there faith in the gaming community. The biggest thing of all, though, was the fact that it made its way to Blizzard, and myself and Ben got signed copies of the collectors edition of Cataclysm signed by at least 50 members of the Blizzard team, and [we] received in-game pets also. Then to top it off, having in-game items with our names on them was just outstanding -- I mean, to be immortal in a game that we love to play is just, well words couldn't possibly describe it."

All good people connecting to play a game that's close to our hearts ... Keep reading for more updates about people who love World of Warcraft, from our interviews during 2012.

Click the bold, linked introductory text of each paragraph to read the original interview with these WoW personalities.

Booming support for autism research Support from WoW players helped nudge an autism research project from well-known druid blogger Lissanna (aka autism researcher Dr. Elisabeth Whyte) over $5,000. "We will be working hard at getting this project moving next semester," she notes. "I am currently working hard at writing grants to fund the project long-term. I am always truly amazed by the generosity and awesomeness of the WoW community." Follow Lissanna at Restokin and the Team Waffle podcast.

Sequel in the works We liked what Rachel Gold, author of a YA novel about a WoW-playing transgender teen, had to say so much that we invited her back to talk about transgender issues as a guest Drama Mama. She did a fantastic job, and we can't wait to read more from her, including the upcoming sequel to Being Emily. Rachel's also just signed a deal for a romantic paranormal/urban fantasy novel to come out in 2013, featuring demons (some of them, good guys) and witches fighting for power in modern San Francisco.

Putting the "war" in Warcraft The battle between the Horde and the Alliance continues on the shoulders of world PvP advocate Gug. "Gug has been busy," reports the indefatigable orc, "assassinating the Alliance leaders, camping Stormwind, fighting in the Krasarang Wilds, slaughtering Alliance on all levels... But the real focus I'm ashamed to admit has been Pet Battles. Still convinced these addictive things were secretly created to keep Gug's axe from hewing Alliance skulls. Singing Cricket, Gug is coming for you!" Find Gug at Horde Strike Force.

WoW Insider's published authors WoW Insider's published authors keep turning out interesting reads. Scott Andrews is doing heroic raiding with his guild on his feral druid and working on an update of The Guild Leader's Handbook, as well as working on a science fiction novel and co-leading two sci-fi/fantasy workshops in the Philadelphia area. Matt Rossi has switched back to a DPS orc in game; outside the game, he's putting together a third collection for publication and pounding away at three novels in progress. Find Matt at Once I Noticed I Was On Fire I Decided to Relax and Enjoy the Fall, and check out Bottled Demon for a cool read.

Update on the updater Predictable, Wowhead's Perculia has stayed busy making updates on patch 5.1 and now patch 5.2 content. "Our biggest feature was integrating Item Upgrades into the site, including the popular Item Comparison tool," she says, "and I'm particularly proud of our Brawler's Guild and 5.1 Battle Pet guides." Follow Perculia on Twitter at @perculia.

How to Priest Veiled of HowToPriest.com has moved to a new guild with a lighter raiding schedule. "Running HowToPriest.com is time consuming," she explains, "and the three-day schedule in my new guild accommodates that nicely. ... Currently we are working on a donor rank for the site that will have a few perks. February will be our two-year anniversary, as well, so we are going to be doing some giveaways for that." Find Veiled at HowToPriest.com and @HowToPriest on Twitter.

Punting it back Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe? "Currently rabble-rousing and ruffling feathers everywhere," writes the outspoken social advocate. Find Chris at @ChrisWarcraft.

The newlyweds After marrying in a WoW-themed wedding during 2012, WoW player Amanda has parted ways with her new husband -- but only in game. "My husband is now playing Eve since he wasn't enjoying the expansion," she explains. "He is busy being a pirate and blowing up stuff in space and I am busy being overwhelmed with how much there is to do in Mists." But guess what else they've been up to? "A few days after your article was posted about our wedding," she writes, "we found out that I am pregnant with our first. We will be welcoming our new little addition in the beginning of May. So our gears are changing to prepare and get ready for the new addition to our family." Find Amanda at Deviant Art.

