Horde Review

So, today i’ve got a real treat for you readers out there. I was given a chance to interview Brigwyn, of the former “The Hunting Lodge” blog and podcast fame (in spite of what he might think). This interview did turn into about a 5 hour long fascinating conversation about hunters, wow, addons, blogging, raiding, and just about everything in between. PLEASE bear in mind that some of the opinions expressed by either Brigwyn or myself are just that… opinions. They don’t necessarily express the opinions of the entire hordereview.com community, nor anyone else on the staff. Now then, initially, I was going to cut the interview down, but in the end I decided to keep it in it’s entireity and break it down into sections. Any red parenthetical comments in italics are notations I added after the interview for more information or clarification. Please keep in mind that this interview was conducted via IMs, so gramatically (and capitalization-wise) it’s not perfect, but i’m sure you can overlook that for the content. Now, without further ado…

Brigwyn: How you doing?
Achloryn: Hey. Well, like I said, I write the hunter column on hordereview.com, and i’m sure a lot of people know of you and The Hunting Lodge, so I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your experience in wow and so forth. And i’m doing pretty well. How about you?
Brigwyn: doing pretty good. and as for people knowing me? rofl. maybe. WoW has a very short memory
Achloryn: LOL I dunno about that. People sure seem to remember Vanilla very well, everytime they talk about any change to raiding
B: haha. yeah. that’s mostly because there were 2 very distinct players in Vanilla. You were Normal or Hardcore. There really wasn’t a “Casual” type player back then. The hardcore were raiders from the old EQ or other MMO’s and the “Normal” were just that. Normal people that loved to play games. Casual became something more at the end of Vanilla as more and more people started raiding. Then you had hardcore raiders (these were the guys on ALL the time and had the Epics/Legendaries) and the “Casuals” those that raided but didn’t play as much
A: Well, I haven’t been playing since Vanilla, but that’s certainly the impression I get too, just from hearing others talk about it. I dunno, I kind of like the fact that you can be in the middle somewhere and still see a good amount of content.
B: yeah. I’d have to say BC was the “Golden Age” of raiding really. For Hunters it was a horrible time, but all expansions are “horrible” for hunters. lol
A: I don’t know if i’d go that far, a lot of people just like to complain when things aren’t ridiculously easy and they can AFK their way to the top of the charts. Kind of funny when others do nothing but gripe about how easy the endgame raids have become.
B: your right though what’s nice about WoW is you can always start and play. pretty much at whatever level you choose. That’s why it has such staying power. You’ll find that hunters have always found a reason to gripe. But that stems from the known fact that we truly were the “Forgotten” class. Blizzard has openly admitted they honestly didn’t know how to deal with us back then. But that’s all changed now.  They have a good handle on the class. Like the way it’s going or hate it. at least they understand it. As for things being easy and people whining about it? I find that funny. Especially with the buff at what 15% and TONS of guilds wipe on the
DPS checks?
A: I know.. It’s a bit mind boggling at times. People want it to be easy, but they don’t want it to be easy. Some just don’t know what the heck they want.
B: Yep yep. For me, I’ll admit I miss the days of where raids required “strategy” and not just memorization of where to stand and when to move as everyone spams a rotation. And Blizz has admitted that was a mistake and even now are changing that. And that’s a good thing. I expect Ruby Sanctum (I haven’t been on the PTR) to be more like ICC and require people to know their class and skills. We might not have the heavy trap cc, but you do need raid awareness and know how to use ALL of your skills.
A: I’ve seen the video for the Halion fight. It’s pretty intense looking. (The video for the Halion fight of the Ruby Sanctum on the PTR can be found here) That’s actually a good point though. Do you really think that Blizzard just didn’t… get it (raiding) right until ICC? That the rest of the raids were just far too easy before then? For this expansion, I should specify.
B: Not “Too easy.” We bloggers and podcasters have a tendency of saying “easy” when we mean “simple”. It’s just easier for us to get the point across that raiding isn’t as complicated as it used to be. Naxx was WAY too easy. But that was because all of us were were overgeared and ran it before, or at least were just overgeared
A:: But isn’t that a sort of side effect of making the game more “accessible” as you mentioned earlier?
B: Right. let’s take a look at Naxx. It was basically a Spam fest b/c Blizz really didn’t expect us to be as geared or as ready as we were. They had just moved the old instance from EP out to NR and said have at it. So the old timers realized that we could LOLVolley our way through it. Ulduar though, that’s when things started to change. You needed to know more than just volley but for the most part it was just pewpew and stay out of goo.
A: Now, i’ll admit I never played back in Vanilla, but having done just a few raids in BC, I must say, Naxx did seem simple, if time consuming.
B: We won’t talk about TOC or TOGC I truly feel those were just fillers. Yeah. Everyone forgets Ulduar. because they skipped it and went straight for the gear in TOC/TOGC. That was bad planning on Blizz.
