The difference between instancing and sharding

Relmstein's been talking about seamless word design, but I think that he's a bit unclear about the difference between instancing and sharding. Both are used to avoid the problems of scaling (and introduce seams into the world), but there are a few critical differences.

I'll use WoW and EvE as examples, because those are the two games I know best. EvE is heavily instanced. Each star system is a separate instance, which makes sense. You can hardly interact with (read: shoot) someone who is several light years away. Conversely, it's possible to interact with someone in WoW if they're standing on the Ashenvale side of the Ashenvale-Barrens border and you're on the Barrens side. The WoW equivalent to EvE's jumpgate is the instance portal leading to Deeprun Tram. You go to an instance, but it's shared among all players on that realm/shard, and you can't interact with someone in Ironforge or Stormwind from Deeprun Tram. The difference is that there is always only one Jita (the most populated star system in EvE), but there are several Deeprun Trams, one for each realm/shard. Even if you wanted to, you cannot meet your friend in Deeprun Tram if he plays on a different realm/shard.

The problem with shardless design is that players are free to flock into a certain area and thus you more easily run into the issue of bandwidth demands increasing exponentially as the number of players nearby increases.

If a player makes any action, the results of that action must be transmitted to every player that can in any way be affected by that action. That includes everyone who is in visual range, because their clients must be able to render the animation for that action. As the number of players increases, so does the amount of bandwidth required to transmit the results to all witnesses. If there's only a few active players and a lot of spectators, the bandwidth requirements increase geometrically and the server is able to keep up. WoW, for example, can handle events where there are around 500-700 spectators with little or no percievable performance problems.

However.. if each of those players is an active participant and thus generates actions themselves, the amount of bandwidth required to transmit results rises exponentially. That same server that can handle 700 passive players will start timeouting people when around 200-300 people engage in combat.

WoW uses both instancing and sharding to combat that problem. At most, a dedicated instance can contain up to 80 players (Alterac Valley), so you only need to allocate bandwidth for that worst-case scenario. Sharding is used to divide the player base into so small groups that there isn't 200-300 players on any realm/shard that would be interested in engaging in one massive battle. It isn't a foolproof method, so Blizzard's been using instanced battlegrounds, arenas and geographically distributed PvP objectives to lure people away from the old Tarren Mill vs Southshore battles. I'm a bit curious about Lake Wintergrasp, though. Maybe Blizzard is more confident about their architecture this time. Or they just forgot some hard lessons of the past.

Unfair ban?

Apparently there's some commotion about someone named Lamaagetting banned by Blizzard for botting. Many people have risen to his defense, but I'd hold judgment for now. There's not that much evidence around.

A part of the problem is that the ban was a part of the latest wave of mass bans, so Blizzard's going to be swamped by complaints from both the innocent and the guilty. Lamaa says he's innocent. But both the truly innocent and the guilty would say that. People say that Lamaa would never do such a thing. I don't know Lamaa, these people or their motives, so that means little to me. From personal experience I do know that even people you like and trust can disappoint you. Blizzard does have an appeals process, but whatever department at Blizzard that's handling account suspensions and bans is going to be very busy for the foreseeable future, no matter how much hell Lamaa's blogging friends raise.

There's also been talks about fraud, since Lamaa did pay for a subscription, which he cannot use now. I don't think that appealing to fraud is going to help much. Blizzard can terminate the account at any time:

BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE THE ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME WITH ANY REASON OR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE. For purposes of explanation and not limitation, most account suspensions, terminations and/or deletions are the result of violations of this Terms of Use or the EULA.

If Lamaa agreed to the Terms of Use, he also agreed to that part which says that Blizzard is not required to explain it's actions. End of story.

Well.. not quite. Maybe we should go through one hypothetical scenario: That he did purchase Glider, but didn't use it to powerlevel or farm gold. If he bought it, he probably installed it and started it as well. If Glider was running while WoW was running, Warden would have detected it, because it scans the process list. And as far as Blizzard is concerned, that's enough evidence to ban him:

WHEN RUNNING, THE PROGRAM MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH WORLD OF WARCRAFT. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON" OR "MOD," THAT IN BLIZZARD'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE PROGRAM. IN THE EVENT THAT THE PROGRAM DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, BLIZZARD MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER SECTION 6 OF THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.

It doesn't matter whether he actually used it to powerlevel or farm gold. If he did have Glider running at the same time as WoW, then he did break the terms of use and deserved to be banned. But as I said in the beginning, there's not enough evidence to make that call right now.