Queuing up Blizzard's new, firmer stance on premade battleground groups has pushed changes on premade team organizers like Rathamus. "The Rath Strat AV's (and all 40-man BG premades) have been a little more difficult to assemble due to the removal of some of the automation that made it easier to queue larger groups, and I seldom run them unless there is interest," he reports. "I have been very busy maintaining the World of Warcraft Public Vent server, which is nearing its sixth year online supporting raiders, PUGs, arena teams, [and] premades [for both] Horde and Alliance. I have also joined forces with Tiny, who created the mesh networking premade/LFM addon called oQueue, which is taking the premade community by storm and helping to create, organize, support, and maintain its communications needs."

MVP Alona MVP Alona is pushing her way through pet battle achievements, still helping others get into the game she loves. Find her at Corgi Island.

Home's where the boom is Pathosìs of realm-hopping (and now happily settled) Bless the Martyr has switched mains to a resto/boomkin druid. "Bless the Martyr is plugging away at heroic bosses," she reports, "and we're actually doing considerably well given half our raiders being in the Northeast when Sandy hit. Thankfully they were all okay."

Keeping his feet on the ground Gilran and his all-dwarf guild are continuing their explorations in Pandaria. "I am mostly roleplaying with some PvP now and then," he notes. "I have lost my interest in raiding in the early Cataclysm; never got back to it ever since. As for PvP, I mostly do the WPvP rather than battlegrounds and arenas."

All dressed up The amazing WoW dress collection of Asukachan (now Asuka) is going strong. "Pandaria is offering a lot of exotic Asian designs, which I am eager to get my troll paws on," he writes. "So far, I've added five new dresses to the collection." Asuka will also be emceeing the grand finals of the University Star League Starcraft Tournament in Sweden.

No stress Although Cantafrond has moved on from Swords for Everyone, the guild for players with social anxieties, he say the guild is still active and recruiting. "In game, I've been responsible for a horrifying number of (usually) accidental deaths as I level my disc priest to 90," he writes. "Outside of WoW, I'm in the process of starting up a blog to discuss and explore the social aspects of online gaming and interaction, specifically in the realm of MMOs. We'll also be touching on other issues like mental health and social anxiety and their relation to video games and gaming in general." Find him on Twitter at @cantafrond.

Booking it Aussie librarian Ellen Forsyth hasn't been playing WoW lately because she's been in Timor Leste for three months, where she says the internet connection isn't fast enough for online games. "It is not fast enough for quite a few other things as well," she notes wryly, "but it works well for email, which is great. I am looking forward to playing WoW again." In-game talks for librarians will begin later this spring with "some exciting people who are doing research in WoW." Find Ellen on Twitter at @EllenForsyth.

Anytime, anywhere Anytime Anywhere Messenger Service has been busy since Mists opened. "We've gotten new recruits, been threatened with arrest for interfering with the war and [are] busy exploring Pandaria," says GM Derscha Kettlebomb. "We've moved to a new headquarters in Booty Bay." The holiday season was especially busy, as AAMS sponsored a cross-faction Secret Santa program for the realm. Find the cross-faction messengers at AAMS.

Inside The Insiders WoW Insider's meet-and-greet guild, The Insiders on Zangarmarsh (US-Horde), run weekly fun runs of previous raid tiers plus LFRs for Mists raids. "We are also planning to start normal mode MoP raiding after the holidays," announces Kijani. "We still have an open door policy, so if anyone wishes to join The Insiders, all they need to do is ask. The same goes for raiding with us; the only thing that will prevent us from taking someone to a raid is game limitations -- if you can get in the door, you can come play." The Insiders runs guild dungeon groups throughout the week plus guild LFRs on Saturday for anyone who's interested in getting gear and learning fights without "funsuckers." Find Kijani on Twitter at @edgesumariajr.

Over the edge Charitable high-rise rapeller McChoppy is still finding time for WoW while graduating from college, starting a job search, continuing to work on a children's book about a particularly pompous moose, spending time with his daughter and baby boy -- and signing up to go Over the Edge again in June 2013. "Time for another falling achievement!" he exclaims.

The biggest "little" guild "After your article broke, gnomes from all over the World of Warcraft traveled to Wyrmrest Accord to join our ranks," reports the all-gnome Gnomeregan Forever's GM Forbidra. "In fact, we received another surge of applicants this week after Crithto posted a nice compliment in one of our threads. We are now over 250 gnomes strong and thriving!" For Gnomeregan!

