Monday Morning(?) Musings - World of Warcraft - Blizzard Patch 5.5 Raid?

Welcome to Monday Morning Musings, which incidentally does not happen in the mornings, where every week I talk about an opinion piece in the video game world. With Blizzcon and the new World of Warcraft expansion on the horizon there is a lot of expansion ideas going through my mind. So this week we are going to talk about how and why a Patch 5.5 might be implemented.

Siege of Orgrimmar Ending - Much to be Desired

The Siege of Orgrimmar raid is over and the ending leaves something to be desired but then again all ending cinematics generally do except this one more so than others in my opinion. There was an uneasy truce between the Horde and the Alliance as long as the Horde plays nice which will undoubtedly happen with Vol'gin in charge and not Garrosh. So a big part of our game, the war between the Alliance and the Horde has come to an end for the most part. But it also gave absolutely no elide to next expansion. However, we can argue that the ending raid cinematics generally don't.

Where Will We Go?

As the Lore stands right now, primarily from Wrathion's dialogue with players during the Legendary cloak quest line, it seems the Burning Legion is making a bee line for Azeroth but we don't currently know exactly how it's going to work. Is the Burning Legion going to come to Azeroth and we're going to get another Cataclysm like facelift? Or will we go off planet again to fight them? We've had the last three expansions on Azeroth and I personally don't think that Blizzard would Remake Azeroth again after just doing it with Cataclysm.

The other option is that we go to them like we have in the past. But we need a reason to go there. Unlike Pandaria, we can't just have Anduin randomly flying out in space and suddenly captured by Sargerus. This expansion would need actual prelude to make some sense. There are a lot of things going on in Azeroth such as negotiating peace treaties between the Horde and the Alliance, the Horde is rebuilding it's power infustructer and getting rid of all of Garrosh's Kor'Kron guards and reestablishing faith among it's people as well as helping the Pandarens rebuild the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

I personally believe we will go off planet again like we did with Burning Crusade and one of two things will happen. Either we will go to an entirely different planet from Outlands that we haven't visited before. Or we will return to Outlands with a second continent being discovered. With the BoA Weapons that drop from Garrosh on Flexible-Heroic difficulty we can assume that the level cap would be raised to 100 (no confirmation but it makes the most logical sense, I commented on it previously in my Resto Druid Best In Slot Article in the Weapons section) which means adding a few new pieces on the Outlands continent probably won't suffice. Having 10 new levels makes me think that we might go to a new planet but anything is possible. I also think we will get a revamp of the Outlands leveling content a well. After the new interesting Cataclysm leveling content we are thrown back in time to Outlands which every one complains about because the content is so dull. I know that when I start leveling new alts I get stuck around the Outlands area.

Mini Instance v World Event 

There's no denying that we need one of these two things to happen. As stated above it won't be as easy as just sailing into the sky and RANDOMLY BURNING LEGION RETURN OH MY GOD! We need something more than what we got for MoPs release and Blizzard could go about it both ways and to me it will depend on how long they need to release the new expansion because both ideas could work. Siege of Orgrimmar currently has 14 bosses which sounds like a lot but top guilds have been downing the content very quickly (and guilds who generally don't do Heroic Progression have switched to Flex raiding anyway). However, we learned yesterday that Method finally got World First Heroic Garrosh after 600 wipes and having to one heal it. This means we're getting another Heroic Ragnaros situation (who Paragon at the time actually killed in less pulls than that) where the final boss is going to be insanely difficult and most guilds probably won't even kill it. Probably not a good thing to have as your last tier as it makes people more likely to quit due to burn out when they know they're going to have to wait for an expansion anyway.

But that's an entirely separate topic! So we have a long instance that will be cleared quickly but stuck on the last boss for a while. This gives Blizzard some time to release their new expansion but eventually people will want new content even if they haven't finished the current content because they're sick of it. So which way Blizzard goes depends on how long it will take for the expansion to come out when the burn out begins to set in. If they're close to releasing the next expansion then we will probably get a World Event. Something involving the Burning Legion invading on the capital cities and lore leading us to our next destination after we drive them out. If the expansion is a long ways off then they will need to put in a mini instance, similar to Ruby Sanctum, to keep players from burning out on Heroic Garrosh. If this happens we might end up getting both as seen in Wrath of the Lich King where we not only got Ruby Sanctum but we also got the Tripping the Rifts world event. We don't necessarily need both, we just need some Lore reasons behind what we're doing.

I don't think Blizzard necessarily needs to put in a mini-raid to get us to the next expansion. However, a mini raid would be nice if it happened around the same time the item squish occurred so people could get a good representation on what their numbers might look like. It also could be used for transmog over actual gear since releasing a boss right before an expansion isn't going to do much since you're going to be replacing it so quickly anyway. As somebody who loves content, I hope it will be both because more content never hurt anyone. But if I had to go with one or the other I hope it's a world event because I feel like they have more impact in the game than mini instances. People still talk about how awesome the Wrath of the Lich King world event was and that has been 6 years ago now. People can barely remember the name of Helion or Ruby Sanctum. It also didn't help that Blizzard released Ruby Sanctum when 1/3rd of the US servers were down for a 24 hour maintenance for Cataclysm (and my server Garona was one of them at the time). They also have a lot to make up for since the last World Event was undeniably awful. Theramore anyone?

What do you think? Will we get a mini-instance, a world event, both or neither? As always thanks for reading, next week we're continuing on with the WoW Expansion theme and going over what I think the life cycle of the World of Warcraft expansions will be and some of the Lore behind it!

Monday Morning(?) Musings - World of Warcraft - Blizzard Release Theories for the Next Year

Welcome to Monday Morning Musings (which doesn't always happen in the mornings...) where every week I sit down and talk about a discussion topic that involves a lot of theories that may or may not happen. we're continuing on from last weeks discussion about theories on future expansion thoughts with what I think the next year or so has in store for WoW players.

Patch 5.4 - September

Two weeks ago we saw Patch 5.4 the Siege of Orgrimmar drop and many speculate that this is going to be the final patch of this expansion. We didn't have any Heroic Mode only bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar or any real lead in to the next expansion other than what we have from Ra-den and Wrathion. This makes me believe there is a strong possibility that we will have a Ruby Sanctum situation.

Blizzcon - Early November 

We know that we are getting expansion information at Blizzcon this year. Patch 5.4 is out now and if we didn't get an expansion announcement we would either have to go a year with Patch 5.4 (with a 5.5 probably) and either have them announce the expansion outside of Blizzcon (which I don't think they've ever done since Blizzcon started) or wait until Blizzcon '14 to announce it. Not happening, we're getting the next expansion announcement this year.

I believe we will have our second annual pass. The first annual pass worked out really well and if they want to stop the dropping subscribers locking them in again is their best bet if we have another flop like Cataclysm. Cataclysm no doubt screwed over Blizzard big time because it upset pretty much every part of their subscriber base. Unless the next expansion does something really amazing, without another Annual Pass I think that subscriber numbers will continue to decrease. They may continue to decrease anyway but here's hoping we can get back on the rise again!

If they do decide to do another Annual Pass there are a lot of things that they can do to sell it. Hearthstone is really hot right now, everyone wants in. They can give guaranteed access to the Beta and maybe even offer some limited edition cards for when it releases. They can go with the same route they did before and offer automatic beta into the WoW expansion beta. Or they could do something involving Blizzard All-Stars which, if they're going to continue on with doing it, they're going to make an announcement about this year.

Beta Release - Late December/Early January

I feel like it won't be long now before we see a Beta. It'll be about five months of Siege of Orgrimmar which is already being killed much faster than they expected. After 4 months of LFR/Flex and 5 months of Normal/Heroic Raiding even if people aren't finished with it they are going to want something more to look forward too. On top of that, they will need something to combat Wildstar and Elder Scrolls Online. Elder Scrolls Online is coming out December 2013 and with a 2014 release date I think we will see a much more dense beta in the near future.

A beta like they had with MoP will get them a lot of coverage as well as keep players interested if they are able to get in automatically with the Annual Pass (should they decide to do one again).

Patch 6.0 or 5.5 - Late March/Early April

It's still up in the air whether or not we will be getting a Patch 5.5 but I believe either way the same things will be in the patch. Whether there is a raid in the patch or not we are still going to need some time before release of the expansion (just like we always do) to get used to the new changes. As I said above, I will be going more indepth about what I think will be in the patch closer to Blizzcon but with the changes I think will be happening we're definitely going to need at least a month. We're definitely going to be having an item squish and a lot of players are worried about it because we've been so used to big numbers for so long. Giving players enough time to adjust so they know how much their numbers should be in a raid situations is good. Will also need time to recalculate stats like Haste Breakpoints for Resto Druids.