The moral of the story? Read those Terms of Use and End User License Agreements. They're not there just for show.

Negative synergies

While browsing the WotLK alpha wiki I spotted these two talents:

Burnout - Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all Fire spells by 5/10/15/20/25% but every time you critical with a Fire spell you lose an additional ?[internal entry blank]% of your total mana.

Hot Streak - Any time you cause 3 spell criticals in a row you have a 33%/66%/100% chance the next spell will gain 100% increased chance to score a critical hit.

So, if you crit you'll burn a percentage of your mana, and if you happen to chaincrit you crit some more. Hopefully Hot Streak has an internal cooldown or a counter that resets whenever it activates. But even then the "synergy" between these two talents can be devastating to the sustained damage of fire mages. Assuming you don't overaggro first, that is.

Betting on Failure Cascades

Tobold's been talking about how Age of Conan and Warhammer have been busy imitating World of Warcraft. He thinks that the developers are shooting themselves in the foot by providing a too similar experience to WoW. He's probably right, since the network effect is currently working in WoW's favor. However, there may be more to it than meets the eye. I think that FunCom and Mythic are betting that Wrath of the Lich King flops.

People do play WoW because their friends/family/coworkers play it. Breaking the network effect is hard, but it's not impossible. At some level, Blizzard does realize this. The old model was to funnel the whole player base towards high-end raid content. Homogenizing the player base is not unlike putting all your eggs in one basket. If you make old PvE content obsolete and your new PvE content is a major disappointment, your risk alienating a large percentage of your player base. If there's a viable alternative available that's praised by early adopters, the network effect could remanifest as a failure cascade, where the exodus grows exponentially. WoW doomsayers have been summoning this exodus for quite some time now, but so far it has not reached critical mass. This is why Blizzard has been promoting PvP more and more, because this reduces the overall risk. If your PvErs jump ship, the PvPers could stay put.

If AoC or WAR were only seen as good PvP games, many disillusioned WoW PvErs would not see them as viable alternatives. But if they provide incentives in the form of decent PvE games, they could attract both PvErs and PvPers and thus increase the chance that WotLK's failure cascade would direct all of those potential customers to them.

It's a risky bet, though. Like Tobold points out, there is a real danger that AoC and WAR will be simply seen as cheap copies of WoW. And even if Tycho threatens to sing if people point that out, it's still a valid point.

The pre-WotLK wait is here

My guild's been stuck on Kalecgos for a few weeks, so our raid leader called for a two-week raid break. Considering that I've been playing more EvE than WoW (even during raids), I welcomed the break.

Now with about a week and a half through the break, the 25-man raid announcements have started popping up on WoW Raidar once again. However, there's only 8 signups. With Age of Conan out soon and WotLK probably due to be released around Christmas, many people seem to be in the wait-and-see mode. Still, I'm getting a deja vu. I had two guilds pre-TBC that stopped raiding after a few wipes on Razuvious. That time I could get a few upgrades from PvP that were good for PvE, but that isn't the case here. If I'll never enter Sunwell again, I have almost as good gear as I can get. If history does repeat itself, there's no reasons left for me to resume my subscription until WotLK.

So.. I will wait and see.

The Turtle Smiles

I hope this clears up any confusion or frustration you may have about this situation, the only thing I have left is that I would like to take this time to remind you of our stance on Defrauding or Attempting to Defraud a GM, Kiranth

Is it just me, or does Auryk's avatar have a shark smile?

Prokofy Neva vs. Broken Toys

I wonder if there's a corollary to Godwin's Law that explains all of the Stalin references in this epic thread..

Is it so hard to understand that maybe, just maybe, sandbox and theme park-style games can co-exist? You may like one type more than the other, but that doesn't mean that everyone else is wrong and as bad as Stalin/Hitler/whatever.

But then again, this is the Internet. And when duty calls, we must do our part.

Nerf fire, buff shoes!

Fire is totally overpowered, it burns my shoes!

Things left unsaid

WoW Insider has a few articles on mage vs warlock rivalry. And I'm a bit conflicted on what to say.

I could say "I told you so". I could say that they need to QQ less and pew pew more. I could say that I outdamage warlocks. I could say that complacency kills. I could say that our arsenal of AoE skills balances things out. I could say that the utility we provide is enough to tip the scales. I could say that nobody is a "pure" class anymore. I could say it'll be better in 2.4 or at the Wrath of the Lich King. I could say that Blizzard just needs to fix the itemization. I could say a lot of things. I could even say that I don't care anymore.