Hodor! "I've been playing WoW a decent amount since MoP," reported Game of Thrones actor Kristian Nairn before the holidays. "I'm very extremely impressed with the expansion so far, although I have yet to get into the daily grind. Still as the stage of leveling my toon and QQing when I get to 90 in BGs because I have no gear, then leveling something else. Having been to and met a lot of the people behind the game when I made it to Blizzard last year (shout-out to Crithto <3). Saw some amazing things, and it made me very excited for the future of the game, meeting such talented and passionate people." Kristian wrapped filming for Season 3 of Game of Thrones last year; look for him soon in an episode of BBC America's Ripper Street.

Brain power North Carolina State University's Dr. Jason Allaire is currently using StarCraft 2 to develop maps that are designed to assess and improve cognitive functioning in people of all ages. "We are also developing a new measure that is designed to assess MMO, FPS, and RTS knowledge," he says. Check out Dr. Allaire's research at Gains Through Gaming.

Still leveling "After 15 Minutes of Fame, we got a hell lot of new players joining our guild, trying to find what they couldn't before!" wrote Colosia, GM of The Leveling Agony of Xavius (EU-Horde). "We deeply appreciate each of them and we hope we have them for a long, long time. And we even started raiding! We thought why let people that love us leave us for raiding when we can just expand our activities and start doing it? We have stable group, full guild of happy faces and social chats so much that you can't read them all!" The guild also created a sister guild in Guild Wars 2. Join the fun on Facebook or at The Leveling Agony.

A beastly guild The all-druid guild Druids of the Beast is pushing into Mogu'Shan Vaults on beast power to push for the timed challenge modes, reports the guild's Monsterbaby. "[They] have proven to be very tricky, being only druids, due to the limitations of buffs and cooldowns," she notes. "Overall, we find the expansion very nice for druids, with the new extended talent trees and abilities and balanced damage, despite [missing] out a lot without other class buffs."

A sweet whiff of yesterday Nostalgia-minded movie-makers Order of Watchers are more active than ever, reports the guild's Larenon. "Our raid and PvP group is also making nice progress in our own pace, so I can say all is well here, and Mists of Pandaria is the best thing that has happened to WoW in a long time," he says. "As for new guild movies, we are not making a big one right now, but around Christmas, there just might be a short movie, which we shot during our seventh birthday this August." Keep your eyes on the guild's website at Order of Watchers.

The craft of crafting Master craftsman Daen of Daen's Crafting Emporium is not only still providing some of the best crafting service in Azeroth, but he says he fully intends to keep running the emporium until the game itself ends -- "just so everyone knows." Find out what Daen can craft for you at Daen's Crafting Emporium.

Working IRL After being featured here, Sevrin's movie on WoW addiction, IRL, managed to reach more than 1 million viewers worldwide and earning him recognition at film festivals and on TV, radio, and websites. "Also I have since graduated from university (with quite a good degree)," he adds, "which is in stark contrast to my WoW-playing days, where I was almost thrown out of university! I play very casually now and log on occasionally, as I am busy working on more films (also some WoW machinima stuff for the future)." Find him on YouTube (IRL), at AnthonyRosner.com, and on Twitter at @antronoid.

70-year-old raid GM keeps pushing 25s 70-year-old raider and GM Marthazon has stayed busy with ongoing recruiting for Spartans, now one of only about three guilds on her realm still focused on 25-man raids. She was floored by the international media attention after our interview. "The publicity was amazing from your article -- you have a very large following," she writes. "I heard from so many players -- and it was wonderful to find that being older and playing WoW is not as rare as might be thought. One of the more amusing things to have come from the publicity was a phone interview with a Chinese newspaper. The reporter spoke some English, while my Chinese was limited to weh (I'm hoping the meaning was "hello"). We talked as best we could."

A stealthy success It's been an up and down year for the all-rogue RP/PvP guild Vile Thorn of Defias Brotherhood (EU). "We did suffer from the pre-MoP lull when activity on the server and in RP circles died," says GM Arli. "Unfortunately, the current state of rogues in PvP means many of our members get to 90 and then take a break out of pure frustration. We are RP/PvP, but without the PvP, we lose half of what makes us Vile Thorn. So we are concentrating a bit more on the roleplay side of things and still sticking to our weekly IC guild meet and RP-themed event." Rogues interested in the group should stop by Vile Thorn.

Volunteering in-game and out The charity-focused members of The Bearers of Light on Moon Guard (US-Alliance) celebrated their fifth anniversary in April with a realm-wide party. During their Random Acts of Kindness Month, they promoted daily in-game generosity along with real-world service such as volunteering in soup kitchens and community fundraisers. They capped the month with an adoption and donation to Heifer International, an organization that provides farm animals to families in parts of the world that need them. Find the good-hearted guildies at The Bearers of Light.