Expansion - Late May/June

A lot of people think this is a little two fast but by the time June roles around this will be 9 months. This is what happened with Dragon Soul and we all know how that turned out. They cannot make this mistake again. Even with 14 bosses they are dropping very quickly even for the non-hardcore guilds. On top of this, a lot of the guilds that weren't able to clear Normal Modes previously will be switching to Flex raids and downing content a lot faster than before. They need to get the content out if they're going more casual friendly. 9 months without content will not fly anymore if they're going farther and farther away from the Vanilla model.

This is the best time of year for a Blizzard fan because this is on the eve of when all of the information starts flowing and I cannot wait to speculate about it all! Next week, we will be going more in depth about why I think we need a Patch 5.5 and what it might contain!

Monday Morning Musings - World of Warcraft - Ra-den Lore, Theories and Future Expansion Possibilities

Welcome to the first edition of Monday Morning Musings. Every morning when the dew is collecting on the trees I sit down and talk about an opinion topic about one of many opinion pieces that come to mind during my time in the virtual world. This week we're going to cover some lore in World of Warcraft that I feel went kind of overlooked in the WoW community overall. That is Ra-den, the Fallen Keeper of Storm, a Titan found hiding in a secret passage underneath Mogu'shan Vaults.

Ra-den - Who He Is and How He Got Where He Is Now

Ra-den is first encountered after defeating Heroic Lei-Shen in Throne of Thunder. But his background isn't found within the instance itself, instead it is scattered around the Isle of Thunder on scrolls depicting the rise of the Thunder King. Originally, the Mogu were created by the Titans to help defeat the Mantid swarm who worshiped Y'Shaarj as a god (who was actually an Old God). When Y'Shaarj was defeated by a Titan who fell (we assume this to be Sargerus) the Mogu no longer had any orders to follow as their Keeper, Ra-den, fell silent and hid himself away inside of Mogu'shan Vaults. This left an army without a commander and they began to fight amongst each other. That was until Lei Shen came along and decided to unite all of the Mogu clans, began to speak for the silent Keeper and eventually ventured into the mountain Ra-den was secluding himself in and ripped out his heart to gain his power so he could rule the Mogu with an iron fist.

During his encounter with players however he says quite a few interesting things that can make us speculate somethings about both Ra-den and the Titans as a whole. Ra-den explains before he is defeated that he can see the determination in our eyes to save the world and that he doesn't believe that we can. Once he is defeated he changes his heart and says that he still doesn't believe that we can win because we don't understand the power of the Old Gods that are only getting stronger but we deserve the right to try. This is exactly the same thing that happened when we met Algalon inside of Ulduar almost to a T. This can be interpreted in a few different ways that is pure speculation until we meet with a Titan/Keeper that can clarify for us.

The first thought is that the Titans never received the Alpha Reply Code signal. We never saw Algalon again after he retreated from our fight and it was up to us to use the Alpha Reply Code in Dalaran. We're not sure if the Alpha Reply Code even worked, let alone if it reached any of the Titans. I would assume that it did because if it didn't then I would think a new Titan or Keeper would have come to Azeroth to see why they never received an answer from Algalon if he wasn't able to make it back to the Titans.

The second possibility is that Ra-den is secluded from the rest of the Titans and has no communication with them at all. Ra-den says that he has been in silence for a thousand years which suggests that he hasn't had any communication with other Titans as well. However, why would he have inclination to tell us about conversations with Titans to creatures he sees as corrupt and insignificant? If he has been completely secluded from the Titans then that also means that he doesn't know what happened in Ulduar and the Alpha Reply Code.

The third possibility, and the theory that I tend to agree with the most, is that the Titans received the Alpha Reply Code and are ignoring it and coming to destroy us anyway and Ra-den agrees with them. Ra-den is a Keeper, created by the Titans to oversee their creations on worlds. It has been thousands of years since the death of Y'Shaarj and the recall of the Titans and the Curse of Flesh which corrupted the rest of the Keepers on Azeroth. Ra-den had already gone into seclusion before the Curse of the Flesh occurred so it is unclear if Ra-den was corrupted at all. Ra-den is the voice of Amun-Thul, who is a Paragon Champion of the Titans, and was who he spoke for once the Titans left the world. This means that Ra-den must have still had connection with the Titans after they left. So either he mysteriously lost his connection to the Titans and had no desire to return to them to figure out what they wanted from him or he never lost his connection to the Titans and still listened to them.

Ra-den is the Keeper on Pandaria, similar to the Keepers within Ulduar who were corrupted by Yogg-Saron. Although it is unclear if Ra-den was ever corrupted by the Curse of the Flesh, if the Titans know what happened in Ulduar (which they did because they sent Algalon to assess the situation) then they must have a connection to all their Keepers even if they are corrupted and they must know what happened with the Mogu and subsequently what happened with Throne of Thunder with the player characters. However, this time they didn't send a representative. Or at least, they haven't yet. But all of this supports that Ra-den still have a connection with the Titans in some fashion.

What This Means For Us

What this says to me is one thing. The Titans are coming for Azeroth. If Ra-den and the Titans still had a connection and Ra-den still believed that the races of Azeroth have no chance against the Old Gods and they should be destroyed then that means that the Titans still believe they need to cleanse Azeroth which means that they ignored the Alpha Reply Code that Algalon sent. Since we have defeated several corrupted Keepers, killed two Old Gods and their strongest corrupted Aspect it is obvious if they simply send one watcher like they did with Algalon we will defeat them.

Either the Titans believe we are not strong enough to deal with the Old Gods. The Titans believe that the Old Gods are nearly as powerful as they are and cannot be killed without destroying the planet since they are so intertwined with the planet. This means that mere sub-species are not capable of taking the Old Gods down and we are corrupted as well and must be destroyed. Which is an odd way for them to think since we've killed or cleansed all of their corrupted Keepers and killed two Old Gods of the five that were imprisoned inside of Azeroth.

The other possibility is that the Titans believe that we have become too powerful. It has been shown by Lei Shen that it is powerful for mortals to gain the powers of Keepers by stealing them so it may also be possible for the Titans to instill those powers into us. This means that the Titans could come to Azeroth to destroy something they see as a threat or forcibley attempt to make us their Keepers or Champions to those who show enough power. This would force us to fight back to save our home or stop the Titans from taking us away.

The speculation that the Burning Legion is going to return for the next expansion and that we might attempt to defeat Sargeras (which would mean it is possible for us to kill/defeat Titans) would be a good reason for the Titans to make an immediate path for Azeroth. I have some more theories on what will happen will the next few expansion but that will come in a future MMM!

Either way, the Old Gods, Titans and Keepers is always an interesting topic to discuss because it is what shaped Azeroth in the beginning. And it is always fun to sit and speculate about what could be in the future. You know you're doing some really good story telling when people sit around and discuss possible different scenarios of what could be from what has been!

Next week on Monday Morning Musing I will go over what I believe the expansion lore cycle will be for the next three expansions and what I think could be the end of World of Warcraft!

Monday Morning Musings - General MMO - The Companion System: A Unique Leveling Experience Other Games Should Adopt

(Author's Note: Sorry for the one day delay, I got sucked into SWTOR and couldn't get out.)

Leveling – The Bane of Healers everywhere. It is the time of the gaming cycle, whether it be launching the game for the first time or an expansions launch night, where we have to run back to our class trainers and respec into a Tank or DPS specialization so that we can get back to max level. Personally, I hate DPSing in general and will always be a healer main spec in all games that I've played. So being forced to choose between going DPS spec so I can experience the new questing content or having to grind the same PvE/PvP instances one hundred times just so that I can stay in my healing spec.

When people talk about Star Wars: The Old Republic's unique leveling experience the thing people most talk about is the voice over questing, the class specific story lines and the Roleplay quality to tailor your character to how you wanted to play. But when I think about SWTOR's unique leveling content the first thing that comes to mind is the companion system. SWTOR was the first game that I played that had a companion system where you had a secondary AI that could do a range of tasks from the traditional triad system.

The companion system was one that added an extra layer to the leveling experience that is overshadowed but to me one of the most important features in the game especially since the game did not launch (and still doesn't support) a dual spec feature. Having to respec from Healing to DPS every time I wanted to do a dungeon or wanted to do Dailies at max level content would have definitely been an issue that could not be over looked. Having the companions however made it possible to level up in a healing spec from level 10 until level 55.

