The Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth comes from Deyndor of Swift Retribution who wonders:

So I was talking with Eda on twitter tonight and she mentioned that she’s had 4 raids in the last 2 weeks get canceled. And that got me wondering, what do people do when their raid is canceled?

I’m sure there will be the mundane like farming stuff or running heroics, but I’m sure there are a lot of people with some really interesting and fun things too. Maybe you invade an enemy capital by yourself. Maybe you go play an alt. Whatever it is, share it!

You know, as I started putting fingers to keys and my thoughts spilled out, my response took a slightly different path than what you might expect from the question. Some of you out there may relate, others will just mutter “loser” and move on.

Casual Player

For me, Deyndor’s question is better asked after twisting the object around: What do you do when you don’t have a raid? Not having a raid is my norm. I fill my time with instance runs, achievement collections, reputation whoring grinding and the like…  I basically farm emblems or achievements. I’ve alluded to it before, but I’m not a raider. Yep, you guessed it, I’m one of those dreaded casuals. Why?

First, I travel for work. WoW is an “unauthorized program” on my office PC (any machine connected to my corporate network is scanned to check for said unauthorized programs). If my corporate sniffer locates any illicit programs, my manager is emailed and HR is copied. That would not be a good thing. Given the jobs climate today, you can be assured I will be in full compliance to office policies — despite how much I’d dig playing from the hotel at night. So, when work calls, I’m offline. And yes, all you that are saying “Jeez, just get a laptop”?  Feel free to send me a paypal contribution toward that fund moneybags, because I already have the home desktop (and as much as I love it, it wasn’t cheap).  Justifying a second laptop for gaming while facing braces for the 3rd grader?  Nope, not gonna happen.  Besides, have you ever had to check two laptops through airport security? It’s not pleasant!

The second reason I’m not a raider is that when I’m home, I’m hanging out with the family. I actually like my family and want to spend time with them! Gasp! The only person in the house that expresses any interest in WoW is my son, and he’s a bit young to unleash upon the player community. Until the little ones are all tucked into bed and I’ve caught up with the Mrs, I’m offline.  Usually after 10 pm East, she’s calling it a day and I have a few hours to log in and tune out.

Choices and circumstances in RL make me an unreliable raid member.  I do not — nor should not — expect 9 or 24 other people to just hang out waiting on my sorry buns to log in and have an insta-raid. That would, of course, be awesome, but it’s not very realistic.

The Casual Raider

Still, raids are cool. They represent content that a solo player can not experience, and it’s a whole element to that game that I’d like to see.  Being invited to a planned raid? Well, that’s a Big Deal. Big enough that I will plan real life around occasional raid events.

On the weekend, this means hiring a babysitter.  Yep, if i want to WoW during daylight on the weekend, there better be someone there to entertain the kids. That’s my job on the weekend; I try to give the Mrs some down time since she takes care of them all week — by herself as she likes to point out — while I’m off in factories teaching people to use software. And asking her to stick in the house again so I can game? Will not increase my spousal faction!

What about at night? Well, again, for me to log in early requires some familial support. That’s good occasionally, and it usually requires something in return from me. It can cause strain (Mrs doesn’t get — at all — the lure of MMOs).  In fact, it’s safe to say she hates all video games. But, I too hate chick flicks and tofu, but I’ll still endure them from time to time because you have to support your partner by doing things together. Holy tangent, Batman!

Anyways, you get the sense that me participating in a raid requires a bit more than the average player?

So consider that all of the above planning has taken place… and poof!  Cancellation!

You know what? When that happens, I’m pissed. All that effort to be available is wasted. All of the real world stress is pointless. At that point, I’m done with the game. Time to grab a book, catch up on some DVRs or removing some of that marriage stress by checking to see if “going to bed” meant “going to sleep”.

See why I’m casual?

Anea (@_anea) from Oh look, an Alt! posed the question:

One of the things that can make us happiest as bloggers is seeing e-mails notifying us of comments on our blogs. However, if we took that away – and the influence it may have over our writing – would we become better bloggers?