Five years of WoW personalities

Where are they now? Catch up with five years' worth of the people we've interviewed in 15 Minutes of Fame.

Where Are They Now? 2008-2009
Where Are They Now? 2010-2011
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with Game of Thrones' Hodor (Kristian Nairn) ... a blind ex-serviceman and the guildmates who keep him raiding as a regular ... and a 70-year-old grandma who tops her raid's DPS charts as its legendary-wielding GM. Send your nominations to lisa@wowinsider.com. Tags: all-druid, all-druid-guild, all-dwarf, all-gnome-guild, all-gnomes, all-rogue, all-rogue-guild, alona, anytime-anywhere-messenger-service, asuka, autism, being-emily, bless-the-martyr, blind, chris-kluwe, cross-faction-trading, daen, daens-crafting-emporium, davidian, dirtypawz, dress-collection, ellen-forsyth, facebookfeed, featured, gilran, gug, guide-dog, guide-dog-player, hexu, hodor, how-to-priest, howtopriest, howtopriest.com, IRL, irl-movie, jason-allaire, kijani, kristian-nairn, librarian, librarians, lissanna, marthazon, matt-rossi, mcchoppy, order-of-watchers, over-the-edge, pathosis, perculia, premades, rachel-gold, raiding-granny, rathamus, research, restokin, scott-andrews, sevrin, social-anxiety, swords-for-everyone, the-insiders, the-leveling-agony, transgender, volunteering, wedding, world-of-warcraft-interviews, world-pvp, wow-community, wow-interviews, wow-people, wow-personalities, wow-themed, wow-wedding

Filed under: Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame

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A bunch of questions from a vet player coming back after years of inactivity

Jerfy, on 11 January 2013 - 01:18 AM, said:

Hey there!

Welcome to the forums, and welcome to Mists of Pandaria!

The answer to a lot of these questions is "it doesn't really matter." Why so? Because in Cataclysm (somewhat) and especially in Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has been doing an increasingly good job at balancing classes and specs, at least in PvE. This means that there are very few, if any classes or specs left that just cannot compete. I realize that this isn't a very satisfactory answer, so...

For tanks, they're all good right now! All tanks now rely on "active mitigation" to survive, and are no longer punching bags with 3-minute defensive cooldowns. Some take the damage better than others, though, and a Warrior or Paladin is going to take smoother and more controlled damage than a Death Knight, which still relies heavily on self-healing and proper timing of Death Strike to stay alive.

For healers, again, they are all good right now. There is always a bit of variation in performance, determined by the current state of the content/gearing, etc, but I really can't say that there is a healing class that outshines the others, or one that lags behind.

For DPS, yet again, things are pretty well balanced. I'd say that melee DPS have an advantage at the moment, and will be doing overall more DPS than most ranged, but the difference is minor, and it depends a lot on the fight. And, it is *still* the case that melee DPS have a lot to put up with in terms of avoiding things in the boss's proximity, and that they're more prone to dying to all manner of things, and so on. The usual problems that melee DPS faced still exist, so keep that in mind.

Choosing a race does matter, in the sense that some races have bonuses that are considerably better for raiding than others. For example, as a physical DPS player on Horde, you're almost always going to get the best results by being an Orc or a Troll, and not a Blood Elf. For Alliance, the bonuses are a bit more even, so as long as you aren't a Worgen or a Night Elf, then you're probably getting good benefit for your class/spec. You really need to look at it in terms of race/class combinations, though.

For professions, you really just want to have some crafting professions ultimately, unless you enjoy farming materials and selling them (but this isn't really efficient in the least, I would say). Any of the crafting professions should be fine.

In regards to PvP, I really cannot comment I'm afraid.

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What advice do you have for a player just returning to WoW?

Hello there. You probably don't know me because I haven't been around these parts for a while. My name is Fox Van Allen. Normally, I'm the one who writes advice in 1,000 word chunks to help make your game-playing experience better. But today, I'm the one who needs a hand. Care to lend one?

I have a dirty little secret (that's not much of a secret): I haven't played World of Warcraft in quite some time. My characters -- two shadow priests, an elemental shaman, and a boomkin -- are sitting at level 85. None of them have left Stormwind (or Orgrimmar) since MoP launched. My account is a blank slate.

