Aww, you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist talking about this one, right? :)

“This message is being sent to confirm that all credit card information has been removed from the World of Warcraft account <MY NAME>, effectively canceling its recurring subscription as of July 7, 2010 5:21 PM UTC.”

I have spent some time in the last few months trying to cope with this weird feeling that Blizzard doesn’t care about us anymore. The RealID friends thing seemed poorly handled. They dropped the Path of the Titans, upped the ticket price for Blizzcon, and told us all that we had to pick 10 OR 25 raiding in Cataclysm. Okay, fine. Whatever. Maybe I’m just a stick in the mud that hates change.

But this RealID on the forums thing is just so… it’s evil. And dumb. It’s evil and dumb, and usually when corporations start to get that way I take my account out behind the woodshed and shoot it in the head like Ol’ Yeller.

1. This is a decision for young, straight, white boys.

Who is going to be alienated by having their full name on ever post? Women. Gay and trans folks. People with some obviously ethnic name. Professionals and older people who don’t want their hardcore belf pally turning up every time some new employer does a Google search.

This means that the new forums will be populated pretty entirely by privileged, young, straight, white boys. One of the greatest things about WoW was the diversity of the player base, and Blizzard has acted decisively against that.

2. This is a decision against guild leadership.

Where do we get most of our fresh recruits from? The official Alliance recruitment forum. On those forums, people are free to post under alts so they can look for a new guild while not upsetting their old one. This practice, of course, will not exist after RealID. And what of recruiting itself? Soon my asking officers for help with recruitment will not just be a matter of posting, it will be a matter of asking people to expose their real life to the vagaries of the WoW Forums. I am not comfortable doing that, by any stretch of the imagination.

I suppose I’m still assuming that anyone will be READING the official forums. (See Point #1.) Instead it’s just as likely that people will flock to a variety of unofficial forums, adding that much more to my recruitment workload.

3. Our trust is gone.

People were fanatic about Blizzard and their games, and now I see those same people saying that they will never have anything to do with the company again. It’s not even so much specifically about names appearing on the forums, although there is certainly enough concern over that. For me, anyway, it’s more that I feel my faith and trust has been abused, and I no longer believe that it will not be further abused down the line.

At no point during the account signup process five years ago was there any indication given that my name would be used for anything more than the billing system. There was no sign that it would be made public. Blizzard is planning on using my personal information against my will. Seriously, forget the whole debate about whether someone can find you from an name on the internet, or whether a support forum should be optional or not, and just think about that. My name — my personal information — is being held hostage by a company.

It’s ludicrous. I quit Facebook for lesser issues, honestly. I still have two months on my account, but today I canceled my ongoing subscription. I run a guild full of adults and professionals, and I am hardly the first person to have canceled their account over this.

Where will it stop? Real names on the Armory? You know they want to do it. You can almost feel those greedheads thinking it. Well screw you, Blizzard and Activision. My guild, my people.. we will find new games. THAT is my kind of gaming social network — gaming with, you know, friends — and one that you cannot monetize.

So let’s preface this by saying that I am not one of those crazy theorycrafting math priests, with the charts and the knowhow. I mean, good on those guys, because I rely on them to help me figure out what I’m doing. However, what I am is someone who has played a holy priest for five years. I like to think over that time I’ve developed a pretty good gut feel for holy spec and the class in general.

Anyway, Cataclysm notes! Let’s begin.

Introduced at a low level, the “new” Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use.

Amusingly enough, I was discussing potential class notes earlier this week with my friend Thae the Cranky Resto Shaman and he joked that they would just give us a whole bunch of “medium” spells. “Priests clearly need more spells to choose from at any given moment! If you roll a priest, Blizz will send you a keyboard attachment to hold your extra bindings!” From his mouth to Blizzard’s ears, apparently.

I actually really like the fact that priests have a ton of options. I have six different healing spells alone that are important enough to be bound on my N52 keypad, and I certainly would prefer to have a ton of options than, say, play a paladin. (Oh, burn. Yeah, you heard me, Sema.) However, with THREE different levels of straight up heals.. something is going to fall by the wayside. My prediction is that Greater Heal will become even less used than it is now.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can’t have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Increased movement speed… and reduced cost of instants. I see. I am reminded of a recent trip to Mexico, when I ordered onion rings and they were served with a side dish of mayo. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to go together.

I am currently specced into Body and Soul, so I can appreciate a judicious application of run speed, but in a self-buff? Coupled with cheap instant spells? Is this a PVP thing?

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time.

Life. Grip. As god is my witness, I have no idea what to think about this. Well, okay, what I think is that I’ll be able to annoy the hell out of my guild. Oh, friends, the griefing possibilities. My eyes well up in joy just contemplating the chaos. That line about moving slow DPS around makes me nervous, though. I can hear the puggies now: “omg healer let me stand in goo until i slowly died!!!!!”

