Here we are then, five years down the line (or 15 years for Warcraft) since World of Warcraft was launched by Blizzard. And I’m STILL playing. Why? What is it about WoW that keeps me coming back? What have I learned?

When I rolled my first character in 2004, a Night Elf Warrior whose name now escapes me, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve covered this before but that failed attempt sent me running from WoW for a couple of months. I didn’t get it. Something brought me back, however, and my second character and still my main, Inoperante the Undead Warlock, has kept me going for almost that full five years.

I’ve tried to work out why. When I first started I as very much a solo player, levelling and speccing randomly, still not knowing what I was doing, really, but nevertheless progressing. And that is key to World of Warcraft’s success over the years.

Blizzard have cleverly expanded the game to make players strive to better themselves. Whether it was improving gear, clearing raids – and vanilla raiding was infinitely harder than it is today, believe me – or exploring new areas, Blizzard have introduced just enough at all the right times to keep people coming back.

Of course, I’m not an idiot – Blizzard create things that basically become time sinks, forcing you to spend hours and hours doing very silly things to achieve, in reality, very little. It’s the secret behind their revenue stream. You WILL continue to pay your subscription while you have things to do. Knowing that it is a waste of time doesn’t change the fact that the game is designed to goad you on.

It is an addictive game. For some, dangerously so. We’ve all heard stories of people who have ruined their lives by spending far too much time on the game. Thankfully, those people are few and far between and, I believe, had much deeper issues than the game itself.

I have spent such a significant amount of time on the game that to give up now would feel like quitting. And therein lies Blizzard’s other secret. If they can get you to do enough, you will not want to give up.

With the Burning Crusade they introduced a whole new way of keeping you hooked. Raising reputation for greater rewards wasn’t new, but boy, did they take it to a new level with BC. New raids, especially Karazhan, that were accessible by the many, not the few, were genius introductions. They didn’t forget their hardcore though, and introduced the Sunwell, Serpentshrine Cavern, Mount Hyjal and the like.

It was hard to ‘finish’ Burning Crusade – I still haven’t. But each player did eventually reach their personal limit with it. Some took a break, myself included. And just in time, Blizzard rolled out Wrath of the Lich King and subsequent patches. It drew us all back. Ulduar then Onyxia and the Trial of the Crusade. It has been non-stop and continues soon with Icecrown. Wrath of the Lich King has maintained interest at unprecedented levels.

The Achievements system was a GENIUS stroke. It allows even the solo player to strive for more and more. Truly genius.

They have, however, made mistakes. Ulduar was by far the hardest raid introduced since Karazhan but when they introduced Trial of the Crusade few but the hardcore had cleared it. ToC, so much easier, drew people away from Ulduar and it lies, even for my Guild, not quite complete. Yogg-Saron survives for GANK Inc and it has proved frustrating for me and my raid leaders. Onyxia had much the same effect.

The ability to get T9 gear from daily Heroics was a bitter blow for the hardcore player too, who felt that they had spent far too much time chasing it to allow just anyone to access it. They had a point.

These, though, are minor errors and have not damaged Blizzard’s income or reputation enough for them to worry about.

It is ironic that on the 5th anniversary of WoW I find myself burned out. I have had enough, there is little left for me to do that I can do and not enough for me to do that I can’t do as a semi-casual player. But Blizzard are set to do it again. Icecrown will launch before Christmas and I will be drawn back to new dungeons, new achievements and new loot.

I’m not sure how long that appeal will last. Right the way up to Cataclysm? It seems doubtful, but then I don’t know what patch 3.3 entails fully, so you never know. But it does ensure I will be playing for a few more months at least. Cataclysm WILL draw me back and for a year at least I would think.

But will I be playing in another five years? That depends on Blizzard and what they can do with the game over that time. Every dog has its day, even WoW, but when that day will be I don’t know.

One thing is for sure – Blizzard deserve all the credit in the world for producing such an enthralling, delightful and long running game as World of Warcraft and long may it continue. In the meantime, enjoy the anniversary site they have produced. It contains (or will contain) interviews with the creators, video features and the Battlecry Mosaic (go look for yourself!).

For the Horde!

GANK Inc versus Val’kyr Twins

GANK Inc versus Flame Leviathan (4 Towers)

Or Kaeden gets bored wanding…

Gratz all. Yogg-Saron…here we come.

Gormok the Impaler

Well, patch 3.2 is live and in the mad rush to experience the new instance and raids one wonders if anyone is taking the time to actually see if they’re enjoying it.

GANK Inc made our first attempts at the 10-man instance (Trial of the Crusader) last night with almost no preparation. Did we enjoy it?

Yes. Emphatically yes.