Healing is truly the only spec that has a difficult time leveling in the spec through questing content that it is nearly impossible to do solo which is what questing content primarily is. It is also one of the roles that is the most difficult to learn to do in a brand new game and having to read all your abilities at once and figure out how to use them properly in an environment where people are quick to blame the healer on wipes is extremely discouraging. The companion system allows someone to level as a healer, which gives them the same luxury of gaining their skills at a slow pace and even gaining experience in high pressure situations such as accidentally pulling too many mobs and needing to keep something that may not be quite that geared alive.

When I play through Healing characters in SWTOR I tended to pick whoever my romanced companion was (because I'm a big ol' softy) which was generally a DPS of some kind and I would heal them while they killed people. Neverwinter is the most recent game in memory that also had a companion system that was a lot simpler than SWTOR's system but kept the same principle. You could pick one that performed a role for you which allowed you to heal your way through leveling (and tank, since Neverwinter's threat system was broken and Cleric's had to kite while healing because we generated more threat than tanks did in end game content but we won't mention this).

Allowing players to level in the specialization that they truly want to play end game content with will not only make players want to level and keep them interested in the game longer but will also increase success in PvE/PvP end game content as the backbones of the group will have hours of experience that they wouldn't have had in other games playing their specialization.

I'm truly hoping that more games begin to adopt the companion system into their games as they develop to make their questing experiences much more dynamic and set themselves apart from the World of Warcraft model of questing that has been a bane on the community for nearly a decade. As a main spec healer in nearly every game that I play any reason to not play as a DPS through half of the content is always something that keeps me subbed longer and generally a lot happier to go and do my dailies or level up a new character.

Monday Morning Musings - Dragon Age 2 - Relationships of Dragon Age 2: Seas of Toxicity

Warning: This contains spoilers for the Dragon Age 2 story line. If you haven't finished the game (go do it it's awesome) then you may wish to stop reading.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@GGElaina) has noticed that the last week or so has been pretty much dedicated to Dragon Age 2. I first picked up Dragon Age in April but was unable to complete it because I skipped a lot of side-quests and was silly with my gearing so I wasn't able to actually complete the final event. I picked it up again to see if I could finish it this time and to also mess with modding. And something that was always a big part of the game for me (as it is with all Bioware games) was the relationships and I tried many different combinations during my two full game completions. Bioware has always been a company that is amazing at telling stories and making deeply compelling and flawed characters. And the possible relationships in Dragon Age 2 are no different.

Preface: My Hawke

I played through Dragon Age 2 from start to finish twice over the last week. And with most RPGs my character varied very little between both playthroughs, once my character is made in my mind she tends to stay that way. My Female Hawke was an Apostate Mage with a polite/compassionate disposition who favored freedom for all including mages but was heavily against blood magic and slavery. So my relationships with my companions were as follows:

• Anders: Friend
• Fenris: Rival
• Sebastian: Friend
• Merril: Rival
• Isabella: Friend
• Varric: Friend
• Aveline: Friend
• Carver: Rival (Templar/Dead)

My first playthrough my Hawke slept with Isabella, slept with Fenris (who left) and stayed in a relationship with Anders and my second playthrough she slept with Isabella, slept with Fenris who left and ended up alone (although I headcanon an ending beside Sebastian). So these are the relationships I will be touching on in this article. I have never fully completed a playthrough with a relationship with either Merril or Isabella so they may be a better partner for Hawke as a whole.

Anders – Selfish, Deceitful and Uncompromising

Anders' character introduction is one that is completely opposite of his true nature at the end of the game. He is seen as a cat loving healer who is risking his life to heal the poor refugees of Kirkwall. It is later revealed that he made a deal with a spirit of Justice who was corrupted by Anders' hatred for Templars and the oppression of mages. Anders openly flirts with Hawke whether or not you choose flirt options during conversation but pushes her away if she flirts back saying that he will break her heart.

After being in love with Hawke for nearly six years (and dating her for three) Anders asks Hawke to help him do something that involves deceiving the Grand Cleric. Any attempt to ask Anders what he plans to do is met with hostility and deception. He even prays on Hawkes love for him saying “if you love me, you will do this for me and not ask questions”. Anders' relationship with Hawke has suddenly become one that is extremely toxic for her as she is being pressured to do something that she doesn't want to do to please Anders. He claims on several occasions that he loves Hawke to other companions but everyone can see that he is planning something (Varric and Sebastian attempt to warn Hawke and Fenris threatens Anders' life if he hurts her).

We find out at the end of the game that his task for Hawke was to distract the Grand Cleric so he could plant a bomb to destroy the Chantry (the universes church) and kill all of the priests and the Grand Cleric while they were inside. Anders does this because he wants a war between the Templars and the Mages so that mages could be free of the tyranny of the Templar Order. The Chantry was the only hope of compromise and unification between the two sides and Anders destroyed it.

Anders uses Hawke's compassion and love to fuel his own needs whether she agrees with his choices or not. He does not give her a choice to side with him on the issue because he was afraid that she would not agree with him. Relationships where one party feels the need to lie is not a healthy relationship and the outcome is a very difficult choice for Hawke. In my Anders romance playthrough I sent him away forever leaving Hawke alone and heartbroken over the betrayal of her partner. Anders not only was a mass murderer but he made his love an unknowing accomplice and sparked a war that made her fight against friends and her own brother.

Fenris – Unwavering, Unsure and Abusive

Fenris is first introduced after he tricks Hawke into an miscalculated ambush and then silicates her help to clear out a mansion that could contain his old master. He is an escaped slave running from his blood magic wielding master who branded Lirium into his skin to give Fenris special powers so he could act as a powerful body guard. Growing up in a city where blood magic is commonplace gives him a hatred for magic and makes him strongly believe all mages should stay inside their Circles.

The Fenris and Apostate Mage Hawke is a very toxic relationship that isn't very good out of the gate. Fenris is very pron to outbursts if Hawke does not agree with him (specifically on Pro Mage fronts) and will storm off or yell at her when she attempts to explain her opinion. A relationship where one person cannot express their opinions for fear of their partner is not a good relationship to be in. Having a difference of opinions on a political issue is perfectly healthy if it can be discussed rationally and without either party feeling the need to threaten or insult their partner because they are frustrated.

Fenris will eventually sleep with Hawke but leave shortly after the encounter exclaiming that they were moving too fast and that he wasn't ready. There are many different theories as to what could have been going through his mind when this situation occurred. To me; Fenris is extremely selfish and cares little for Hawkes feelings in this instance. She just slept with someone she cared about and offered to help him through his ordeal but instead he ran off because he couldn't handle it. If he wasn't sure he was ready for a committed relationship (even without the extenuating circumstances of what happened while they had sex) he should have made it clear so as to not hurt her if she was looking for something more than just a fling. Fenris claims to have left Hawke because he was seeing his life before he was a slave while he was with her but this didn't stop him in the middle of sex. He wanted to be there for the pleasure but once that was over he was no longer sure about staying.

My playthrough was probably extremely unique because after he left I was not able to romance him back. I kept him in my party throughout the entirety of the game and was never able to completely max out his Rival points because of my distaste for Blood Magic (which gave him mixed Friend/Rival points) and so when the final battle came he did not side with Hawke and fought with Meredith on the battlefield. This also showed to me the fact that Fenris is not loyal to Hawke even after everything that she did for him (including helping him track down and kill the master who had been hunting him for more than ten years). Having an opinion of his own is justified since it contradicted what Hawke believed but he says something right before their fight. “I should have never let you get so close. Primary rule of survival.” This shows that Fenris truly only cared about himself and would rather kill his close friend (and ex-lover) than stand beside her. Hawke was forced to kill Fenris and be left alone after the fight with Meredith.

Sebastian – Compassionate, Religious and Pressuring

Sebastian is also introduced in a way that really doesn't depict his character much at all. He is seen posting a notice on a bounty board to hire mercenaries to clear out a gang who killed his family. After Hawke takes care of them it is discovered that he is in fact a prince who recently lost his family to a coupe for their throne and he is the only surviving member. He is a Chantry boy who is extremely religious and has been a priest for over 10 years.

Sebastian is personally my favorite male companion in the entire game. He is extremely religious and strong in his faith but he does not use it to pressure people. He does not judge others for the way that they live their lives nor does he preach at them if they do not believe. He instead allows them to come to conclusions of their own but is also able to give calm and peaceful discussions if asked. Many accuse him of being ready to scowl and preach at them but are surprised when he does not.