But I'd just be lying.

Kalgan on Effort vs Rewards

Many "hardcore" raiders might nod approvingly at this comment by Kalgan:

I definitely think there's a valid argument to be made that the time investment and organizational requirement versus reward aren't balanced well enough right now

However, you should be careful what you wish for. Balance goes both ways. If Blizzard ever realizes how difficult the PvE encounters really are and balances the game.. a flamewar of epic propotions will ensue.

Fighting my inner demons

Kalgan:

Mages will get new abilities in the expansion too, believe it or not. In fact, we intend to tone down how strong of a counter warlocks are to mages through the wotlk spells/talents.

Must.. not.. make.. a.. cynical.. comment..

Warlocks using mage gear?

I recently listened to the WoW Insider podcast where the topic of the day was the Warlock Life Tap change on the PTR. While my guild's warlocks have been up in arms about it, I haven't paid much attention to it. Until one of the hosts on the podcast mentioned that warlocks might start to favor mage gear. That comment was worth a chuckle for a variety of reasons. Suffice to say, I doubt that any sane warlocks will pick mage gear, since mage gear isn't optimal for mages either. If warlocks (especially Affliction warlocks) want to waste item points on spirit and spell crit, go right ahead. Maybe some poor fool even spends dkp on a certain robe.

How to kill Shartuul

By request, here's a guide on how to kill Overseer Shartuul, the soloable world boss encounter at the western plateau at Blade's Edge Mountains. If you can complete the prerequisites, anyone can defeat Shartuul. Race, gender, class, spec or gear will make no difference whatsoever.

But first, the prerequisites. You have to have completed the initial Ogri'la questline to be crowned the king/queen of the ogres and acquire Honored reputation. At that point, Kronk will ask you to Banish the Demons. As a reward, you get a Darkrune. You will also gain access to the followup daily quest, Banish More Demons, which rewards you either with an another Darkrune or a Darkrune Fragment. Collect 5 fragments and you'll get a Darkrune.

Now, go talk to Gahk, who'll upgrade your Darkrune to a Crystalforged Darkrune. Now you can challenge Shartuul and kill him. In theory, that is. Personally I recommend getting at least a few Charged Crystal Foci first. When properly used, these will allow you to "reset" the encounter. But more of that later.

So, off to Shartuul's teleporter, which is located northeast of the Skyguard camp. Avoid the Felguard Degrader and walk into the teleporter. Now, use your Crystalforged Darkrune. This will allow you to take control of the Felguard and start the encounter. Your own body will be safely hidden inside the teleporter.

Phase 1 of the Shartuul encounter involves you trying to break the Teleporter's shield while Shartuul sends his Felhound and Imp minions at you.

When you took control of the Felguard, your primary skill bar got replaced with the Felguard's skills:
Mortal Strike - your standard melee attack. Use it whenever you can.
Mighty Whirlwind - Point-blank range AoE attack.
Terrifying Roar - AoE fear.
Chaos Charge - Charge attack with an AoE element. Your key to completing the first phase of the encounter.
Smash Shield - Throws your hammer to break the teleporter's shields. Use it immediately when it's ready.
Absorb Life - Point-blank AoE life drain. Requires a Charged Crystal Focus to use. It's somewhat bugged, and not really required to complete phase 1.

Shartuul will start spawning his minions after you've used Smash Shield once. The first few waves could be killed using Mortal Strike alone, but it's better to get used to the rhythm now. Pick a corner and let the minions come to you. You'll quickly notice that the Felhounds will get into melee range immediately, the imps stay back and pelt you with fireballs. When all of the Felhounds are attacking you and you have an Imp nearby, run towards the imp and use Chaos Charge at around 10 yards. The direct damage from the charge should kill the Imp, and the AoE should kill all Felhounds around you. This simple manouver is the key to completing phase 1.

The number of Felhounds will ramp up as you keep damaging the shield with your Smash Shield. Since the Felhounds don't spawn all at once, you'll find that the cooldown of Chaos Charge becomes a problem. This is where the other skills come in. If you have a large amount of Felhounds at you and no imp nearby, use Mighty Whirlwind. While it takes longer to finish than Chaos Charge, it too should kill all Felhounds who received full damage from it. Your other primary skill, Terrifying Roar, can be used to avoid excessive damage from the initial Felhounds. Fear a bunch of them. They'll return by the time the Imp gets in range. Just stay patient until all of the Felhounds have returned to you. This is a perfect opportunity to use Chaos Charge to kill all of the minions at once. Remember to keep an eye on your Smash Shield cooldown.

