Pike (one of my favorite WoW bloggers) posted about Operation Hug, her new endeavor to /hug flagged players rather than ganking them. My rogue is on a PvP server, so Operation Hug intrigued me. I decided to go to Hillsbrad and put it into effect.
I don’t think I did it right.
Last night I did Karazhan with a somewhat noob guild that has been around forever, but has a high attrition rate. This was on my druid, Wicker. I love Wicker. He’s so much fun to play, and I’ve spent a considerable amount of time and money on gearing him up to be the best he can possibly be. He has 142 days /played.
After my frustrating Karazhan experience last night, mainly due to rude people in the guild/raid, I went to bed feeling a little uneasy about the future of my characters. I have my mage, my druid, and my rogue. My druid is in a bad guild, my mage is guildless, and my rogue is in the #1 guild on his server. A part of me wants to just focus on my druid full-time, since he’s my favorite character.
So what happened last night? Doofy the Paladin explains it all.
I know I promised a post this weekend, but I haven’t been feeling too great. The move taxed me pretty heavily (no pun intended), and it’s about 2 degrees outside. But my lovely fiancee has agreed to post for me today. Here’s her commentary in its entirety.
The Angry Raider and I play WoW sitting side by side. My main character is my 70 night elf hunter, Serrafina. I love her; she is my favorite character in every way. She’s the prettiest, the most fun, the best all around. I am content to fly around picking herbs, to win or lose in AV, to do instances, to sit around in Shattrath waiting for something to happen.
Angry Raider also plays a hunter, a (currently) level 62 blood elf. I don’t know exactly why he rolled a hunter, maybe just because they look so fun, and he would watch me while playing his mage, having to stop and drink every other pull, while I would be burning through mobs every 15 seconds or so. [All of the above. -Ed.] In any case, he has quickly surpassed me in knowledge and skill.
I fully and unabashedly admit that I’m kind of weird player. I don’t read blogs (except this one!), I don’t read “theory-craft,” I don’t really care all that much about “min-maxing.” I like to have fun. I like to get gear that benefits my hunter (ap, agility, crit, etc.), but I don’t get unnecessarily upset when loot gets mistakenly given to the paladin because the raid leader didn’t see my roll (Steelspine Faceguard). I know it will either drop again, or something better will come along. If I was in a Black Temple guild, loot would be completely different, but I’m not (probably because of my lax attitude about it all.) But I have fun, regardless.
This weekend I’ve been doing AV a lot. It’s AV weekend, and I decided that I need to finally upgrade some of my ancient gear. My guild fell apart over the holiday, and I’m trying to get Serrafina to a place where she will be a desirable app to a guild on a different server, thus, I need to upgrade my Felstalker Bracers, Felstalker Belt, and so on. The Angry Raider, who is very involved in “theory-craft”, and knows exactly which stats will help me the most, excitedly helped me find the best gear for the least amount of effort. I love him for it. He has always helped me be a better player.
In AV, my formula is to run with the group that heads for Drek. When we get to a group of horde, I dismount, send my cat in, and start shooting. I usually do arcane shot, followed by a slew of steady shots, and maybe a multi-shot. Then I tab-target to the next horde and repeat. Sometimes The Angry Raider will sit and watch me, without my knowing, and will chuckle to himself as I smash the buttons on the keyboard as I try and get out of a cluster of horde. Sometimes he’ll interject and tell me that it would be more beneficial if I did something a different way, and I’ll usually try it, but in the end, my formula is already ingrained in my mind, and it’s hard for me to change it. I usually come out pretty high on the damage done list, pretty high in the honorable kill list, and that’s good enough for me. I genuinely appreciate that he wants to help, but I’m kind of set in my ways, even if they are “wrong.”
I know I’m not the best hunter. I know I could do more. But at the end of the day, I still have fun. I’m open to new things, and if I try them and they seem to work better for me, I’ll stick with it. I’m going to try and be more outspoken about loot in the future, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a game, and it’s still just a few extra numbers on the screen.
Sorry for the long delay since my last post. I was in the process of moving from Iowa to Michigan and I started a new job. I had to get my internet set up and all that, but I’m back online and I have several dozen blog posts planned. Some of the upcoming topics include:
This blog is new so I don’t have very many readers, but I invite you to stick around and give me time to get some of the kinks worked out and get on a regular posting schedule. Look for a real post on Saturday and then a new “quality post” at least every other day.
My rogue, who is in a mix of Kara and PvP epics, joined the best Horde guild on my server (Nightfall on Thunderlord). The guild is working on Illidan. Today they had a SSC and TK run to key folks for Hyjal and BT.
This guild gave me a spot. They counted on my skill, and knew that gear would come. It was a dream come true for me after three years in the game.
So I did the BT attunement chain up through Akama’s Promise, just like I was supposed to. Then we killed Vashj, and I was #7 in dps, which is pretty good considering my gear and the fact that I had 1700 AP raid-buffed. Vashj dies, I go to loot my vial, and I see that her corpse isn’t sparkly.
I had dropped the quest and didn’t realize it. I didn’t hear the raid leader remind us to get the quest if we didn’t have it (they were keying 7 others). After we killed Fathom-Lord, I even thought about it, but didn’t check. For some reason, I never gave Hyjal attunement any thought. I was so focused on Black Temple.