He also one of the few companions that actually seem to care about Hawke's well being above their own (Varric being the only other consistent one). Whether you side with his decision to stay with the Chantry or pressure him into taking back his home and becoming King he sticks to what he believes in but values Hawkes friendship above all else and promises to stay beside her. He even attempts to warn her about Anders (telling her he is selfish and will never put her above his own needs) without ulterior motives (Anders will do the same with Fenris but he does this because he wants Hawke to be with him instead) and is truly looking out for Hawke when no one else (besides Varric) will.

However, Sebastian also has a deep character flaw of peer pressuring Hawke in the final Act to do what he thinks is best. After Anders murders the Grand Cleric (his guide and mentor) and destroys the place he has called home for the past thirteen years he calls for Anders death. If Hawke chooses to let Anders go Sebastian will threaten to return to Starkhaven, gather an army and come back to destroy all of Kirkwall to get to Anders. He does not even offer to kill Anders himself, he makes Hawke personally kill a friend or a lover to prevent a war that would slaughter thousands of innocent citizens inside of the city. Whether he would have actually done so is unknown but that is the ultimatum that he gives Hawke. This shows that Sebastian is not above being selfish and using his authority to get what he wants and pressure others into siding with him by giving them un-winnable scenarios in times of crisis.

His saving grace is that if Hawke chooses to kill Anders he will side with her no matter which side of the war she chooses to fight on. At the end of the game before the final battle, he expresses his love for her (not outright but it is thinly veiled) and wishes that things were different so that he could be with her. Out of all of the companions in the game, in my opinion, Sebastian would have been the healthiest relationship for Hawke to be in but it is ironically one of the few she cannot have (I do not count the chaste marriage as a relationship and neither does the game achievements).

Bioware has always made games that get people thinking about complicated issues in the form of Role Playing. The tones and themes of their games (Geth v Quarians in Mass Effect, Mages v Templars and Racism against Elves in Dragon Age) are extremely powerful and their characters are built with such depth that they are able to live on forever. Dragon Age is one of those games where there really is no happy ending for the hero. You defeat the big bad at the end but are left with the heartache of death, destruction and lose of loves or loves never loved at all. Games that make you think beyond the final credits are games that will last throughout the generations.

- - Mod Links - -

Hawke Armor Mod - SilverX10

Hawke Hair Mod - SG's Beauty Shop

Eye Color Enhancement Mod - Bidelles Cosmetics II with Eyes

Fenris' Black Coat Mod - Fenris as Dante

Monday Morning Musings - World of Warcraft - Player Housing And How It Could Work In World of Warcraft

Player Housing is something that every MMO has either had as a feature or hasn't and the community continuously begged for. World of Warcraft is one of the few large MMOs out there that has put their foot down about not adding Player Housing into their game. But with WoW arguably going more casual friendly with the latest expansion - will their minds change? Adding Player Housing into an MMO setting is a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface and many concerns must be addressed before it could even be considered being added as a feature.

Taking Development Time – Do We Have The Resources?

Blizzard is definitely the first person to throw the word expensive around when it is difficult to implement something into the game. And a GOOD player housing system would definitely take a lot of time and effort. World of Warcraft is running on almost 10 year old coding at it's base which has caused problems for features in the past and Player Housing is not something the original development of the game had in mind when it was created. So it would take a lot of time and effort to add it into the current game. But with back to back expansions holding a new race and one including a tri-spec able class Blizzard could get away with this new expansion not including a new race or class and instead allowing other races be new classes as a compromise. Not having to add a new class or race into the expansion would free up a lot of development time. Blizzard has already stated that they have finished Tier 17 in past interviews as well. This means that something as big as Player Housing could be implemented as an expansion feature.

How Do We Make Player Housing Interesting To Every Player

Blizzard has arguably been going towards a more casual friendly model with their recent expansion Mists of Pandaria, adding in a lot of non-end game content and allowing players to see end game content without having to put in the weekly dedication of raider with the Looking for Raid and the soon to be Flexible Raiding feature. So one of the big things Blizzard is going to be looking for in their future features is making sure that it is interesting to the majority of their player base.

Player Housing would be a great time sink for Casual Players if implemented properly. Blizzard could put things around the world (similar to how the Pet Battle System worked) that made it so people who wanted a specific item had to go out to that area to get it. You could make items be retrievable from old raids, instances, reputations and even Archaeology to renew interest in old content. These could be cosmetic items like an old vase dug up from Draenei Archaeology or a Dragon Statue from the Wyrmrest Accord Quartermaster. They could also unlock color/design schemes with faction reputations like a Blood Elf crystal scheme floating out in the Twisting Nether if you're Exalted with Silvermoon or a grand keep decorated in Blue and Gold lions if Exalted with Stormwind. This would give casual players a personal grind that they could do on their own time based on the types of items they wanted in the world.

But How Would This Interest End Game Players?

This is where the cool part comes in. I've been thinking about this for an awful long time from the perspective of an end game PvE'er and I've come up with some pretty cool ideas. Blizzard doesn't have a lot of things that reward people who have been playing their game for a really long time other than the items/mounts we may or may not have in our bags. Why not put them on display?

Blizzard can reward players who have been around for a long time with the Player Housing System. King Varian or The Horde Warchief can summon the champion that has been protecting them and their people for years and explain that they appreciate their commitment and give them their house (which could be floating out in the Twisting Nether and only accessible through a stone similar to a Hearthstone) as a thank you. Inside that house are empty glasses with Mannequins inside with a control panel at the end. You open up the control panel and it opens up a UI where you can place full sets of old tier gear that doesn't destroy the gems/enchants and keeps the gear at its full glory. This would allow players who have collected up to 15 sets of Tier gear (like me) that is sitting in their bags to actually be put on display. Separate floating fields can put Legendary Weapons on display as well for those who have collected something so difficult to achieve since we still are not allowed to Transmog them. A wall of plaques and banners of the colors of reputations you have become exalted with to show how much work has been put into the game. Maybe even boss mementos for end game bosses that you've killed in raid instances like a claw of Nefarion or the Elemental Bindings of Ragnaros. Go outside to see a full stable of mounts that you choose to be on display (since most players have 100+ mounts we obviously can't have them all, we could let the player choose 10 or so mounts that are special to them to place in the stables).

This Sounds Awesome! But Now Everyone Is Spending All of Their Time In Their Houses And Aren't In the World Anymore!

This one is a pretty easy fix that I have seen as the primary argument against having Player Housing in the game. Primary implementation – Don't Put a Guild Bank and Auction House inside of the House. It makes sense for Players to want to place personal storage inside of their homes so a Personal Bank would be fine but no Auction House so players can just sit in the house all day and not have to interact with other players. Trade Chat in my opinion would be fine if the player wanted to have it on, if the Player is looking for a group for something they would have to leave the house to go and do what they wanted the group for anyway but not having Trade Chat wouldn't hinder anyone either. Give the Players inside of the House a buff called Relaxation – This buff would not allow players to queue up for random dungeons, battlegrounds or raids until they left the house. This would make it so players couldn't just sit in their own private instance and queue for whatever they needed for the day and log off.

That Fixes The Problem – But Now No One Uses It, It's Going to Be a Failure

That's the beauty of it. Like every other feature in the game it's as successful as you the Player makes it! A Feature being used by every player for 6 hours a day does not a successful feature make. It's what the players do with it that makes it a success. Every screenshot of a room in your home, every tweet about your home, every whisper saying “Hey, my Home looks so awesome, let me invite you to a group so you can come see how cool it looks” makes the feature a success. It doesn't have to be used every day but as long as players create hype about it in a positive way, it makes the feature successful. Grouping with a bunch of friends and passing Group Lead to each person so you can port to their home so they can say “Hey, I have this awesome thing let me show you, oh you don't have it!? Well here's how you get, let me show you were it is, I'll help you get it” makes the feature incredibly worth it. This would also be a huge boost to the close nit RP communities across the population.

This would give the Player Base one of two things depending on who the Player is (or both). This would either give the player something else to do out in the world at their own pace and motivation level. Constantly adding new things that can be added into the house would keep constant interest in the feature. This would also give old veteran players something that shows how much time and effort we've put in the game over however many years we've been playing. One of the few downsides of WoW is that no matter how long you've played you don't really have a lot of things to physically show others that all those hours were actually spent doing something important to you. Whether it was killing bosses or grinding out Battlegrounds apart from our gear which we can't even display fully. This would give players who have been around a long time something that shows “hey... I did things... and this thing that I can now show others shows that I did that thing... and it was awesome!”. Isn't that what everyone in an MMO wants?  