A: I think Blizzard has a bad habit, whether they mean to or not, of working in extremes. Naxx was too simple. Ulduar was too intense for a lot of guilds. TotC was too simple again.
B: But honestly ask how many guilds have completed Yogg+0 today?
A: Oh the number is staggeringly low, i’m sure. Even normal mode fights like Vezax or Hodir really required a lot of awareness and strategizing.
B: And ask how many of the ICC guilds have actually been able to go back and get it today. It’s amazing how difficult it is. Yeah. but your right. Blizz kept swinging the pendulum to the extremes in this xpac. I’ve often said that I feel Blizz was using WoTLK as a testbed for Cataclysm. A lot of different things about this expansion just had bad feeling about it. And it wasn’t until later I realized that hardly any of the original team were involved once Kaplan shifted over to the black box
A: See, I didn’t realize that either, since like I said, i’m a relative newcomer to WoW.
B: meh.. don’t let anyone pull the whole “I’ve played since Vanilla.” and intimidate you. It might help just because you understand the “mechanics” a bit better. but each expansion is it’s own game and honestly even we have to relearn it. Maybe we have a bit of history and can pull up our rocking chairs and enjoy our jello from our porches. But honestly, it’s just ego if they pull that stuff.
A: Oh, i’ve never been intimidated by anyone who’s played since vanilla. I just realize they have a different perspective on things than I do, who came in less than 6 months before Wrath.
B: Yep that’s it. It’s probably more about the “reason” we play, or started playing at least. I’d probably say a lot of the original players were either old MUD/MMO/RPG and d20 players compared to the newer ones are probably more console/fps types. not a bad thing, but it does change your perspective and approach to the game i think. That’s the biggest change and honestly the hardest part for me to adapt to this time around.
A: So, is that part of the reason you’re distancing yourself, for lack of a better term, from WoW?
B: There’s a lot of reasons. But yeah. this is definately one of them. I started realizing my readers were a lot more interested in “which button when” approach to the game. I call them “twitch gamers”. When you track the style of console gamers it’s a lot more hardcore min/max than the old school rpg/d20 types.  Twitch gamers tend to overgear and focus on the achievement/gear. The RPGers will focus on the story and puzzles it seems.
A: Do you think the direction Blizzard is taking us panders to that type of “Twitch gamer” a bit more? Or to phrase it a bit differently, do you think the game’s more reactionary than proactivity like it used to be?
B: hmm…. I think they’re really working hard to try and find the “impossible” balance betweeen the two. Yes, I think things like achievements, the random dungeon, raid, bg utility are also examples. those are all nice for the time constrained, but they don’t encourage “player community”. This is something I would say many of the “old timers” miss.  We were forced to figure the “puzzles” out. We didn’t care about everyone having the correct acheivements, GS etc.. it was more about did you have the skill, did you know your class, and how we got along with you.  Try to pick up a group today w/o hearing at least 1 person mention either GS or some achievement. lol
A: I think that’s something a lot of people, whether old timers or not, miss without realizing that that’s what it is.
B: agreed
A: So many people complain about gearscore specifically, and yet they all continue to enable it. I can’t sit for 10 minutes in trade without seeing “5800 GS Hunter LFG xxxx” or something of the sort. The community aspect of the game, even from when I first started playing, isn’t the same as it used to be. Attach a number to your name, and you can just kind of get what you want.
B: ROFL! Yeah. I remember when we interviewed Arcaknight (sp?) the developer of GS and talked to him about how his addon was being misused. He admitted that he probably shouldn’t have used that name but it stuck. But the more important part is what you’re mentioning. He didn’t think people would focus on the GS number as much as they are.
A: Well, GS isn’t exactly a new concept either. Wow-heroes has had a “gear score” attached to someone’s armory profile for a long time. Since before everyone started using the GS addon, at any rate.
B: People don’t even use the application really. They just use it to check the number and move on. I still find it hilarious being in a group w/ people that don’t have a clue how to play but manage to have high GS. Your right. We had WoW-Heroes (wow-heroes.com) and umm. dang can’t remember the other one. grr.. anyways.. we had about 3 different sites with different numbers. OH! Be-Imba (be.imba.hu) that’s it. Anyways, the “score” didn’t matter so much because you had “real” progression. You could see how people were by the gear they wore but once Blizz blurred the progression lines by flooding the market with freebies and offering different tokens after every heroic. people started “expecting” you to be overgeard.
A: I actually found Be-imba before Wrath came out, and I thought the site was just amazing. It didn’t just score your gear, but it would tell you whether the pieces you had were good for your spec, or whether you were enchanted properly, or gemmed properly, and what raids you’ve done. Something that, to my knowledge, the GS addon is missing.
B: It all became about time. Which brings us back to why I call it “Twitch” gaming.