There is something SO refreshing about learning a new encounter from scratch, picking up the Boss’ various abilities, adapting to them, tweaking your strategy and eventually getting him down. Not since Karazhan have we experienced that and even there we had checked WoWWiki for a few tips. Not this night though, oh no!

Just a quick recap for those yet to run in and die…

You face beasts captured by the Argent Crusade in a Ring of Blood style fight. The first is a Magnataur, Gormok, the second two (in our experience) Jormungars, Acidmaw and Dreadscale, and the third, which we did not reach to be perfectly honest, a Yeti type that if I knew my Lore better I would be able to name properly called Icehowl.

It took less than an hour to work out Gormok and that moment of joy as it ‘clicks’ for your party is wonderful! There is barely a break before the Jormungars appear and this is where it gets hard. Over time we worked out the various abilities but failed to down them to face Icehowl before we decided to call it and go pick up some loot from 25-man Flame Leviathan (see how to do this with 10 men here).

What did we learn?

• Some of us need better gear, so the farming of Heroics and Ulduar must continue
• We ARE capable of learning fights without relying on epic raiding Guilds for online guidance
• We can have fun together doing it and not get stressed!

This is useful information for a fledgling Guild Master like myself and I am lucky to have a good Assistant GM and raid leader alongside me. So much thanks to Lichdom.

So yes, we enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight – this isn’t free Epics we’re talking here! But it is well worth getting stuck into, at least on a part time basis if you’re still kicking, fighting and clawing your way through Ulduar. Let me know how you get on and what you think too.

Flame Leviathan 25-man

We didn’t have the right make up or DPS for continuing our usual 10-man Ulduar last night. With Mimiron and Thorim to do on the Keepers a wipefest was not appealing.

So why not take the 10 we DO have, mount up on Demolishers and go take down Flame Leviathan on 25-man?

And so we did. It is not that hard.

Ok, so you speak to Brann to do the the thing with no towers up and you grind through the trash. You’ll maybe die once, but just res and run back and mount up again. When you get to Flame Leviathan you adopt these tactics:

• Have 5 Demolishers
• Your 5 drivers spam Pyrite on the boss
• Your 5 passengers feed the drivers Pyrite constantly
• You DON’T shoot anyone up there
• You RUN when he targets you.

And you know what? That’s it. As long as he has at least three stacks of 10 Pyrite on him, he’ll go down with ease. Rinse and repeat on a weekly basis to get some nice loot for your raiding team.

Mimiron

I’m not one for complaining about bosses. Having said that I do get frustrated at wiping on one particular boss from time to time. But this, I feel, adds to the joy of finally defeating him (or her – nods to Maiden, Freya et al).

BUT…and it is a big but…there are certain bosses where no matter how well you know the tactics, no matter how well your group is geared and no matter how well your group is drilled in the fight you still wipe more than you should. And the reason is the mechanics of the boss.

At first I thought Hodir was an example of this. He was taking too long. He wouldn’t go down when he should. I was thinking it was the mechanics. Too much can go wrong that is out of your hands. Not so. In essence, it was the collective failure of just two or three in the group. Apart from that one time when we attempted Hard Mode and the damn fire mage guy was considered out of line of sight because he was on the wall…sigh.

So no…Hodir is a practice fight that you should get down every time once you have cracked it. Not quite as easy as Thorim…but up there for sure.

The REAL pain in the ass, too much luck needed, slowing down your progression boss is…….Mimiron!

This guy…this guy must have more of my deaths notched on his bed post than the Alliance Guild, Might Rising. It’s not knowing the tactics. We have them sorted. It’s not individual error. Phases one through three are a piece of cake.

It is phase four. The amount of luck involved in successfully downing Mimiron in phase four is TOO HIGH.

I know there will be a lot of people reading this and thinking “We never have any problems…what’s up with this Guild?”

I’d probably be doing the same in your shoes. At first I put it down to a mental thing – we expected to die, didn’t expect to down him like we do on everyone else. But that can’t be true. We’ve downed him twice. We know our tactics work and work well. But every time we come to face him we wipe far too often before we finally get him. So it must be luck – and luck in phase four only.

It’s wasting time we want to put into General Vezax and then Yogg-Saron. The General has already proved to be an easier fight, though we have yet to down him as we truly learn the fight.

Something needs to be done about the little green-glowing robot and his big, shiny monstrosity, it really does.

Funny how things work out. One minute you’re a happy little soldier in a very large raiding Guild, the next you’re GM of a very small but committed progression Guild.

So in this first episode of what I am now going to call Guild Drama I’ll explain how the hell it happened.

As I said, just a couple of weeks ago I was happily raiding Ulduar 10 and Naxx 25 with my Guild, Coffee. Things were pretty smooth. But then out of the blue the Guild Master decides to quit World of Warcraft.