So I'm asking all of you who are enjoying your 104-day head start and all the insight it provides: What should I do first? What are the must-complete quest lines? Should I roll a panda monk and experience the new expansion from the very start, or should I start with the content for my existing level 85 characters? What talents do you love more than any other? And, most importantly: Where all the fun stuffs at?
Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: beginners-guide, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, mists-of-pandaria, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, returning-to-wow, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Rookie, Mists of Pandaria

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Valor points and player choice

I get very frustrated with the valor point system. One of my characters is at the point where the only thing to do with valor points is upgrade gear, while the other struggles to accumulate enough valor to buy anything. Worse, they're on different servers, so I don't even get the buff when I cap valor on my main. Plus, in order to even spend valor, I had to grind a whole bunch of reputations so for a while I had valor and couldn't even spend it.

So it was with interest that I saw this forum thread detailing one player's issues with valor, which were interesting to me precisely because they weren't a problem I was having - instead, the argument seemed to be that the player was wasting effort and doing enough in a week to generate over 2000 valor, but the cap meant that more than half of that weekly play was meaningless. That kind of surprised me, because I only cap valor when I clear all the raid content, but I could see it after thinking about the issue. What was even more interesting to me was the idea presented that the valor cap served as a punitive measure punishing players who were running enough dailies, doing the daily scenario and heroic, and hitting each LFR in a week.

Vaneras responded, and those responses are worth discussing I think.

Vaneras - Why do we get punished for doing our best?The cap should not really be seen as punishment to people for being able to reach the maximum amount of Valor points every week. The idea behind the cap is to give people a choice on how they reach the cap without having them feel obliged to do everything.

Valor points should also not be considered the primary way of gearing your character. The idea behind Valor in MoP is for them to be a supplement to the gearing process. i.e. you gear up normally through dungeons and raids. As it is normal to have streaks of bad luck, and thus having weeks when you are obtaining no or only few upgrades, you can get a little gear on the side by using Valor points and by doing a little crafting/trading.

On the one hand, I am aware of the pressures to gear up as fast as possible that have in the past led people to run as many dungeons as they could as fast as they could - I remember the Wrath of the Lich King dungeon gorges I ended up running to gear up a friend faster. One day I think I ran LFD for ten hours. Very few activities keep their luster after being overindulged in to that degree, and tanking Halls of Reflection sure as heck isn't one of them. And I do understand that Blizzard very clearly wanted to move away from the idea of gearing your character exclusively, or even primarily, through valor purchases. I even understand why they did this - putting players firmly back on the gear treadmill reintroduces the carrot and stick mentality that keeps people engaged in running dungeons and raids.

The problem I have is that I don't believe the 1000 valor a week/3000 valor total cap is a good number for what Vaneras is saying they want valor to do. Right now, valor points don't feel like they supplement gearing all that much - even on my alt who reached level 90 over a month after Mists dropped, valor purchases haven't done much at all for me. I don't think I've spent any valor yet on him, except to upgrade some items. In short, since it takes over two weeks to buy anything and you're constantly feeling constrained, valor points don't feel good. They're not something you really care if you acquire, you cap them (if you even do) out of a sense of obligation or with the goal of upgrading a piece of gear down the road. In the struggle to make getting gear from dungeons and raids the priority (one that I would argue has been successful) valor points have been thrown under a bus, and I'd argue that was too extreme a reduction in their desirability. I agree that they shouldn't be the primary means to gear up, but neither should they feel burdensome to acquire and use.

That being said, I absolutely do not like this idea that a valor cap is punishing us for doing our best. There's no skill in capping out valor in and of itself. You can cap valor by running all the hard mode raid content, or by judicious running of dailies and scenarios - the skill threshold for capping valor is wildly variant depending on how you choose to pursue that goal. You're not necessarily doing your best to cap valor.

As for the choice of how to use them, Vaneras makes some more points.

Vaneras - Why do we get punished for doing our best?Just as the method of acquiring Valor points is a choice, so it is a choice how you decide to spend your Valor points.

The cap means that you cannot have everything at once, or even very quickly(as that would render the normal gearing process irrelevant), and this means that you will have to prioritise and make a choice when spending your points... one that actually matters. You must choose what is most beneficial to your character - decide if it is better in the long run to upgrade a piece or replace that piece with something else. If you feel the best way to spend your Valor Points is to upgrade your armor, well then that is what you spend your Valor Points on when you are able to do so.