Would writing what it really is you want to write make you truer to the purpose that you started the blog for? To write exactly whatever is in your head, rather than worrying about whether or not anyone will find it “interesting” or “good enough” to comment on? For the joy of writing?

Or are comments integral to your blogging experience and if you don’t have them, you don’t write?

Is seeing comments on a post nice? Is having an actual readership nice? Hell, yeah! It feels good –really good, actually. It affirms that other people are actually reading my opinions and being moved enough to either agree or disagree. If you don’t already know that, trust me, it’s an empowering feeling.

See, I started to write Blade Barrier for myself, not for an audience. The blog is an outlet for me to talk about my time in WoW – my wife is not a gamer and looks at me like I’m a lunatic when I exclaim “Nice! Another achievement!” I’m also older than the average player. My friends and neighbors are not into playing, and they honestly eyeball me a bit quirky if I’ve ever broached the subject. So, as far as real life goes, WoW time is solo time. The Blog is a great outlet to share that experience (with just me or with an actual reading audience). I hope my drivel reaches the eyes and minds of other WoW players, and I’ve listed myself over at Blog Azeroth and participate in forums (as well as Single Abstract Noun) to let other folks know I’m here — so yeah I do want people reading and dropping by.

I’m not sure if I won a lottery or that I prematurely climaxed like an overeager teenager (sadly leaving much of my audience unsatisfied), but after being online for only a few days, my seventh post was linked by the Daily Quest feature on WoW.com. My hits skyrocketed from 1-2 per day to 4,500 that day and 2,800 the next, and then slowly declined around 30… Now I’m hanging tough around 25 – 35 hits (at least according to Google Analytics!). I was still exploring my style (which continues), and I’m certain there was nowhere near enough substance or experience to retain that large of an audience. A few comments that were left showed that.

Negative comments are a double edge: my immediate reaction was indignation, especially on the more trollish. However, a few readers (and thank you!) left articulate posts on why they disagreed with my views. I appreciated that deeply because it made me reconsider, take in their points, and actually improved my fun in game (because their suggestions worked!)

On the other side, positive comments just make me happy. When I see that encouragement, I know I’ve reached someone and they get what I’m trying to say. I feel a connection, and it just feels good. That connection is a bit of a drug — you feel that once, and then you need to feel it again and again and again… It’s a toss up as to what is more addicting: playing WoW or blogging about WoW.

Boom, welcome to the podium. Tap the microphone… “Is this thing on?!?” Don’t choke, Artie, because people are listening to you…

Reader comments (vilifying or supportive) are solid proof of a reading audience. When I’m sitting here typing or reviewing the drivel my fingers just churned out, knowing that other people will read this makes me edit it and take a more critical eye. It’s a bit more like work — I mean I have to spell check and everything! But it also results in a result that I’m more proud of because I have critiqued myself and I’m ready for others to review it.

Anea’s question on whether reader comments / fan base demands alter subject matter is quite intriguing. I could see a need to satisfy a mainstream readership (especially on the larger blogs with more followers). It might very well be tempting to modify or perhaps even censor subjects in the hopes of preserving or increasing that readership. However, with ‘lil ole me, that’s not an issue. I do not need to, or even feel the urge, to modify my subjects or content of my post. What I do look at is the quality of my writing within that post… I want my opinions organized, but I won’t (nor need) to sanitize them for a reading audience.

Bottom line, I write whatever I want to write about. I welcome and deeply value reader comments as a form of feedback. Having readers raises my level of effort, and ultimately improves the quality of the site.

Cheers!

The Blog Azeroth topic o’ the week is to encourage players to use better security and avoid being hacked.

Account Security

There are lots of great suggestions out there to make it harder for someone other than YOU to access your WoW account. The obvious ones?