Once the shield reaches around 20%, all remaining minions die and a Doomguard is released from the Teleporter. This is the end boss of phase 1. He does more damage than you, so stay away from his melee range and especially his flames. Wait until he gets in range and use Chaos Charge. Immediately afterwards use Mortal Strike and Terrifying Roar. This manouver will allow you to do damage to the Doomguard while denying him the opportunity to do the same. While he's running in fear, run as far as you can and wait for your Chaos Charge cooldown to recharge. Repeat. When he is almost dead your Felguard gets stunned and your life is drained. Congratulations, welcome to phase 2.

Phase 2 is similar to Phase 1. There's no shield to break this time, only waves of minions to fight. This time you'll control the Doomguard Punisher, which has a different set of skills:
Punishing Blow: Standard melee attack. Does more damage against stunned targets.
Fel Flames: Channeled AoE attack that lets you damage enemies in front of you. You can move while it's being cast.
Throw Axe: Ranged stun with a minimum range.
Super Jump: Ranged charge with an AoE stun element.
Consume Essence: Single-target life drain.
Bombing Run: Special attack which makes you reflect all enemy attacks and deal random damage to all enemies. Consumes a Charged Crystal Focus.

The minions you'll be fighting against are Mo'arg Tormenters and Gan'arg Underlings. The Gan'arg will melee you and construct cannons. Never let them do that. If you see one channelling a blue beam, stop whatever you're doing and stun/kill it. While you have a lifedrain attack, it isn't enough to offset the damage done by the cannons. Finally, the Gan'args can shield and heal the Mo'arg. This is seen as a red beam effect. Don't let them do that either. Stun or kill the Gan'arg and he'll stop.

The larger Mo'arg Tormenters will shoot poison at you, and have much more HP than the small Mo'args. These are your main targets in this phase.

Like in phase 1, the first waves are easy and no Mo'args will spawn. Super Jump towards the Gan'arg, use your Fel Flames to do AoE damage while you melee them down. Kill runners with Consume Essence or stun them with Super Jump or Throw Axe.

When a Mo'arg spawns, Super Jump to it as soon as possible and get a few Punishing Blows through while it's stunned. Remember to activate Fel Flames, and manouver yourself so that all of the Go'args are hit. The Fel Flames have a small stun effect, so you'll both do significant damage and stop them from rescuing the Mo'arg. When Fel Flames is on cooldown, run away and use Throw Axe or Super Jump to resume your stunlock. Your Punishing Blow requires the stun to do significant damage. If you need health, use your Consume Essence on Go'arg runners. It does around 90% damage, so choose wounded targets to finish them off. If you feel overwhelmed, you can use Bombing Run to get a breather.

Eventually, the Shivan Assassin will be activated. If you have any Go'args still running around, kill them first. Like in the phase 1 boss fight, the Shivan Assassin does much more damage than you, so you can't afford the extra damage inflicted by cannons. Bombing Run is highly effective here, since the Shivan Assassin has plenty of ranged attacks that you can reflect back to her. However, she can be defeated without the Bombing Run. The key to that is to keep her stunned as long as possible and dish out those Punishing Blows. Super Jump her. When the stun ends, run away and Throw an Axe at her. Keep your Fel Flames up while you're meleeing her. Eventually, your life will be drained and you take control of her. Welcome to phase 3.

Phases 3, 4 and 5 involve you controlling the Shivan Assassin and fight two of Shartuul's pets, and finally Shartuul himself. The Shivan Assassin has 3 different "stances": Fire, Shadow and Ice. The stance changes have a cooldown, so knowing when to use each of the stances is vital.

Aspect of the Shadow: The stance you use when you need to regain health.
Death Blast: Shadow damage spell. If the target had a Siphon Life debuff, the debuff is consumed and you heal yourself for a significant amount.
Siphon Life: DoT that also heals you. Keep it up whenever you can. When it's about to expire, use Death Blast and recast Siphon Life.
Shadow Nova: Point-blank spherical AoE spell which does damage and heals you.

Aspect of the Flame: Your damage-dealing stance. It has passive 20% bonus to movement speed.
Pyroblast. Fire damage.
Flame Buffet: Fire damage debuff. Stacks up to 10. Keep those 10 stacks up and you'll do decent damage with Pyroblast.
Cleansing Flame: Removes debuffs from you. Use whenever you get debuffed.