A: Yeah, and that’s another thing Blizzard has admitted they made a mistake on. Too many tiers of gear, too easy to overgear everything in sight, so no one wants to help a lower geared person along.
B: Nah. Be-Imba, WoW Heroes and.. CharDev (chardev.org) all had scores attached to their results. But it was always secondary not the first thing you saw. GS made a poor design choice and put the score on the first page and the gearing breakdown on the second. The “correct” way to use GS has always required you to go and check out the character to see “why” the player had the number they did. And the last version I tried (13?) actually started importing boss kills, spec choices, and enchantments as well. But the damage is done and no one realizes or cares at this point.
A: I never downloaded the GS addon, at all, just on principal. It’s like pugging a raid and putting an item on reserve. Someone’s more than welcome to do so, but I won’t waste my time on those raids, whether I need the item or not. Well.. That sounds a little harsh to the author of gearscore.. I refused to download it on principal against the monster it’s become, not what it was initially intended to be.
B: I can respect that. And I’ve even expressed to the GS Dev that he might want to change the apps name and remove the focus of the addon. But at this point it’s so big it really doesn’t matter.
A: Even if he did, another addon writer would just pick up where he left off, keeping up with the misuse that’s made it so prevalent.
B: And just to be clear. I don’t use Gearscore, I did the interview b/c of the hoopla and felt I needed to know how it worked.  Oh yeah. there’s a couple out there now I hear. All basically the same even though they say their not. lol
A: Meh. Plagerism is almost commonplace in addon development nowadays.
B: Yeppers. But every now and then you come across a nifty little addon or utility that helps here or there. But all in all I try to run as “clean” a setup as I possibly can.
A: Are there any addons you use that you find you just almost couldn’t live without?
B: Yeah. This is something else my co-host Daewin and I talked about when we did THL. I think Blizzard has slacked off a bit on their UI development and rely on the add-on devs to carry the load of UI innovation. The rotations are so time sensitive nowadays I think it’s nearly impossible to achieve a “respectable” performance w/o using something like Power auras or some other custom UI mods
A: I agree. And, for me, it’s as much a physical appearance thing as well. I use dominos because I just dislike the setup of the action bars how they are at default.
B: When Raiding I’d have to say I’d have to live with DBM, Omen and PowerAuras the rest are pretty meh.. but those 3? I “need”
A: Yeah. I think DBM and Omen have pretty much become requirements for anyone who wants to raid.
B:Well I can live with the action bars. I’m fortunate that my laptop has a wide screen and a decent graphics card. So I jack up the resolution pretty high. Yep yep. And those are considered “classic” required addons. They’ve been around in some form foever it seems. I will say I was very happy to hear Blizz is tackling AVR though. That one has really gone TOO far in “supporting” the players imho
A: I would have to agree. It’s been all over twitter today, and the general concensus is that AVR was designed to make things a bit too….mindless. Although, the disco-balls on the ground are usually pretty well liked.
B: well you can’t have your cake and eat it too right? I remember someone writing in once asking about an addon that was like a Whiteboard. At the time I laughed if off but said it would be a nice “help” if that’s all it did. I didn’t realize nor think about the long term aspect. How maybe it wouldn’t be mapped based but screen based and it would stick. That’s just wrong. And how you can share your strats and “drawings’ with other AVR players. I’d have to ask why play? If you want that type of ease go play Toontown.
A: Yeah, I never used AVR, but it seems like little more than baseline graphical hacking… and I think that’s why Blizzard is killing it, and it’s the right decision, in my opinion.
B: Yeah. From what I can tell. AVR somehow manipulated the map, in games camera api, and “secret chat channel” pretty amazing stuff from a development standpoint. If I was Blizz I’d seriously consider giving that dev a job. lol
A: Lol.. They just might, if they weren’t busy destroying something he obviously worked very hard on.
B: haha. yeah. /shrug if they don’t i’m sure they’ve got a pretty bright future one way or the other. Really, think about it. This guy figured out the deep APIs and how to communicate with them using an open very simple UI scripting lanuguage to modify and create custom graphics in a controlled world. That’s some serious sh**!! (Okay, I admit it. As much as I hate AVR I’m totally impressed by the ingenuity and skill of the developers)
A: Oh, i’m not downplaying what they’ve done skillwise at all. But I have to wonder if he didn’t KNOW that Blizzard would nuke it at some point.
B: probabably. And most of the addon developers seem to approach WoW as either the A) They’ll steal my work and I get to say I “changed” the game and my stuff is in there. or B) I’ll stay one step ahead and fix their fixes. Kinda like jailbreaking your iPhone/iPad lol
A: Either way, it’s a full time job in and of itself i’m sure. heh.
B: aye

Well that, my friends, is part one of this rather epic interview. It was really hard to find somewhere to insert this break, as the conversation really DID just flow so easily from one portion to the next. I hope you find this interesting, even if you don’t have a clue who Brigwyn is, or really care. Here is part two!