Monday Morning Musings - Star Wars: TOR - What Bioware Could Have Done Better With the Chevin Event

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I completed the world event this week and I have to say that I was extremely disappointed. I loved the Rackghoul Plague World Event and it set a lot of expectations for the world events that they said they would be releasing in the future. There are a few things that made this world event not as exciting.

No World Bosses/Not Multiplayer Friendly

There was no community in this world event that I experienced. There were no world bosses you needed to complete, last world event you needed to kill the World Boss inside the World PvP area of Tatooine to receive a Codex entry that gave you the title of the event. This was before the server mergers and it was hard to get a group together for the boss and anytime you did there would be 5 or 6 of the other faction grieving you to the point where I wasn't even able to kill the boss. But it was still fun to have that World PvP that you don't really see in many games.

The event itself was not multiplayer friendly at all. None of the items that you needed to gather were in an instanced area and were out in the open world and some were even cross faction. This meant that 10+ people were trying to click on the same things and the only times that you grouped with people was to have a higher chance at clicking the items before anyone else. People didn't communicate with each other while in this group if they chose to get into the groups at all. In particular, the second days item (the Black-and-Orange sphere) was particularly annoying. You had 1 terminal that 20+ people were gathered around and we just stood there trying to click it before every other person there.

Very Little Play Time Required

SWTOR has been dipping in subscribers, that is no secret to anyone, and this world event didn't exactly take a lot of time to complete. Some people might call that an improvement but I actually kind of find it annoying to get onto a game, especially with a World Event going on, and spend 10 minutes in game to complete the days tasks and then be completely finished with everything required. I liked the time it took to do the Rackghoul Plague events, you spent a lot of time on the first day to complete the very first quest and then 30 minutes - 2 hours doing the dailies for the rest of the week; this not including the time it took to do the world bosses.

I imagine the World Event is something that Bioware was hoping would improve subscription sales for at least the month in which the World Event was taking place. I streamed every second of the World Event and it literally took me 4 hours to complete the entire thing. Someone watching my or anyone else's stream might look at that and say "is $15 really worth 4 hours of gameplay?" If I was someone not invested in SWTOR I would say no.

Rewards Aren't Entirely Worth It (IMO)

This time around we have a few different things in terms of rewards. You receive about 110 Tokens at the end of the event (this does not include any extra farming of the Smuggler Crates). And you can buy a few things with that.

• Sand People Bloodguard Gear - Cosmetic Armor set that is a reskin of the Social Sand People gear. I have no idea what exactly Sand People has to do with this event at all. You never see a Sand Person, Sand People have nothing to do with Chevin's or the event, and you never set foot on Tatooine. I feel like they stuck this armor set on the vendor because they didn't have anything else to put there.
• Legacy Non-Force User Weapon - All of my leveling characters are on a separate server. I had characters across a lot of different servers and my 50 main is alone on The Bastion because all the other servers sent my characters somewhere else. So these are completely useless to me personally. I also don't see much point in having a World Event reward things not for the character that did all the work to complete the event. I might be alone on this but when I'm done with event I want to show it off on my main, not use something on my alt that I will ultimately replace. And from what people are saying the items aren't even that well itemized. And the color crystals are yellow, so you can't even buy them for the cool color crystal.
• Non-Combat Pet, the Lobelot - This pet is TWICE AS MUCH as the mount. 250 tokens are needed for this guy, by the time you farm all of those tokens from the Smuggler's Crates that have a 10 minute respawn timer and EVERYONE is looking for you might have found one inside the Crates themselves. They have a small drop chance so if you have anything else you want to buy, buy them first.
• Speeder, Hyrotii Scapper -One of the quests requires you to ride a speeder to a broken down part of Nar Shaddaa to receive an item. It looks like a spare speeder you can drive around on Nar Shaddaa except one of the back lights is busted. You can buy this for 120 Tokens. I have no interest in mounts in this game because they are all just speeders. Let me ride a Bantha!

And the best part of all. The pet you receive at the end of the event for completing every quest is... a reskin of the pet everyone who is on a merged server before the automated server transfers and subsequent shut down of the downed servers got for free! That's right, anyone who transferred to their decided servers recently got a Non-Combat pet (kinda looks like an Akk Dog, can be seen in the above picture) in their in-game mail. The final quest at the end of the event gives you the exact same model except grey and not orange. So you do all of the work and get the same pet you got for free for transferring before they make you transfer.

I got the Sand People Bloodguard armor just so it could match the Imperial Containment Officer armor I got from the last World Event and plan to sell the rest of my tokens showing just how worthless they are to me personally. You also receive a title based on your faction and what choice you make at the end of the story line. Which brings me to my last point.

Story Left In A Cliff Hanger/Unexplained

This was something that ticked me off with the Rackghoul Plague event as well. SWTOR is such a story driven game and I hate it when a story is started and then the ending or the entire point is never explained. In the Rackghoul Plague I suppose the point was to find out what exactly started the plague outbreak (which you do find out through reading the Codex Entries you're given after the daily quests). But it is never explained how the plague is stopped, the event ended and the plague was just kind of gone.
The quests for the Chevin world event show your contact sending you on missions to tap into Chevin transmissions and you learn that the Chevin might not be entirely truthful and might be using the items you plan to give them for good. At the end of the event you can choose to give the items to the Chevin or keep them for your faction. It doesn't matter who you give them too, it never explains why the Chevin want the items for, what they end up using them for, or the whole point in the event in the first place.
Here, go collect a whole bunch of things, the people sending you to do this may or may not be completely shady. Oh, you got everything? Kay, thanks, bai! ... I hate that! I freakin' hate that! That's the second event where there's no explanation what-so-ever as to why exactly we're doing this or how it ends.

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Needless to say... there were A LOT of things wrong with this event. The whole fun part of the Rackghoul event was that there were world events to do, world bosses to kill, just generally whole server fun that was kind of brought down by the fact that there was no one on the server to play with. The server mergers fixed a big part of that and then the world event that they release has nothing really to do with the world. It feels like everyone was on the same Single player quest and it was more annoying to have more people doing it because you had to wait around and try to be the fastest clicker in the group.

They took the WORLD out of the World Event this time around and they really need to fix that for the next one! I feel like they took 2 giant steps back with this event and I hope they get back on track for the next one.

Monday Morning Musings - League of Legends - Is Support Viable In Low Ranked ELO?

Ranked League of Legends is one of the fastest growing E-sports in the world. Twitch just released an article saying that League of Legends now surpasses Starcraft 2 as "Most Streamed Game". Most of these streams are players participating in Ranked 5v5 matches as well as professional LoL players doing the same. Now I have almost 1,500 total games played with about 130 of them being ranked matches. I went on a ranked binge just before Season 2 was announced. I would play any new champion that I bought in a ranked match because I assumed that our Ranked ELO would reset with the new season. And then Season 2 came and went and I still had 603 ELO... Since then I have gotten much more serious about Ranked Matches but haven't played many due to my ELO being so low.

Carry Your Way Out Myth - Any League of Legends player who has been around the block a few times will tell you that the only way to get yourself out of "ELO Hell" is to "Carry Your Way Out". This means that you need to pick a character that is an AD/AP carry that is doing well in the patch you're on or OP and carry your way to multiple victories until you are out of ELO Hell. I don't think this is the only way to do so even if it seems to be the smartest. Carries (for the most part) are extremely squishy if they do a lot of damage. And if anyone on your team feeds anyone on the other team (especially their carry) then it doesn't matter who you picked because you're going to die unless you happened to get more fed than them. And even if no one else on the other team is fed if you don't get fed because your lane partner isn't any good/the other team plays hyper defensive then you're still pretty much useless.

Playing Support in Low Ranked ELO is generally looked down upon but I find that I help push my team to victory much easier than if I'm playing a damage dealer. This might be because I'm uncomfortable playing DPS in most games when I have the ability to be a Healer/Bard. But if you're good at what you do, like I like to think I am, then playing your strength is much better than playing what's OP at the moment. As a Support you can be the guardian of you team and keep them from feeding. Pick a Support that has a stun, slow or knock back so if your carry decides to constantly face check bushes then you can heal them and stop the enemy team from chasing. Janna is a really good support right now, long ranged knock up and healing knock back can save your AD carry from certain death. Taric is another really good support in ranked. His heal heals both himself and his target as well as a long ranged stun. Janna's ult is also great for saving your team from a team fight you're losing.

Playing a Support can push team fights in your favor. Keeping your AD/AP carries alive longer makes them do more damage, obviously. But with a support with a stun you can also keep the enemy teams highest damage dealer from doing as much damage as possible while you focus them down. If you're losing a team fight and they're chasing you while you're retreating, Janna's ult can blow them away from your team and ensure that you all get away safely.