• Purchase and activate your Blizzard Authenticator!  Really, it’s only $6.50.  All you elite iPhone & iPad peoples can also download a mobile version.
  • If your Guild Leader does not use an authenticator, smack them.  My old guild leader was hacked, and not only did she lose over 40k in materials, gold, and the rest, but the guild bank was raped and several thousands of gold in trade skill materials also went bye bye.  GL’s, respect your members trust and at least take the step of authenticating!
• Use a complex password for your Battle.net account. A combination of uppercase, lowercase and digits is enough to discourage bored teenagers from brute force hacking.
• Change your Battle.net password from time to time (I personally change it monthly).
• Practice “Safe Surfing” while online.  When you hit the porn, warez, mp3s or cheats sites, you’re mingling with dirty things.  When you hit the AddOn sites, you may also encounter less than savory items.  Be safe.
  • Use a dedicated browser (I like Firefox with NoScript) for your “download” browsing.
  • When considering AddOns or spreadsheet tools or other, skip anything that is executable (*.exe, *.bin, *.bat, *.vbs, etc).  Think of it like a date with Paris Hilton – who knows where that stuff’s been.  There may be some fantastic tools out there, but you should trust it before you install it.
  • Any viable AddOn that you like in game should only contain *.toc, *.xml and *.lua files.  Those are all that are required.  Anything else opens your doors for intrusions.
• Use Anti-Virus.  Don’t just download it and watch it sit there all pretty… Actually use it to scan everything you do download.  Get a commercial one or a free one (I hear AVG is good).  Me, I’m using ClamXav for my iMac.

Other than that, the simple rule is “Don’t be dumb”.

Can you guarantee 100% that you’ll never be hacked?  No, not really.  Think of a hacker like a car thief… A good thief is gonna steal the car whether or not it’s got an alarm, The Club, or whatever.  A good hacker will ultimately get in, but you can make it harder.  Also, by making it harder, you eliminate the amateurs that are just farting around or bored or whatever.

So there you have my thoughts on account security — but the real interest for me is the link to Gold Sellers.

The Gold Seller Factor

Why would someone want to hack an account in the first place?  To sell their stuff for in-game gold and fulfill an order for out-of-game dollars, that’s one reason why.  Blizzard requires gold for in-game stuff (items, skills, etc); some players are either too lazy or too daunted (or in my case too time constrained) to farm for days on end and gold sellers offer an ‘easy’ solution.

Personally, when I hit 70 and wanted Artisan Riding (a.k.a. epic flying, I ran every daily I could (back when 10 was the max per day) to earn the 5K. I’m not much of an AH day-trader, nor do I have the patience to mine for hours on end, so for me daily quests were the money-maker. Even then, it was weeks before I had the scratch. Some people can’t wait weeks.  Repeating that for my priest was daunting…  Artie didn’t earn epic flying until he was already level 80 for several weeks, and he had two other level 80 toons feeding him cash.

I think that Blizzard COULD reduce this aspect of the problem… instead of making things cost “gold”, why not make them attainable via quests, instances, or another point based merit system.  Am I nuts?

Definitely!

But ask yourself this:  “Self, why do players need gold in WoW?”  Most of it, at least for me, is to buy the latest and greatest craft-able item materials from the AH or to purchase ridiculously overpriced skills (think Epic Flying) or vanity items like the Mekgineer’s Chopper, Reins of the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth. Daily reagents and supplies (corpse dust for non-glyphed Death Knights, for example) or potions can easily be funded with just a few instance runs (almost 40 gold for 2 heroic instances).

What if… and mind you this is just a what if… but:

• What if we see more of the converting frozen orbs to goods — and add vanity items to the NPC item offerings?
• What if you earned epic flying based on either a quest chain or other requirement instead of forking over 5k gold.
• What if you could use emblems or shards for craft-able mats?
• What if instances gave you “instance points” like PVP gives you Honor Points or Arena Points, and those instance points allowed you to grab a Frozen Orbs or other?

My point?  Well, what if Blizzard removed the ‘gold sinks’ from the game and made it less mandatory to accumulate gold for crap that costs thousands, then there would be less of a need for stacks of cash.  With less demand, there is less need for supply, and no incentive for professionals (other than bragging rights) to violate accounts and pillage banks.  Essentially, the need to hack for gold fades…  It doesn’t fix bored kids hacking for fun, but it’s a start!

Well, it seems the meds are wearing off so time to go get happy.   Cheers!