The primary means of acquiring new gear is through defeating content like for an example raids, whereas Valor Points is a supplemental means of getting new gear. For an example, if you have acquired the best possible gear you can get from one tier of content, then you should be well equipped to face the next tier of content above it, which will reward you with even better gear if you succeed. The Valor Points system serves as a supplement to that process, helping you with a new piece of gear or an upgrade here or there, but it is not meant as an alternate gearing process.

There are several reasons behind the Valor cap btw., none of which are to serve as a punishment for people with a lot of time on their hands. Just in case you would like to know the reasons behind the Valor cap, they are as follows:
To make sure that the normal gearing process through facing and defeating different tiers of content is not circumvented or rendered irrelevant.To make your choices matter. We want there to be choice and decision-making involved when building and playing your character.To ensure that as many people as possible can use their time in-game on something they think is fun and that they enjoy doing, and not make people feel like they have to spend massive amounts of time every day just to reach a theoretical maximum weekly limit of Valor Points.
Whether or not the cap is too low is of course a different matter, and this kind of thing is of course something the developers are keeping an eye on continuously as the game evolves and progresses :-)

Before the valor point system existed, people in fact could gear their characters via heroic dungeons (using the then current Emblems of Frost and the LFD tool) in full epic gear in a day, if they were willing to spend the six or seven hours it would take them. I repeatedly helped friends chain run alts through the dungeons that came out with the Fall of the Lich King patch, not because the gear inside them was that great (there were some nice trinkets) but because there was new gear on the Emblem of Frost quartermaster that was as good as ICC-25 gear.

Valor point caps exist because players will consume content like a six year old with an ice cream cake. You'll come back a couple of hours later and the players have dungeon all over their face and are complaining that they feel ooky, and what can you do? You can admonish them not to eat their content so fast, but they're not going to listen - in the end, a point cap system is the best of a series of alternatives that gate players. The intent isn't punitive, but rather the inverse - it exists because some players, if given any possible means to gear faster, will pursue it even while they complain that its very existence forces them to use it. Blizzard's effort here is to ensure that the main reason you run the content is for the direct rewards of that content instead of for the consolation prize - whether or not we agree that they've achieved that, or if they've devalued the consolation prize too greatly in the process, it's not to punish us but rather to address the complaints that we feel forced to do things.

Frankly, I'd argue that with the creation of the gear upgrade system, and the pricing of a full upgrade for an epic item at 1500 valor points (two upgrades at 750 valor apiece) that the weekly cap should have gone up to 1500, just for convenience sake. I think it should be possible to completely upgrade a new item in a week if you're willing to. It would also make valor points feel less irrelevant, since at present they've moved to almost being an inconvenience rather than a consolation prize. But the idea of the valor cap is clearly not to punish us, but to prevent us from punishing ourselves, since we simply refuse to restrain ourselves if given the option. I don't particularly like it, but I understand it.

It's not punishment, it's babysitting.

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: content, forums, ice-cream-cake, valor-cap, valor-points, vaneras

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Mists of Pandaria

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Reforging, itemization, and the player

It's not exactly a secret that I'm terrible at keeping my finger on the pulse of the community. I just sort of wander around with my usual private obsessions, doing what I do, and sometimes I blunder into an emergent discussion like a rhinoceros stumbling into a clearing. Such is the case with the discussion of reforging currently going on. The post I have linked to by Mushan basically highlights the discussion, with some folks arguing that World of Warcraft has gone too far in the direction of gear optimization and too far away from the days when you'd get a drop, know it was better, and put it on. As a result of that argument, some are arguing that reforging should be removed from the game.

I can understand this argument, because if we think about it, reforging was never meant to be what it became. The initial purpose of reforging back when it was first announced was to allow players who got a drop that was otherwise significantly better than what they had, but itemized for a different role (so, as an example, a cloth piece itemized for healing over DPS) to make that drop better for the role they intended to use it for. So if your tankadin got a pair of plate lets with crit and expertise on them, he or she could swap some of the crit to a stat more useful for tanking. However, players being what they are, they immediately grasped that reforging also allowed them to trade away stats that were less effective on gear for stats that were more effective. Reforging allowed players to customize their hit and expertise in ways that had never been accessible before, allowed for dump stats to be dumped with even more efficiency than before - it was the absolute biggest change to the game in years, and ended up the largest single legacy of Cataclysm.