Picking your support based on the AD carry of the team is extremely important. If your AD carry has a stun it will be beneficial to pick up a support that has a stun as well. Double stuns allow for great amounts of damage and quick escapes. If your AD carry goes Life Steal quickly then a shielding support will be much better than a simple healing support. Summoner spells are also extremely important. If you're a support like Janna or Zilean that doesn't have a healing spell than picking up Heal is extremely beneficial to your AD carry. Picking up Clairvoyance is still beneficial even after it's nerf. If you're not sure where the other team is CVing into a bush instead of face checking is a great way to save yourself from an early death.

Get Oracles Early. This is a strategy I have been using that I am always shocked when people acted so surprised. Oracles can be used to clear enemy wards to keep them from warding against your jungler or keeping an eye on Dragon. It also helps against Teemo mushrooms and stealth champions like Twitch and Shaco. I generally pick up Oracles after my Philosophers Stone and Boots (unless I'm Janna where I don't need boots that early) to keep as much vision from the enemy team as early as possible. Killing wards gives you money and denies the enemy team money. If you're not killed extremely early, if they're MIA and you go through river alone that's your own fault, don't do that, this is extremely beneficial. If they stop buying wards because they're frustrated with you killing them all and they start trying to kill you intentionally then you are doing your job right and Oracles has paid for itself!

Buy Wards! I know I shouldn't have to say it but right now I have been in a rough spot where I'm stuck between buying too many wards and not buying any Aura items for my team and not buying wards at all to rush Aura items for our carries. You should be buying wards and placing them based on the situation. If they are ganking a lot you should ward enough to cover River. If they are constantly in your jungle you should ward your buffs, killing them and getting your buff back is very important.

Long story short, I feel that playing Support in Low Ranked ELO is still viable no matter what people say. You need to play what you are comfortable with and if you're like me and not very good at dps then you are only going to drag your team down in the long run and you're not going to be having fun playing the game. Support has always been what I do best and I know I would help my team achieve total victory by supporting those actually good at killing things. Video games are fun and if you shouldn't be forced to do something you don't enjoy. Good luck supporting your allies and I hope you achieve swift victories on the Field of Justice.

League of Legends: CQElaina
Twitter: @CQElaina
Youtube: ElainaTV

Monday Morning Musings - General MMO - Loot Systems and Distribution In A Raiding Environment

(Warning: I am going to be blunt and honest in this post. If women with larger balls than you hurts your feelings. You may want to leave now.)

Loot Systems in World of Warcraft, especially in progression raiding guilds are extremely important and fickle things to deal with. There are many different types to choose from and most of them don't work for many reasons. I am forced to bring this issue to my blog because a certain Protection Paladin in my guild has decided to personally attack anyone who attempts to disagree with him. In my guild we had a Loot Council System that in my opinion worked extremely efficiently. Loot was circulated seemingly evenly and for a long time everything seemed to be going well. And then an incident occurred where our Prot Pally didn't win the Heroic Leg Tokens off of Shannox and held the raid up for forty-five minutes to discuss it. Since then the Loot Council System has been transformed into something entirely different because a loud minority wanted it changed.

Different Loot Systems

• Random Rolls
• In a random roll system all loot is distributed randomly and does not take into account anything personal as far as the raid team as a whole is concerned.
• This kind of system does not take into account the following:
• Performance: Someone who is significantly less proficient than you can receive your best in slot items because RNG gave them a better roll.
• Attendance: Someone who only showed up one time that month can win your heroic weapon.
• It does not take into account how many other pieces that person had received recently.One person can have all of their best in slot gear when someone is still in 359s if they have extremely lucky rolls.
• Obviously, this system works extremely well for PuG raids but wouldn't work well in a progression raiding environment. Random rolls have a tendency to cause more hostility towards other raiders than other structured systems do.
• Suicide Kings
• A list is made and if you want a piece of loot you can choose to suicide to the bottom of the list and must wait until others suicide their spots and you return to the top of the list.
• This system is extremely volatile for many reasons. One it is extremely tricky for a player because if a minor upgrade drops and they choose to suicide themselves and then a best in slot drops off of a boss directly after than they have no way to receive that item. This can stop raiders from wanting a certain best in slot item in hopes that a different more valuable best in slot item may or may not drop for them this week. This can halt multiple players from receiving any loot and thus halting progression for the entire guild.
• This system also doesn't take into account any of the previous mentioned important things many progression raiding guilds look for in their players. Performance, Attendance and Rate of Receiving Loot is not taken into account.
• GDKP
• When a piece of loot drops an open bid war begins. Whoever wants to pay the largest sums of money for an item then receives it. At the end of the night the amount of gold received via the bids is either divided among the players in the raid or into the guild bank.
• The players with the largest amount of income, in game or out, will become the fastest geared.
• Yet another system that doesn't take into account Performance, Attendance and Rate of Receiving Loot.
• EPGP
• This is a very common loot system that does work if used correctly. EPGP is a two fold loot system that takes into account not only the amount of points that you have but also the amount of points that you have spent. You receive EP based on things like Attendance, Progression Bosses Kill, Progression Bosses Wipes and Farm Boss Kills. You receive EP whether you are actually invited to the raid or not as long as you are online during the duration of the raid. GP is the amount of points that you spend and are also kept track of. If someone who has the same amount of EP as you but you have a large amount of GP that the other person doesn't the system knows you have received a larger amount of gear which will be taken into account.
• In most systems there is also a decaying factor that will decrease your EP over time so that new recruits do not have a significantly lower EP than veteran raiders to the point where recruits have no chance of receiving any gear.
• There are different ways to handle EPGP. You can either have public bidding wars in Raid channel to distribute loot or you can use an addon where you choose Main/Off/Pass if you wish to receive an item and the add-on will choose who receives it based on the points of each player.
• This is an extremely good way to distribute loot however it can seem a little random at times.
• Loot Council
• When someone wants to receive an item they post in a channel or whisper a specified person and a council of selected members (either random or appointed) choose via a voting system who the item should go to.
• This is an extremely effective way to distribute loot based on what is needed at any given time in a progression environment. If you are about to work on a boss that has a tight enrage timer the LC can choose to start distributing loot to the lower DPS. If you're about to progress on a boss that requires a lot of healing you can choose to give it to a healer. If you finally kill a boss for the first time you can give the first heroic weapon to your top DPS as a way to thank them for doing so well.

Loot Concerns

This is a plead to the current members of my guild whether they read it or not.

The biggest thing that comes to mind when I write this. Stop bitching. Seriously, it's annoying and it makes you look bad. All I have been hearing recently is how our Loot Council system is biased. Not only is it not true but it is also far from it. People cried and cried about the Loot Council being biased but in the pages of complaints on the forums that I have seen not once has any evidence been shown of such a thing. Loot was given out to absolutely everyone at a constant rate. Having someone get a piece of loot over you doesn't make the Loot Council system biased. It makes you a loot whore.

Most importantly, if you feel that there is something wrong with the Loot System, then bring evidence to back your claims. Our tank used myself as an example that "I was receiving loot above our other resto druid that even I believed should have gone to her because I have a secret relationship with our guild master." Not only is this accusation far from true (and if I was receiving loot because I was friends with people and not because I worked hard to deserve I would leave now because that is not the way loot should be given) but it was in fact the exact opposite.

Roari (the other druid) has received any piece that we have ever both wanted before me except for two items.

• She received her shoulder tokens off of Majordomo Staghelm on one of our very first kills. To be fair, I was still a trial at this point but it was at least a month before I finally received my 4-piece and only after every other person on my token (IE every other Druid, Priest and Mage) in the raid had gotten theirs. When I got my 4-piece I was the only person who rolled Main spec on it.
• She received the Heroic Phoenix Down Treads off of Alysrazor and last night I lost them again to the Boomkin who is still relatively new to the guild.
• She received Jaws of Defeat, one of the first ones that dropped for us, and I only just received mine this week because none of the others rolled for it.
• She received her Heroic token a week before I did and I was once again one of the last people on my token to receive one. Tuesday night I received a Heroic Leg token off of Shannox. Two dropped and it was myself, the aforementioned Boomkin and a Death Knight who already had a heroic token. No one else rolled because they either already had their Heroic Legs or had received a Heroic Chestpiece.
• She received the Healing Mace over Ragnaros, at the time she had a 365 crafted weapon and I had a 359 and she still received our first one.