There are so many details I need to hear before I can decide on this. Will being gripped interrupt the party member’s cast? Does it reduce or remove aggro? Can it be used in Shadow Form? It would have to be a pretty unique circumstance during a raid boss for me to want to revoke a teammates control over their character for a couple of seconds.

I just don’t know. It sounds shiny. It will probably be useless.

All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).

This is the best part of the whole preview, for me.

Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.

I think this is the Disc version of the HoTs update. This seems like a Big Deal. (And also the second priest version of a death knight ability in these notes.)

We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.

Oh, I like this one too! Mea Culpa to Ghostcrawler — Serendipity turned out to be a really fun and useful mechanic, and these sound similar in nature. I’m also intrigued by the flexibility of the buff, which would potentially suit an array of Holy Priest styles. Just give the “empowered state” a fancy graphic, and we’ve got something like the much vaunted Holy Form that healy priests have been making puppy dog eyes about for years.

We’re also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don’t feel as penalized when those buffs aren’t available.

I just included this line because I was vastly amused by the phrasing. Blizzard is going to take away our own mana regen buff as FAVOR to us so we don’t get all overwhelmed. I am actually kind of looking forward to seeing what they do with mana management, but this bit still made me chuckle.

I try not to count my patchnote chickens before they hatch, but I’m pretty satisfied with this preview. Let’s see what actually makes retail!

So, I’m addicted to Project Runway. I love that show to pieces, to the point where when I was sick this weekend I sat under a blanket on the couch and watched the entire eleven hours of Season Two of Project Runway Australia. (I also will watch Project Runway Canada, and Project Catwalk (UK). I am not limited by nationality!) I could go on at length about why I enjoy the show so much, but the short version is that I am utterly mystified by a contestant’s ability to take a seemingly impossible task and create fashion art in a few hours. I don’t understand how their creative processes work, and nothing entrances me quite like a process I don’t understand.

While watching hours of fashion-based TV has not made me any more chic, it has actually taught me a few things about life. It is with that in mind that I give to you:

Raid Leading, Project Runway Style

Make it work!
Okay, okay, you probably saw that one coming a mile away, but it’s true. Sometimes despite everyone’s best intentions you end up with 24 people online, one raid tank, and 9 healers. Or maybe you’re just having one of those nights where everyone has a case of The Dumb. What do you do? Pull up your bootstraps, and just make it work. Kill what you can and try to not get too bogged down in negative vibes. Do the weekly raid quest, or Sarth-3D for mounts, or break into 10s groups. Take a 5m break and give people an opportunity to shake out the sillies. Just.. make it work!

Use your mentors
The contestants on Project Runway are usually very focused designers who are confident in their vision. However, the best of them will still stand back and really consider the feedback from their Mentor. Accepting the wisdom and experience of someone else doesn’t lessen their strong approach or skills. When you feel your raid strategy is getting stuck in a rut, solicit feedback from your “mentors” in the guild. Ask your fellow officers, ask any class/role leads, ask your tanks.. sometimes when I am just not sure what is blocking us I’ll ask the whole raid on Vent for their feedback. A fresh perspective often helps, and asking for feedback doesn’t diminish your confidence as raid leader.

Don’t be afraid to be unique
If there is one single piece of advice that I think the Mentors give more than anything else, it’s that a design is too safe. Contestants are encouraged to be unique, be creative, and be true to themselves. The same can be said for your raid team! Don’t get hung up on what The Joneses are doing. Unless you are in a guild with a mandate of being Top 100 or whatever (in which case good on ya!), your world ranking doesn’t really matter. Let your raid be true to itself — how is it doing in comparison to how it did last week? Or last month? Or last expansion? It’s okay — actually, no, it’s GREAT — to expect improvement and progression, but it should be within the scope of your guild and its stregnths and weaknesses, not what Premonition is doing this week. I have a tough time with this one myself, for what it’s worth.

Look at your strategy with an editing eye
The second most frequent critique I hear on Project Runway is that an outfit is too overworked. It has sequins and flowers and lace and cutouts and shoulder pads and a giant bustle and and and and… resulting in a big ol’ mess. The same can be said for picking a raid strategy. I admit this one could be chalked up to personal preference, but I am huge on simplifying boss strategies as much as possible. Don’t assign everyone their own unique spot to run to after BQL fears — just emphasize spatial awareness and spreading out. A more simple strategy will be easier to translate to different raid groups and different raiders. Of course, adopting strategies like this one require more practice, which is the other half of this concept. Don’t be fussy and change things on every pull. Sometimes you just have to decide on a strategy and give it a good number of tries for people to master the bare bones.

