[1.Local]: Smoother Dungeon Finding for all?

More epic, or just more crowded?

Did raids feel more "epic" back in the days when they required 40 players? Even if we take off our Rose Colored Goggles, it's easy to lump outdated mechanics and poorly thought-out encounter designs along with the simple fact of larger raid groups. Which parts were the good parts, and which parts were less savory?

Killer: I don't miss waiting in MC for an hour while the rest of the group is formed then getting kicked from the raid for falling asleep while waiting. I once was removed from a guild for falling asleep before Onyxia. Ah, those were the good old days. I got more sleep back then. LOL

Braundo: Nice post. Not enough people remember the fire resistance buff from UBRS that you mentioned. There were a lot of things about raiding that were monstrously inconvenient (not even to mention the task of wrangling 40 players), and pure nostalgia has caused a lot of people to forget those things. Raiding as a mage, conjuring water four bottles at a time and passing it out to 39 other people manually ranks up there as well. I know paladins had big hassles with having to rebuff the entire raid (one person at a time) every five minutes with standard blessings, too. There were some good times, for sure, but don't let the rose-colored glasses cloud your vision.

Nathanyel: Take all of your fond classic memories, then look at each of them, and tell me, was any of them defined or even made better by the fact there were 40 instead of 25 people in the raid?

Mr. Tastix: 24 people screaming and doing random sh*t in Vent is no better than 39 people doing the same thing. It'll still annoy you.

What do you think about the idea of having 39 other people along during your raids: epic, or annoying?

Just the tip

What's the point of giving a tip to your craftsperson, anyway?

Cathubodva: As a former bartender, I have to point out TIPS does not mean To Insure "Proper" Service but "Prompt" service. Tipping is completely optional on the part of the consumer. However, as a 'tender in a crowded bar, I always made sure my regular tippers got taken care of first. If I was coming up with new recipes for drinks, I'd hand 'em out to the customer to try. People who were notorious for not tipping got taken care of, just not as promptly as the tippers ~.o

In game, I have a JC. While I don't require tips, if I get repeat service from a tipper, I'll go meet them where they're at and buff them up when I leave.

Tipping in game is much like tipping in real life. While it's not required, it's certainly very nice to do and to receive a tip.

Do you tip your craftspeople in game? If so, how much?

Why WoW players should just get a room

One reader hypothesizes that the reason so many players seem lukewarm to the idea of in-game housing is simply because they've never played a game that featured housing before.

RogueJedi86: The lack of housing frustrates me. The problem is so many people start MMOs with WoW, and they get used to what WoW has and decide they don't want anything WoW doesn't. WoW doesn't have player/guild housing, so people get used to the idea of not having them, to the point where they don't see a use for them in other games. With 11 million WoW players not seeing the point of housing, makers of future MMOs don't see a point in adding housing that the WoW crowd won't care for, which ruins the variety in future MMOs too. I don't want all MMOs to be homogenized just because people are comfortable with WoW's stagnant situation on some features from other MMOs.

I'm convinced that if these players actually played a game with housing, they'd learn to love it. FFXI and SWG and LotRO all have some form of housing, and the populations embrace them. In fact, I think player housing is one of the things that's kept SWG from completely dying and closing down. It's oddly soothing to sit in your house and place objects you looted in the world, either as trophies of conquest or just some pretty objects you found. You'd be amazed at the impressive decorations people make in SWG just from random inane loot. Stuff like AT-ATs and X-Wings and Christmas trees and anything else you can think of, just from the SWG equivalent of vendor trash.

So yeah, I quite enjoy player/guild housing, thank you very much.

And to be a bit on-topic and constructive, you could easily add guild housing to WoW and keep players in cities. It's easy, just make Auction Houses and banks only accessible from the cities themselves. Maybe put a guild bank in a guild house, but everything else in the cities proper. It's the method Blizz has used to keep people using the old cities after Shatt and Dalaran, and I think it'd work here too.

Is the idea of player and guild housing something you find intriguing?

The art of the stealth kill

Sudden, unexpected death -- isn't the frisson of danger the very reason you rolled a character on a PvP realm, anyway?

hotek: I play a discipline priest on a PvP realm, and I must say that being ganked while leveling is what I have to thank for the deeper understanding and appreciation of my class, my abilities and my weaknesses and how to compensate for them. Playing a healer in PvE can feel like a prolonged game of whack-a-mole at times, but when I'm out herbing and I hear that "whooooosh" noise, POP goes Reflective Shield and Renew, trinket ready and I'm ready to fight. ^_^

While yes, griefing leveling players continuously is infantile, ganking is a tradition on PvP servers, and those of us of reasonable mental persuasions do not stay bitter about it all the way to 80. We look forward to presenting a challenge to our would-be gankers and ultimately killing them when they try. I let them rez, /salute and fly off. Good try, mate -- better luck next time.

Sound like your style? Try our 20 tips for leveling on a PvP realm.

I got her! I got her!

In the face of all this Big, Important Dialogue about Big, Important Topics, and capped of course by the Big, Important News about Big, Important Upcoming Changes, we find our funny bone tickled most by Panduh's simple but eloquent comment from the perspective of a humble Durotar Scorpid.

Dischordant:The note about dueling away from PvE mobs is a good one. I remember dueling a friend of mine in Durotar (both of us 80), and she agroed one of the little level 5 scorpions just as the duel ended, with her on 1 HP. As amusing as it was to see a level 80 killed by a level 5 mob, it's something to watch out for. :P

Panduh: I bet it made that scorpion's day!

*scorpid runs back to all his friends screaming, "I GOT HER! I GOT HER!"*