I have never once complained about loot even though the evidence clearly shows that the Loot Council has an overwhelming tendency to give me loot last over everyone else who rolls on any items that I need. The reason why I haven't complained? Because I am in a PROGRESSION raiding guild and that is something I think a lot of people fail to remember. Every person who receives loot will get better by a small margin even if it isn't you. Do I believe that the loot system was biased because they would give her loot before me? No. Roari always beats me in overall healing on almost every single fight we are apart of aside from Ryolith and Beth'tilac (sometimes). And she should receive a lot of the important gear (Heroic tokens, first time kill loot and weapons) before me because she has on a consistent basis been our best healer, always shows up to every raid (that isn't on a holiday) and always brings her A game.

I feel that the officers should be the ones who decide where loot goes. Not any of this "making random raid members control loot" system that we are trying to make now will fix anything. Some of the people sitting in Loot Council right now barely know how to gear themselves. And yet we are giving them the decisions to gear other people. The officers are officers for a reason. They became officers because they have substantial amounts of knowledge to the game and what is best for other classes. If the officers are telling you how to gear because you're doing it wrong, what makes you think they shouldn't be the ones handing out loot. Not only that but they also have knowledge into the inner workings of the guild that you don't. Maybe someone isn't receiving loot because they are actively recruiting to replace them or they want them to change their main specs. That is something that random raiders have no knowledge of. Speaking of which here's something I really want you to think about. Maybe you aren't receiving loot over other people because every week you are threatening to leave. Just sayin'. Why would a loot council who sees you consistently threatening to leave if things don't go your way give you gear?

The loot council was also accused of being predictable. Here's something to think about. The raid group that we are currently in is very settled. Not very often are people benched and not many people have left. Which means that in the last several months the same 20 people have been in every single raid. Which means everyone has found their niche. Some do exceptionally well while some are still consistently dying to normal mode fight mechanics. Some healers heal better than others and some tanks tank better than others. Maybe the loot distribution has become predictable because we always have the same people going after loot for the last several months and if those same people haven't changed their niche since they joined then the voting patterns won't change until the raiders have change.

I believe that a lot of the complaints stem from the fact that everyone can see who goes for every single item. We post our item and what spec we want it for in a public channel. And if the loot doesn't go the way you believe it should, you have a tendency to believe it is because of biased players not voting the exact way that you would. I believe that who wants an item should be completely confidential and only knowledgeable to the people who choose they want an item and the officers who see who want a item. If you want to have a public loot table of who has received gear recently that's fine but as far as common raiders go it is none of our business who wants what and who doesn't want what.

Which comes to my next point. You are a COMMON RAIDER. Yes, you are allowed to voice your opinions but you are not entitled to anything. You are not an officer. You are not a guild master. Most of the people who are sitting and complaining are the people that only log on for the 9 hours that we raid. You do absolutely nothing to further the guild except for showing up to the raids. Some of you barely can even manage that. If you don't like the way the guild master is running things then you are more than welcome to leave. People need to realize that they are completely expendable. Just because you are the top dps or a tank doesn't mean that you can halt a raid because you don't think something is fair or threaten to "leave and take a good handful of people with you if things don't go your way". You know how easy it is to switch to 10 man raiding for the next few weeks until we fill your spots? Just because we don't have a bench doesn't by any means mean we need you. There are 10 million players, there is nothing about you that makes you a must have.

Lastly, you are all wasting the time of the management of the guild by doing this. People have left because they felt we weren't progressing enough. You honestly think that loot distribution is not making us progress? No, it's not. Halting the raid for 45 minutes over a token and spending hours on the forums bickering instead of using that time to research your class and upcoming fights is what is halting our progression. Making the officers sit down and create a new loot system instead of sitting down and making recruitment plans or boss strategy plans hinders progression. You are the problem here.

I hope some of you learned a thing or two about the points I'm trying to make here. 

Follow me on Twitter @CQElaina ! ^^

Monday Morning Musings - World of Warcraft - Blizzcon 2011 Wishlist/Predictions

It is currently late Wednesday night and there are only two days left until Blizzcon. This is the biggest news day of the year if you are a Blizzard game fan and this year is setting up to be a big one. I have a brand new Astro A40 Gaming Headset to warm my ears and a Blue Stuffed Murloc Plushie, from my wonderful GM Matticus (@Matticus), to warm my soul and I am finally ready to sit down and delve into what I think the weekend has in store for us. I wasn't originally going to do any predictions since I have been known to go way outside the box and think of things that have absolutely nothing to do with anything. But with my entire guild, being Padagi (@mjwood), Lodur (@LodurZJ), Matticus (@Matticus), LoganW (@Loganowitz) and Morynne (@morynne) away in Anaheim and me all alone at home I figured I might as well waste some time.

There will be two parts to this post. The first one will be the Wishlist. The Wishlist is the part of the post where I will tell you guys what I WANT. This part is all about ME. I don't care whether it is canon or even do-able. But I want it so it better happen. And the second part of the post will be what I think will actually happen. With me using stupid logic and stuff. World of Warcraft will probably be the only one who will actually have a part in both sides. Starcraft 2 doesn't really have much new news to talk about except for the three new Multiplayer units and the two tournaments. And I don't play enough Diablo 3 to comment too much.

Wishlist

World of Warcraft

• The new expansion is something that absolutely has to be announced at this years Blizzcon. Not only is this something on my Wishlist but deductive reasoning from the things Blizzard has told us already would lead to this conclusion. Blizzard has said that Patch 4.3 is their last big patch of the Cataclysm expansion. And they have also said that they want to push out expansions in a quicker rate than they have in the past. Even though I still think that Patch 4.3 will come out sometime around Christmas so the sales will be highest and then 4.3 will last us a year like every other final expansion patch has, they can't wait a year and announce the new expansion, go through the Beta process and then release a new expansion. I expect the next expansion details to be released at Blizzcon paired with a lot of 4.3 news, have a Patch 4.3 release sometime mid December, have a new expansion PTR around May, and have a new expansion ready around November/December give a take a few weeks in any direction.
• The Emerald Dream is something that we have been dreaming about as a player base for a really long time. Ever since Burning Crusade came out we have wanted to go into the Emerald Dream and explore basically the entire world backwards. This world is centered around Druids so of course I want an expansion all about me. Draenei/Blood Elves, Death Knights and Shamans got their expansions (Thrall counts as a Shaman, deal with it) and now it is time for the Druids to have theirs. Not only that but it seems like it would be a good fit to the backwards theme that Blizzard tends to go with.
• Vanilla: Fighting on our own world while each race and faction tries to get into their own.
• Burning Crusade: We go off of our world to go fight an evil in outer space on a different world.
• Wrath of the Lich King: Come back from outer space to find a random new continent covered in ice and dead things.
• Cataclysm: Go back to the old continents covered in fire from some pissed off dragon.
• Emerald Dream: Go into a new world covered in flowers and regrowth!
• Something I think Blizzard should do is give us a new Primary profession of some kind. I don't know exactly what they could do. Maybe a Farming skill where you can plant two or three different kinds of herbs and they can be turned into new special herbs that can be used for epic crafting recipes or Glyphs. Or maybe give us the ability to have another Primary Profession, giving us a grand total of three. I would love to add Alchemy to my Jewelcrafting/Enchanting and have all 3 with me. Archaeology is something that kind of fell through. No one ever did it and the people who did do it hated it for the most part. They said it would be something that they could expand onto in the future but that has yet to happen yet.
• I would really love some form of guild housing. It can be a phasing area in a new land where you go to this deserted island somewhere and there is a house that only you and your guildies can see. Inside there can be a guild bank with extra storage areas. Just a general place for you and your guild to hang out if you want to be away from trade or have frame rate issues. You obviously can't put auction houses and trade chat in these areas or else people would never leave but a place to stash alts or whatever would be kind of cool.
• Raids are something that I think they need to concentrate on in this expansion. The raids were an okay difficulty this time around. I feel like they could have been a tad easier on Normal mode and a tad harder on Heroic mode and have no nerfs at all. If you can't manage to get through it then you can't manage to get through it. People don't care if they see the content if it's nerfed to the ground when they do. The leveling experience and the alt leveling was the big thing of Cataclysm, end time raiding needs to be the feature of this upcoming expansion.
• I want level 100. They did 10 levels for two expansions and then 5 for this last one. I want them to give us 15 new levels to grind through! Just because I want the nice round number. Not for any other reason really. I hate leveling and only having 5 levels in Cataclysm was really nice. But I spent a good 3 months having nothing to do in-game before the expansion. And when it finally dropped I was leveled and geared in 6 days. Getting through the leveling process in the new expansions are always some of the most fun times you will have with a group of friends/guilds.
• I want a new Hero class. I would really like it if it were a healer. I generally only play healers and I would like a new healer. Maybe another tank healer so we don't always NEED to have a Holy Paladin in a raid and no offense to Disc Priests but you're just not as good as an H-Pally. So having  3 raid healers and 1 and 1/2 tank healers makes me want to have another tank healer. And the Emerald Dream would be the perfect place to have a new healing class emerge from.
• I have some specific Druid changes in mind for this new expansion.
• I want an actual Tank cool down as our new spell. We didn't get a new healing spell in Cataclysm and I IRL sad faced. We have Nature Swiftness which can be used as a really quick 50% increased Healing Touch for a low tank but we have no spell that decreases the incoming damage a tank is taking. Blizzard was pushing to have all healing classes be able to tank and raid heal effectively and Druids are still pretty weak tank healers compared to other classes.
• This is the expansion where I hope they will fix healing as a whole. Blizzard had this idea when they finished with Wrath. The healing model was too easy and they wanted to make it more difficult in Cataclysm. Healers were chewing through their mana and people were supposed to not be getting hit by avoidable damage. Yet they turned around and gave us this...
• Blizzard: "Hey guys, we're going to make healing a little bit harder on the healers. But don't worry, all of the damage is supposed to be avoidable so you should have no problems! ^.^
• *Releases Chimeron and Nefarion*
• Healers: "But... there's massive amounts of damage that is unavoidable at all..."
• Blizzard: "Oh well, good luck!"
• Healers: ...
• DPS: *stand in all the things* *dies* "What the hell healers, heal me!!!1"
• Healers: ...
• I agree with the making healing harder part. Wrath was definitely not what anyone wanted because it was FAR too easy. But Cataclysm personally turned out to be the same way after we got through Tier 11. As a Druid who is obviously ridiculously overpowered right now we heal through massive amounts of damage hardly ever going out of mana anymore and still top all of the meters. We obviously learned how to use our spells more effectively but I was Regrowth spamming in Heroic Bethtilac the other night and was doing reasonably well on mana. Once again, that's massive unavoidable damage Blizzard said they weren't going to do but still... Praying for a massive healing look through again.
• Oh and Blizzard. Since you took away Tree Form because you wanted the Druid tier to be represented by someone and you've now made it so transmoging will cover up all the tier you make in the future anyway... can we have that back now? Kay thanks.