Use the accessories wall thoughtfully and strategically
No, wait — scratch this one.

In short, Tim Gunn can lead my raid anyday. Call me!

So the ICC raid buff was released in today’s patch. Ugh. Too fast, too fast, too fast.

I HATE the new raid paradigm of making raids easier and pushing them out faster. It lessens the sense of accomplishment when you kill a new boss. I have written rants on this before, but WotLK has been all about messin’ with the middle-of-the-road guilds like mine. I can’t enjoy killing normal mode bosses, because it’s not “real”. And I can’t enjoy killing hard mode bosses, because we’ve already done 70% of the fight on normal mode, so it’s not “real” either. I bolded that because it really deserves emphasis. What exactly motivates me to keep raiding?

This system is just stressing out dedicated raiders, and most guild leaders I know are tearing out their hair. I feel under pressure to make us progress faster than ever before so we can “keep up”, and yet people are burning out and quitting faster than ever before because farming four versions of Jaraxxus each week (back when ToC was the top raid) is boring as hell.

Not to mention Blizz has completely screwed over guilds in so many ways in LK. I see so many posts that say, “Why should I bother getting a guild? I can pug raids and groups.” Even more so with this buff and the subsequent versions! (True, we can turn this buff off, but will most guildies approve? A quick straw poll this morning showed that most of my officers want to keep it, seeing as we’re “behind” and there’s no tangible benefit to removing the buff aside from some pride. Argh.)

Sorry, I know I’m ranting, but MAN this expansion has just made me really angry at WoW. Guilds are, I would argue, the number one source of player retention. How many people keep logging on for the people they play with, instead of logging on for the sheer joy of the game? I see folks say all the time that they would quit except for their friends online. And yet Blizzard seems pretty insistent on making running a moderate raiding guild as difficult and unpleasant as possible.

Stop rushing us, stop nerfing our team’s sense of accomplishment. Take your pity buff, Blizzard, and shove it up your collective bottoms.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single raider in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a fish. Well, not just one fish. Usually 5-20 fish, to be precise. And that’s where us auction house trolls come into play!

My new virtual market has taken off, helped by the release of the new arena season and the frost wing of ICC. As I mentioned before, the bread and butter of my business is basic consumables — ore, cloth, food, herbs, enchanting mats. I’ve gotten better about buying in bulk when the prices take a downturn, and having faith that they’ll pick up again in another week or two.

Having this extra gold liquidity, though, means I can also dabble in more expensive items. Right now my auctions include epic recipes, pricey gem cuts, and lots of level 80 blues, which sell better than anticipated. Having patience and a good sense of the market helps a lot when laying out this kind of gold, as well as lots of experience with the game. It also means that I can jump on extra good deals I see in trade channel, such as the person selling 40 stacks of Lichbloom at a deeply discounted price. What am I going to do with 40 stacks of Lichbloom? I.. um.. did I mention it was really cheap? No more questions!

I’ve also learned what items I will not flip, whether it’s out of financial or moral concerns. I know people make a pretty good WoW living selling vendor items at exorbitant prices, but I turn up my nose at a lot of that business. And I refuse to do that gross thing suggested by another blog where you post 100 arrows at the same price at 1000 and then snicker when someone buys them (or similar methods). I will relist vendor items I come across with a little “convenience fee” — a good example is the cooking recipes sold by that dude waaaaaaaay down in the corner of Westfall — but I roll my eyes when I see Refreshing Spring Water for 20 gold a piece.

Now I have the not-unpleasant task of deciding what, if anything, I want to buy with some of this gold! I’ve already picked up a Leaping Hatchling and Orb of Deception at bargain basement prices (one benefit of stalking the Auction House), and funded getting my alts close to max level crafting and riding skills. I’ve decided against a motorcycle, I think. They’re awfully cool, but just don’t fit into whatever limited RP vision I have for Liore. Perhaps a passenger mammoth? Eh…

What I really want is a giant chicken mount, so I can call it Chicken Boo. (“It’s a chicken, I tell ya! A giant chicken!”)

_____________________________________

An exciting Cats management secret: If you want to join my guild, don’t have a character name that starts with X. When I set up our loot tracking module for the website, years ago, I cheerfully hard coded in a special setting for ex-members which I cleverly denoted by putting ‘X’ in front of their name.

Looking at it this weekend, while working on another part of the site, I realized that I am not to be trusted with 2am application design. I’m not sorry enough to fix it though, so just change your character name, okay? Thanks.

PS: Looking for a bear or DK tank!

(Note: this is a rant. It is not meant to be a comprehensive look at an issue, or even-handed in the slightest. It is me feeling cranky and sorry for myself and venting.)