He hands over the reins to a very competent but not particularly interested officer and things start to go down hill. This was not the fault of the new GM – he did a good job for the most part, but his choice of officers (and the sheer number of them – I became one just by asking in GChat!) was flawed and one of those officers began to recruit heavily. This had the effect of increasing the number of raids so as to destroy the usefulness of the Calendar and dilute the quality of raiders. Not to mention the utter disaster that became loot allocation.

My little 10-man Ulduar group had, however, been raiding together for a couple of years in another Guild. We only joined Coffee when it was clear that we weren’t going to progress beyond 10-man Naxx and at the time Coffee was well run and we did achieve our goal of clearing Naxx 25 and starting on Ulduar. So with all this drama and nonsense going on around us we became very insular and began discussing what to do.

I even volunteered to Coffee’s new GM to take over from him as he had expressed his unhappiness with the role. And from that moment of madness came a whirlwind weekend during which our Ulduar group, numbering around 15 people (for those days one or more of us isn’t available), quit Coffee and returned to our former Guild, held in reserve by our ALTs. And somehow through all this I ended up as Guild Master!

I’ll be honest, I’m nervous about the role, you hold a lot of people’s expectations in your hands as GM and I want to keep the majority happy. I know I can’t keep everyone happy and, as my Guild will tell you, I am not averse to upsetting people when it’s required. I intend to be firm but fair.

I also intend to maintain the integrity of our raid group (and future raid groups) by very careful recruitment and selection of officers and raid leaders. But maybe that’s another post for Guild Drama. Right now, I’m focussing on getting us up and running with sensible rules that suit the majority.

So it is goodbye to Special Forces(!) Inoperante of Coffee and hello to Guild Master Inoperante of GANK Inc. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Our usual 10-man Ulduar raid group has been tackling the instance for a while now and our wonderful mage Kaeden has begun making videos of our boss fights. The first three are up now over at YouTube.

Please feel free to take a look:

• Coffee versus Flame Leviathan (with 2 Towers up)
• Coffee versus Razorscale
• Coffee versus XT-002 Deconstructor

In other news, there is a possibility I will be co-hosting a WoW podcast in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.

Ulduar Raid

Let’s be quite clear. I love raiding. And perhaps not for the reason most people do – loot. No, I enjoy raiding for the complexities of getting 10 or 25 people who probably don’t know one another to work together to a common goal. To get certain individuals to do unique jobs while keeping an eye on up to 24 others.

It’s a challenge, fantastic stuff. I don’t raid lead. That would spoil the enjoyment for me. But I do raid assist. I know my DPS is good. I pick up tactics fast and I can explain them quickly and efficiently to those who may be struggling. Talk to them one on one and explain their bit of the fight, so they can concentrate on that.

Having said all that, the enjoyment of raiding goes out the window if:

1. The raid leader is weak (stamping on loudmouth’s, loot whores and in-fighting – fast – is essential)
2. More than 50% of the raid is inexperienced (explaining to that many doesn’t work – you have to wipe over and over before they get it)
3. More than 50% of the raid is undergeared (not enough healing or DPS will stall your progress – no fun for anyone)
4. Your loot distribution is unfair / biased (these people put in a lot of effort – DON’T piss them off, if they earned it, give it them)

Most of these issues can be avoided with good Guild management and raid group construction. Choose your raid leaders well and give them ranking positions in the Guild so it is clear who is in charge. Disperse your top players among two or more raid groups if you can, so you can gear up three less experienced people in 10-man raids, ready for 25-man raids where six or seven ‘lesser’ players can survive. Use a loot system that rewards effort but also ensures most of your raiders are gearing up at a relatively equal level. EP/GP with a bit of common sense is the best way I have found. But again, you need a strong raid leader (or loot master) to ensure this runs smoothly.

Finally, you really MUST make sure that you publicise your planned raids to as many of your Guild as possible and then be strong with those who sign up but fail to show. It’s a community game and the community has to work together. Throwing numbers at it won’t work – no point having a 200-strong Guild if only 10 people are prepared to commit to raids on a regular basis.

If your top players also want to form a closed raid of their own, blitzing through Naxxramas or trying Ulduar Hard Mode achievements then you should encourage that. Their experience will prove invaluable on other raids and their improved gear will make it that much easier for your less committed raiders to feel their way in.

Plus – it’s fun to do! I am attempting to commit to two nights a week in a 10-man Ulduar raid group of our best. Some nights it goes well, some nights not (and it DOES depend on how many ‘non-best’ we have to include on a given night).

My own Guild, Coffee on Ahn’Qiraj-EU, is going through a transitional period right now. Any and all tips on successful raiding (and Guild management) gratefully received!