Aspect of the Ice: Your damage-mitigation stance. Generally you want to use it for the Ice Block and switch away as soon as the danger has passed.
Iceblast: Ice damage. Deals more damage if the target is frozen.
Icy Leap: Frost Nova coupled with a self-inflicted knockback. Only occassionally useful.
Ice Block: The mage version on steroids. Lasts only 4 seconds, but it also reflects spells while it's active. This spell is literally a lifesaver.

Whew. That's a lot to remember, and the first attempts to fight with the Shivan Assassin will probably end badly. Fortunately.. you have a reset button:

Chaos Strike. Ranged spell which requires a Charged Crystal Focus. While it has plenty of effects, it's particularly useful with the Shadow stance. It applies a debuff which greatly increases damage done.. and life drained. If the target is debuffed with Chaos Strike and Siphon Life, a Death Blast will heal you to full. If you are about to die, use the Chaos Strike.

So, off to the monsters. In phase 3, you fight the Eye of Shartuul, a beholder. He moves relatively slowly, but applies a nasty debuff in melee. Stay away from him. His standard attack is a Fel Fireball. It hurts a bit, but isn't particularly dangerous. He also places stun fields. You'll see when he's casting one, so you have plenty of time to move away. Make sure you don't step in one. Stunlocking yourself is not wise. Finally.. he has a Dark Glare. It does a whole lot of damage, and if you get hit by more than one of these you'll probably die. It has a long cast time, so you have time to switch to Ice Stance and Ice Block.

Start Phase 3 in Shadow stance. As soon as the Eye of Shartuul spawns, apply Siphon Life and the Shadow Nova debuff to it. Switch to Fire stance and start applying those Flame Buffets. If he's casting a Fel Fireball, cast a Pyroblast. Otherwise keep your distance and avoid those stun fields. Counter Dark Glare with Ice Block. Immediately afterwards switch to Shadow stance and use the Death Blast just in time to consume Siphon Life and heal yourself. Reapply Siphon Life and Shadow Nova and switch back to Fire stance. Repeat. The Eye of Shartuul is not particularly difficult, but Dark Glare can kill you.

Phase 4: Hound of Shartuul. He's a melee-only mob, so you'll be spending most of your time in Fire stance. As before, start in Shadow stance, apply debuffs and switch to Fire Stance for Flame Buffets. However.. the Hound of Shartuul can charge you and apply a nasty snare. Use Cleansing Flame to get rid of it and run away. Switch to Shadow Stance before your Siphon Life expires and regain some life. You should end this phase with 100% health.

Phase 5: Shartuul. This is where you'll probably need those Charged Crystal Foci. Start in Shadow Stance as usual. Shartuul will start the fight by flooding the arena with eyestalks. These eyestalks have a nasty Mind Flay that stacks. Shadow Nova will get rid of them and heal you, but there's a small but annoying bug that will make the eyestalks ignore it for a few seconds after they spawn. If you're being attacked, it's usually safe to use Shadow Nova. Shartuul himself should be in the arena by now. Apply Siphon Life on him and run to an another set of eyestalks and Shadow Nova them too. Switch to Flame stance and start applying those Flame Buffets while casting Pyroblast. When you get debuffed, use Cleansing Flame. If he starts to cast Incinerate, use Ice Block. If he resummons the eye stalks, use Shadow Nova. And whatever you do, remember to consume Siphon Life with Death Blast and reapply it. This is a long fight and you'll need that life.

Simple? Not really. The tricky thing in phase 5 is that Shartuul is somewhat random with Incinerate. He may cast if before or after the eyestalks, or skip casting it altogether. If you go to Ice Stance too soon, you'll risk letting either Flame Buffet or Siphon Life expire. If you switch stances too late you get hit with huge damage. Or you may get stuck in Ice Stance while the eyestalks peel away your health. Or get rid of the eyestalks and not have enough time to Ice Block. And once you get "off schedule" once, it's easy to keep messing up the timing. If that's the case, don't shy away from Chaos Strike. Get full health and try to get a hold of the timing. If you keep Flame Buffet and Siphon Life up, avoid Incinerates, get rid of eyestalks and remember to consume Siphon Life regularly.. Shartuul should eventually die.

Curing Purple Fever

Tobold posted about the relative value of purples. While mudflation and applying economic theory to MMOs isn't new anymore, there was one tidbit that caught my attention:

Raiders should learn that it is in their self-interest to spread out the epics more evenly.

While it's easy to say that one shouldn't care too much on who gets a particular epic, that won't be much consolation to people stuck in the vicious circle of purple fever.