Dear Guild,

AUGH, where did you all go? Three weeks ago we had 35+ signups for Tuesday and Thursday raid nights, and this week we BARELY have 25, and that includes a totally excessive eight healers*. Here I was thinking that once the holidays were over we had at least four months of good solid raiding before the summer bullshit starts again, but I guess I was wrong.

Over the past five years I have had to just accept that occasionally a quarter of our core raid signups will disappear into the mist. And honestly, every time it becomes more and more difficult to be motivated to fill those spots. Why should I bother? People will just disappear again. And again. And again. It starts to feel a little infinite and depressing after a while.

This time it’s particularly painful because we were doing SO WELL. You are all pretty damn amazing players, when you’re actually THERE. At some point around the holidays we had a kickass raid group and we were .. not a world first guild, but we were going to be pretty dang competitive. It felt really good, like it was time for the casualcore nerds to shine! And now we’re back behind the pack, plinking at Professor Putricide.

My favorite part of this dance is a month from now when y’all come back from where ever you are and find the raid is partially staffed with New Guys. New Guys who are in YOUR spot. And man, quite a few of you will not be pleased about that, and then you will send me cranky PMs and I will make a very squinchy face when I read them. Finding new people is a lot of work. I have to advertise, respond to questions in-game and on the forums, conduct interviews, get feedback from our people, help the new dude get settled with rules and culture, analyze performance logs, and then conduct the Membership Discussion should they make it that far. By the time they’ve made it to their second or third raid with us, I am not very inclined to push them aside for the guy who disappeared without warning for a month.

Seriously, what does it take? We had progression, we have a pretty damn awesome guild culture, leadership with open door policies, limited time commitment (6-9 hours a week!). All I need is for people who said they would come on raids to.. actually come on raids. I’m not paid to do this, remember. I’m a volunteer, just like you. Sure, I get the benefits of being guild leader, but I also do a lot more work and am expected to care a lot more than anyone else. That’s fine, as long as I’m also getting what I want out of the game, and one of those things is progression raiding.

This morning, when faced with yet another round of real life events and apathy and frantic recruitment posts across the internet, I am not sure why I bother.

Love, Cranky Liore.

* Dear healers: you sign up for everything, and I love you for it. I wish we could kill new bosses routinely with 8 healers, because I would take you all on every run.

Well, while the servers are down I finally have the spare time to write something resembling a post! It’s not really a post, though. Instead, it’s a … todo list!

Finish levelling professions on Lunedi
Thanks to this guide and some mat donations from a guildie, I got Lunedi’s mining and jewelcrafting up over 400 this weekend. She’s just starting to mine saronite from Sholazar Basin, and will soon be fighting it out with everyone else for titanium, which I can prospect for blue gems to level JC!

Organize daily profession stuff
Continuing my gold-making plans from last week, I’m trying to make better use of my professions. Liore has an epic gem transmute each day that I should take advantage of, plus unlimited meta gems. Lunedi should do the JC daily every day, and make icy prisms when I get to that point. I have a level 70 tailor/enchanter who should really get her shatters and specialty cloth cooldown timers sorted. And on that idea..

Switch Liore to Transmute Spec
Liore has been Potion Spec since the beginning of time. Back in the day, being able to make my own mana potions was extremely cost efficient. It’s still pretty handy for the first few months of any new expansion, but overall I’d be better suited by being able to proc extra transmutes.

One Light In The Darkness (10s)
Both me and another healer just need this achievement to get our Ulduar drakes. I have a timer up to the Keepers saved — ask for help with this from the guild!

Get Exalted with Keepers of Time
Find some poor suck– um, helper to run Heroic Black Morass a few times. How am I just short of exalted with KoT, anyway? It feels like I ran BM a million, billion times to help people get keyed for Karazhan.

Get the Perky Pug on Liore!
Oof. While the LFG system was top of my daily priorities when it debuted, I admit I have been slacking a bit as of late. It’s also really tempting to just run with guildies instead of puggies, but that does not get me any closer to an adorable doggy of my own! Just 19 more random people to go…

Send mats from Guild Vault for flasks
Find a nice elixir master.

Repost all auctions on Friday morning
I’m going away for the weekend, so I’m listing everything my banker owns on Friday morning on a 48-hour timer. Let’s see how much gold I’ve REALLY made with this AH mogul thing.

Evaluate new recruit
Check the logs tomorrow morning.

Read up on new ICC bosses, kill Putricide
Argh, Putricide! 16% last week.. assuming people are on the ball, I think we’d have it… except our Abom driver is away for work this week. Figure out if we should wait until Monday (traditionally a weak roster night), or power through with a better roster but novice abom driver on Thursday.