Reality

World of Warcraft

• It's time to be real here.
• We are getting Mists of Pandaria. There is no way to get around it anymore. Mists of Pandaria is the only name they have trademarked in the last few months and they can't make an announcement of a new brand name without having the name copy-righted to them first for obvious legal reasons. And we all know full well that there would be no way for Blizzard to trademark a name and not have anyone find out about it. If they managed to pull it off... well congratulations to them but it is just not likely.
• We are getting either a new class or a new race. Possibly both with the new class being exclusive to that race only and having the Pandaren being available to both Horde and Alliance. We may get neither but I would find it hard for them to have a sales pitch of "look! We have Pandas! You can't play them though. You can only look at them as NPCs." They might do this obviously, but I highly doubt it.
• I want to say that they will give us a Monk/Brewmaster Hero class but Blizzard was not at all happy with the way Death Knights turned out and I am not so sure they are ready to tackle that hurdle so soon.
• Last but not least, the talent trees need to be redone or we will not be getting any new talents. They can't give us another 3 to 5 talents without some classes being able to dip into other specs signature/important spells. This obviously isn't like that with every single spec but it is important enough to note that they would need to revamp these specs so that didn't happen or just not give us anymore talent points to spend.

Starcraft 2

• The new expansions for Starcraft 2 have already been announced with each race having one of each for themselves. Heart of the Swarm continues on where Wings of Liberty left off. Sarah Kerrigan is human (kind of) again and she is joining Jim Raynor in his quest to save the world from Arcturus Mengsk and his Terran Dominion while turning the Zerg into something other than mindless eating machines. 
• There's only one thing that competitive Starcraft 2 players are going to care about in the new expansion. And that is the new units coming out. And Blizzard has been kind enough to give us silhouette's of the three new designs they have in mind for the new game.

  

                   

                  Heart of the Swarm, Terran Unit Teaser

•  NERF TERRAN!!1 *Clears throat*
• There are a few key features on this unit just from the picture. Terran are a little bit easier to figure out since they are primarily human so their structures tend to look a little more familiar to us. The head of the structure could be one of two things. It can either be a scanner or it can be a rocket launcher/laser beam/generic ranged upgrade. I'm going to go with the later since an observer that can run with your ground army that is also good in combat doesn't seem to be very balanced.
• The left arm seems to be carrying a shield and he seems to be rather bulky so I'm going to guess he is some kind of armored unit.
• The right hand seems to be an armored type of gun similar to the Marauder style gun attached to the suit type deal.
• He also seems to have a bulky upgrade on his legs. Maybe rocket boot upgrade that might give him a speed buff or the ability to jump into the air for a while and attack air units.

                  

                 Heart of the Swarm, Zerg Unit Teaser

                     Spider Demon from "the Mist" by Stephen King
                 

• Am I the only one who sees the similarities between these two?
• The first thing that I noticed after I thought for 20 minutes about what it was reminding me of (see picture above for result of that) is that it looks like it has a launcher of some kind on its back. And then I had this thought... wouldn't it be awesome if that thing shot Banelings into the air so that Banelings could hit air units! (Liquid Tyler on State of  the Game thought the same thing so I must not be crazy here!)
• However, a more sane idea is that it is a zerg ground unit that can attack air units that doesn't take six million buildings and a ton of gas make. Which is kind of what I am hoping this is. It may be similar to the Siege Tanks Terran have where it can only attack air units when it is stuck in place. Zerg have a distinct issue with Terran/Protoss that rush immediately to air units. Corrupters, Infesters, Mutalisks and Hydralisks are the only units in the Zerg army that can attack air units. And all of these take massive amounts of tech structures and minerals/gas/supply to produce. Having a cheap equability to Marines/Stalkers would be awesome but I doubt these new units will be Tier 1 units.         

                 

                 Heart of the Swarm, Protoss Unit Teaser

• Protoss seem to be getting another air unit, because they obviously need more of those.
• The pincers in the front might have the ability to pick up ground units or hold other air units in place. Maybe a stun with those electric prongs in the middle.
• Protoss is the race I know the least about of the three so I honestly have no idea what they need. Another Phoenix carbon copy seems kind of boring though.
• This months GSL (awesome Korean based monthly tournament if you didn't know over at www.GomTV.net) will be hosted live at Blizzcon! I am super excited about this since most of the time you don't get to see Koreans outside of Korea unless it is an MLG event. IM.MVP will face off against the "Little Emperor" SlayerS_MMA. I personally hope with all of my heart that the SlayerS BoxeR trained MMA will be able to pull the upset and defeat MVP but when it comes to the Koreans anything can happen. And maybe since both of them are traveling around the world for this championship, they will both be so jet-lagged that it will actually go more than 4 rounds this time! Who knows!
• Blizzard is also holding their own championship called the Blizzard Invitational where there were qualifiers held all over the world to get the best of the best from every country to compete. A lot of people are betting on MVP to take this one. Nestea would have been a contender until the map pools were announced and the extremely biased towards Terran maps were revealed. Any Terran facing a Zerg will have a sudden advantage since they are not using MLG/GSL altered maps and guess what MVP is a Terran and Nestea is a Zerg!
• All in all, a lot of the story line has already been all over Team Liquid for months. All they can give us at this point is a demo/beta and a release date for this bad boy.
• Oh and one more thing. Remember that document leaked a few months ago that told us when Blizzard wanted to release all their stuff for the next three to four years? On there was a thing called Starcraft 2: Phoenix... Blizzard better tell us what that is at Blizzcon or I am holding so many baby murlocs captive they're gonna need a quest to get them back.

And last and personally for me least is Diablo 3. Sadly, Diablo 3 is probably going to be Blizzcon's primary focus this year. Their beta seemed to be a big success among the press streams that I got to watch and all of their classes have been announced. They said that it was going to have Arena PvP and I like PvP so that may be one thing that will actually draw me to try out the game but I know little of it other than that. But Murkablo is a clear indication that they will probably be giving us a release date at Blizzcon and they want the hype to be on Diablo 3.

All in all, this Blizzcon, no matter what, is more than likely going to be extremely epic. Last year was a dud but this year all three of their franchises are ending in their current tiers and are ready to move on to new expansions. And I will be watching it all right here!

Follow me at @CQElaina on Twitter as I will be sure to Tweet about the big announcements as well as Liveblogging initial reactions on Days 1 and 2 right here!