As this is the last time Nightfall is running SSC and TK, it was my one and only chance. Thus, it was over for me before it even began. Assuredly my days in Nightfall are numbered, and understandably so. [Update: I'm still in the guild. We'll have to see if another key run is ever scheduled.]
I know it’s just a game, but I am disappointed in myself and angry that I let down the people who gave me a chance. Game or not, these folks put a lot of time and effort into it and they were going to make sacrifices to take in someone who, gear-wise, wasn’t ready. I’m not being too hard on myself, and ultimately, it reminded me that I always have to pay attention to the details in everything I do. One small mistake cost me a major WoW goal. I’m just thankful it didn’t cost me a job or a friend.
My sweet fiancee cried, she was so upset.
Here I am at Vashj after the kill; that’s me to the bottom-left of Vashj.
Details, people. It’s all in the details.
I’ve been working on an interesting project related to WoW in my free time. Today I made the first breakthrough in the effort, and the rest of it should come to me quickly over the next couple of weeks. I need to get some input from raiders.
So what is it?
Quite simply, I’ve created a World of Warcraft guild ontology and raiding knowledgebase. The gist of it is that raid leaders can use the ontology to describe their current raid roster (as well as alternates and recruits) to get a snapshot of their core raiding capabilities. This roster takes the form of high level classes (not WoW classes, but ontology classes) that define the roles in the raid.
For example, you’d have a class for healer, class for tank, class for dps, and so on. The ontology I’ve created is extensible, so if you want a more granular way to define roles, you’re able to. The raid leader can then create a knowledgebase through the ontology by defining the actual implementations of the classes.
In other words, for each class “Druid” the raid leader can create instances of druids in the knowledgebase. Say you have druids named “Karl,” “Leonid,” and “Feifei” in your regular raid roster. You would add these three to your knowledgebase as instances of the Druid class.
Then what?
Well, the Druid class has several slots (i.e., attributes) that you use to define the individual instance. If Karl is a resto druid, then you give him the Healer attribute. If Leonid is a boomkin, you give him the Magic Damage attribute. And so on.
Now you might be saying, “Ok, sounds like a database.” And in a manner of speaking, it is. But this goes further by letting you query your knowledgebase with questions like, “How many healers do I have that can do HoTs?” “How many melee DPSers do I have that can heal?” That is its power.
So let’s take a look at some screenshots.
First, we have the Protege tool open and we’re looking at our ontology. On the left is the list of classes I’ve defined, and on the right is the detail for the class.
This is the view of the Slots (attributes) that are defined for the classes. You can see that I’ve defined two damage roles for druids, Melee and Magical. (Since this is still a work in progress, the healing stuff isn’t in there yet.)
Let’s skip past the rest of those details for the moment and look at the really cool stuff: visualizations. Protege lets you visualize the ontology and the knowledgebase in ways that are truly amazing. These visualizations give you a birds eye view of your raiding situation. The first one is a static visualization that shows the hierarchy of the Druid class.
And finally, we have another visualization of the Druid class in the form of a TouchGraph. This graph is interactive, allowing you to click through the graph and dive deeper into the details of your ontology and knowledgebase. Here is a TG visualization of the Druid class.
You can see in this image that the Druid class (highlighted in green) is connected to the Damage class, which in turn is connected to the Magical class, and so on. You can also see that Mage, Rogue, and Hunter are connected to Damage as well, as are Priest, Paladin, Shaman, and Warlock. If you take a closer look at the graph, you can also see that Priest has a connection to Healer, while Rogue does not. At a simple level, that gives you an idea of what you can use this graph for.
The next step is to finish the ontology and create a working knowledgebase of my guild. I will work with a raid leader to define the knowledgebase for our specific raid core. I think that process will reveal much more about what belongs in the ontology.
I know BigRedKitty will love this. 
Stay tuned!
This has been making the rounds on the WoW blogosphere, so I have to throw my hat in and link it as well.
The Great Shattered Halls Sit-In of 2007
I had my first huntard moment yesterday. I was doing so well, following the sage advice of BigRedKitty and remembering what I like and dislike about other hunters. I do great dps, I manage my pet well, I know how to trap, I pay attention to my placement, and I keep my pet healed. So what could possibly go wrong?
Loot.
My brother (49 priest) and I were in a Zul’farrak PuG. The group make up is myself (46 hunter at the time), 47 rogue, 48 rogue, 49 feral druid, and my brother’s priest. No loot rules were discussed before we started. Red flag #1. The first mob we kill drops Ogron’s Sash.
Cue the blue-drop-fever.
The 47 rogue rolls Need. Then the 48 rogue rolls Need. I figure the sash is actually an upgrade over my ancient level 24 belt, so I roll Need. The druid rolls Need as well, and my brother passes.
I win the roll.
The two rogues freak the hell out, going on and on about how hunters wear mail and I’m a ninja and all that. Then they started rolling need on other BoEs that drop, and talk about how they’re going to roll on everything I can use (which, honestly, is nothing in ZF). I lost my cool, equipped the belt, and left the group. Yes, it was terrible of me.
Now, in retrospect, I can see all the areas where I was wrong:
The rogues’ behavior was immature and infuriating (see my previous post), but my reaction just furthered the huntard stereotype, which does nobody any good. Despite three years of playing WoW and encountering horrific loot situations in which I was the one who got shafted, I’m the instigator. Heed my lesson, friends. Yeah, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a blue belt that we’ll all outlevel in no time, but people don’t forget.
I still don’t have my dang Carrot on Stick.
