The Daily Blues

I started playing World of Warcraft because it's fun, not because I thought it was easy. For me, there is a significant difference between those two concepts. While the kind of fun that I have has changed and evolved over time as I play new classes and new content, I still really enjoy it. Some of the changes have required some adjustment, of course, but for me, that adds novelty.

Right now, there's a lot of push-me pull-you going on regarding Heroic Dungeon difficulty; some worry that instances are too difficult, while others fear that they'll be nerfed into mindlessness. It's my opinion that these opposing stances might be a bit premature because Cataclysm is still very, very new. I rather expect that dungeons will get easier. Not necessarily because they'll be altered, but because the tactics required to win will become common knowledge and the overall gear level of the players queuing will improve over time. For those fearing that the challenge will evaporate, raiding will, hopefully, prove to be a significant hurdle. Naturally, it's probable that those encounters will also seem relatively "easy" once players are fully geared and know the tactics backwards and forwards. By then, we hope to have new challenges ready.

My personal approach -- which is by no means canon -- is a healthy combination of "trial and error," "study online sites," and "hope someone else has been there before." While I prefer not to spoil the visual experience too much, if I'm about to take on more difficult content (like a new raid boss, for example), I'll sometimes watch encounter videos, too, just to make sure I'm as prepared as possible.

Trial and error is certainly my favorite method, though (provided that I've some base understanding of the encounter). I feel that I'm able to learn more by making mistakes, wiping, analyzing what went wrong, and then trying something new rather than simply walking into a dungeon and knowing all the mechanics outright. I can get a better feel for what I should be doing and, perhaps more importantly, what I shouldn't be doing -- which I think makes me a better player and a more groovy person all around.

Again, that's just my personal preference, and the idea of wiping more than once may not always mesh well with the other players I group with -- especially if they have a greater understanding of an encounter than I do. If that's the case and they're able to just tell me where to go and what to do, I'm happy to defer to their wisdom, even if that means I don't get to learn the fight the way I prefer. For me, running dungeons is all about working together, and -- hey! -- I can always go and wipe with my friends some other time if I'm really jonesing for a repair bill. :P

We don't post on our play accounts. If I want to give feedback to the developers about my play experience, I do the same thing I do when I'm compiling player feedback from the forums. I email them directly. And I wouldn't dare troll these forums and create more work for our moderators. ;)

But yes, we do play on normal accounts with standard character names. I've been playing five different characters since patch 4.0.3a launched, some on PvP realms and some on PvE realms.

Low-level: troll hunter, worgen druid, goblin shaman

80+: gnome warlock, undead death knight