You don't want to let other people have epics if you aren't sure whether they'll stick around or not. So you'll make arbitrary rules on who is eligible for a particular piece or loot, who won't get invites to raids etc. Naturally, all of that will just breed more distrust and envy. Eventually some people will leave, devaluing the guild of the collective benefit of their epics. To discourage that, you'll make even stricter rules, which cause more people to leave. Then, during a night of wiping at a previously easy boss because your class balance is screwed up.. tempers flare and guild breaking drama ensues.

I'm currently in the opposite self-reinforcing loop, where loot is plentiful and drama nonexistent. Unfortunately, reversing vicious circles is hard and painful at best, and quite impossible if you're deep enough into the downward spiral. To many, being an officer or a guild leader is the first time they're actually in a management position, so it's no surprise if they fail at detecting, let alone correcting these kinds of issues. But if you do succeed.. perhaps listing "Guild Management" in your resume isn't a bad idea after all.

Cloth Rocket Boots

From the French forums: There will be a cloth version of the Rocket Boots Xtreme.

Blizzard 1 - Peons4Hire 0

Blizzard just won an injunction against Peons4Hire, forbidding them from interfering with the game.

Sex, Drugs and RMT

Broken Toys has quotations from an another IGE lawsuit. Only this time it's the insiders suing one another. The feeding frenzy has begun, and I have my popcorn ready. Virtually Blind has more.

Game Over

The End

The End,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

You know the best part of killing someone? The look on their face. It's that look. Not when they're threatened. Not when you hurt them. Not even when they see my spell. It's when they realize that they will die. Right here, right now.

Punctuality and Discipline

Zanderfin's been wondering about raid punctuality. Here's my two cents.

When I joined my current guild I wondered how they were able to clear raid instances in just 3 hours. Not anymore.

First of all, signups and therefore raid tuning is done a week ahead of time. Invites start 30 minutes beforehand. If you have a tight schedule, you're expected to get your consumables, repairs etc ready beforehand and log off near the instance. When you receive the invite, you're supposed to drop whatever you're doing and start heading for the instance. You're expected to help with summoning the furthest raid members. Raid start time is when the first pull is made, ready or not. At that time everyone is in the instance. Buffs have been done and water/food/healthstones have been distributed.

During the raid itself, everyone is expected to know what the mobs do and what you should do. Certain raid markers are always reserved for specific purpose. For example, triangle, square and circle are reserved for crowd-controllable humanoids. Classes are expected to organize their duties by themselves. When that green triangle pops up, I'll always know that I'm expected to Polymorph that mob during the pull.

At bosses, there are no extensive tactics explanations. Everyone is expected to read the tactics beforehand, and 90% of the time the only discussion is about picking people for specific roles, group reassignment etc. Preferably, all discussion about specifics is done beforehand on the forums. If we kill the boss, loot is distributed quickly. If you don't bid for an item, it'll be disenchanted in 20 seconds. Meanwhile, people are being resurrected and rebuffed. Tanks and crowd-controllers are already setting up for the next pull. If we wipe, everyone's expected to be ready for the next attempt in five minutes.

During the raid, there will be one longer pause (long=5-10 min). That's enough for food, a bio break or a chance to sate your nicotine addiction.

If you have a bad connection, you're expected to notify the raid leader and preferably find yourself a replacement. If you screwed up, you're expected to admit it. Not learning from your mistakes is grounds for a kick from the raid. A farm-status boss will only be attempted for a maximum of 3 times, unless problems that led to the wipe(s) were clearly resolved and won't be repeatable. The raid leader relocate the raid to a different instance or even disband the raid early if no progress can be expected.

Sounds harsh? Perhaps it is, but it works. Nobody's kidding themselves here. We don't go to an instance to spend an evening. We go to an instance to progress as far as we can, because that's what we like. To defeat challenging enemies like a well-oiled machine. This requires a lot of self-discipline and being responsible for yourself. Nobody will hold your hand.

Self-discipline also ties to the age-old discussion about casual and hardcore players. One can attain the oxymoronic rank of a casual raider by focusing on the quality of time, not the quantity. Spend less time yet achieve more.

At worst, WoW is like work. You spend long hours doing some mindlessly dull task while trying to tolerate your mindless associates and a frothy-mouthed, always-yelling boss. At best, WoW is like work. You arrive at your workplace refreshed and eager to work. You use your skills to solve problems many thought to be impossible. Customers praise you and your boss can't wait to reward you appropriately. And you go home early.