Mushan's arguments about removing the process of reforging are good, and I'm not going to belabor them here - instead, what I'm going to do is discuss my own personal feelings on reforging, and how it benefits the game.
What reforging does

For starters, reforging allows for classes to wear similar gear yet have different stat priorities without any of those classes being quite as penalized when a piece that doesn't fit their stat priorities drops. Right now, as an example, haste is lackluster at best for warriors, but better for paladins and DK's. Yet these classes overlap their gear, and thanks to reforging, when a piece itemized with strength drops and it has haste on it all three classes can consider that drop. Likewise, DK's don't value crit as much, but they don't have to merely ignore a crit drop, they can still choose to pick that piece up and make it work.

There's always been and will always be classes that wear the same gear, but value different stats on said gear, and reforging works with this process. The synergy of reforging and variant stat priorities is a solid one. Make no mistake - if you took reforging out tomorrow, classes who wanted to perform on the cutting edge of content would still be visiting websites, making best in slot lists, playing with their gemming and enchanting to optimize their characters. All removing reforging would do is make some pieces rise and some fall in terms of where those pieces fell on those BiS lists. Managing hit and expertise caps in particular would become painful at best, because you would still have to play a game of Jenga with your gear, attempting to assemble the right assortment of gear to get your hit and expertise to their soft caps without going over on either stat and wasting itemization. Make no mistake - one of the absolute good results of reforging has been how it has allowed us to reach those caps without having to pass over pieces with other stats on them to do it.

What the benefits are

The loss of reforging would add fuel to arguments already in place over which character should get priority over which drop because 'it's better for me', an argument that reforging didn't do away with, but did make far less compelling.

Reforging's presence in the game hasn't had any negative ramifications in my game. Now, I understand the danger of assuming personal experiences to be universal (I had better, right?) but that doesn't mean personal experience should be entirely discounted, so let's discuss my personal experience here. Reforging has allowed me to do the following:
Create two sets of tanking gear, one optimized for mastery and avoidance, the other for hit and expertise, and those two sets share several pieces of gear.When I switched from DPS to tanking, or tanking to DPS, I could use hit/expertise pieces by regemming/reforging them to suit the new role, getting more use out of gear.Reforging allows me to switch from arms to fury when new gear drops without having to say "Well, I'd like to be arms, but I have way too much/too little of X stat"I've been able to decide how much of certain stats I have, customizing my character. When I want to experiment with haste over mastery I can go to the reforger, change my statistics around, and go hit some dummies and run some dungeons, putting more control of my character into my hands.Who benefits? We benefit.

This is, to my mind, the ultimate positive result of reforging since December of 2010. The ability to change the stats on our gear has put the ability to decide what stats we want to favor more directly into player hands. Yes, in order to use reforging to its fullest we consult sites like Ask Mr. Robot or Wowreforge or use addons like reforgelite. But here's a dirty secret - on my non-raiding alts, I don't use anything. I reforge to get close enough to the hit and expertise caps that I don't see a lot of dodges or misses, go for the biggest DPS or tanking stat necessary for me (since my 90 alts are all warriors atm, it's usually crit or mastery) and then I stop worrying about it. For characters who run scenarious, heroic dungeons and LFR, it's not necessary to spend a lot of time on external sites.

It is my considered opinion that the depth and variety given to us by the reforging process is worth the minimal cost of using secondary help to maximize the benefit of the process considering that the use of those external sites is wholly optional and, for the majority of players, completely unnecessary. You can look at your character pane and see exactly what percentage your stats are at, and what your chances of hitting or missing a mob of up to boss level are. The game already does that for you.

Considering that reforging smooths over the difficulties caused by classes that wear the same gear but value different stats experience, allows us to control what stats we emphasize (which, when you can have different gearing strategies is a good thing), makes suboptimal upgrades better for us, allows us to switch a talent specialization without needing to abandon our current gear for all new pieces, I'd say the minimal and optional inconveniences required to fully utilize the feature are more than compensated for by its benefits. Removing it would be foolish.

Now, if they wanted to incorporate something like reforgelite into the reforge UI, you wouldn't catch me complaining. But scrapping it? No, that would be a bad idea.

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Tags: addon, ask-mr-robot, external-site, reforge, reforgelite, reforging, wowreforge

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria

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