On Wednesday Carpe Flux Capacitor killed Tortos for the first time! It was only our second time reaching him, and it took us 28 attempts across those two nights. It was a hectic fight at time (as they all on first kills) but definitely fun. Hopefully next week we get him down faster!
Flex Raiding – Too Little Too Late?, wolfgangcat, WoW Misadventures, 6/7/13.
I agree with him! The gear is worse than normal, but you need to have at least 10 people. Why would I run it then?
On raid lockouts, flexible raiding, and choice, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 6/8/13.
I disagree with many of Mr. Rossi’s points. I really need to make a post just on flex raids.
FlexRaids in 5.4, and LFR is apparently killing wow?, TyphoonAndrew, TyphoonAndrew’s – Eye of the Storm, 6/7/13.
TyphoonAndrew loves the addition of flex raids but defends the importance of LFR.
Maybe NORMAL Raiding Should Die, Prinnie Powah, That Was an Accident!, 6/7/13.
Here’s an interesting idea. Prinnie Powah wonders if normal mode should be removed and replaced by flex raids.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Proving Grounds, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 6/12/13.
Finally! This sounds really exciting.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Challenge Mode titles for fastest clear times, Matt Low, WoW Insider, 6/12/13.
If you have the fastest clear time for a Challenge Mode, you’ll be given a title specific to that Challenge Mode. As soon as you lose the fastest time, you’ll lose the title.
Patch 5.4 PTR Patch notes, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 6/12/13.
Everything else about 5.4.
Know Your Lore: The legacy of the Mag’har, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 6/9/13.
The Red pox, the attack on Azeroth, Garrosh, and more.
Diablo 3′s new game directory outlines the future of the game, Auction House, Michael McWhertor, Polygon, 6/5/13.
Josh Mosqueira, the new game director of Diablo 3, wants items to feel meaningful and reduce “the impact of the Auction House.”
Carpe Flux Capacitor is recruiting!
Recruitment is always interesting. It’s more than just filling a spot for a raid. It’s sort of like saying “we’re a group of friends who love to hang out. Do you want to hang out with us too? If so, let us know!” For the same reason, it’s very exciting. A new member is someone I’m going to talk to a lot, so it’s fun to get someone knew.
Last night we ran our raid with two new team members. Things went pretty smoothly on the first two bosses. We couldn’t kill the council, but we’ve only actually killed the council once (maybe twice), which is fine. Tonight’s are second and final raid night of the week. It’ll be nice to start right on council and hopefully blow past it to Tortos.
We’re done recruiting full raid team members for now, but we’re still accepting non-raiders. In fact, Mooglegem’s been put in charge of recruiting casuals or backup raiders. We’ll see how it goes!
Another cute pet joined my farm! This is Miss Fifi; Haohan Mudclaw gave her to me after I became best friends with him!
Next up, I hope I earn some sheepies. I’m enjoying actually unlocking new animals.
When Rohan at Blessing of Kings posted about variable group sizes in WoW, I thought it was a great idea that would likely never be implemented. I was wrong.
Blizzard just announced Flexible Raids. Flexible Raids is a new raid difficulty for 10-25 players. Loot works like LFR, and you can participate cross-realm, but there is no matchmaking service. The difficulty scales with the number of people in the group, and item level of gear will be between LFR and normal mode. In addition, Flexible Raids are on their own lockout.
What does this mean?
You’re no longer obligated to run either 10-man or 25-man raids. Guilds now have the flexibility to run with however many people they want.
Except that’s not quite true.
Let’s say a 25-man guild doesn’t have enough people to raid on a particular raid night. Yes, they could run a Flexible Raid. However, would it be better to run the flex as a whole group or send 10 people into normal mode where they’ll get better gear? Maybe it has to do with how many people are available. If there’s between 20 and 25, maybe they should try to run two normal modes. I don’t know; I’m not in a 25-man guild.
What about 10-man guilds? There are two scenarios to consider. First, what if there aren’t enough people to raid? Well, if we’re under 10 people, the Flexible Raid isn’t going to help. If we have more than 10 people, why would we want to get worse gear? Wouldn’t we rather the 10 more regular raiders have a chance at better gear in normal mode?
I think this is going to become another obligation. Blizzard says I’m not obligated to run LFR, but I still need a lot of gear from it even though I’m in a 10-man guild. While I don’t always do LFR, I try to run it every week. If the flex raid is going to drop better gear, shouldn’t I be doing it too? I suppose this could bond a different set of people. If 10 core guild raiders were online and wanted to raid, we could raid normal. If I wanted to do LFR, I could just queue. The flex raid would give me a reason to make friends with a wider community. Right now, I don’t interact with WoW players outside of my guild very often. There have been guilds in the past that PUG’d me regularly, but currently I’m not in touch with anyone. With flex raids feeling required but lacking a matchmaking service, I could see reaching out to other bloggers, for example, to add Battletag friends. But I have to be honest. Most weeks I don’t valor cap or complete LFR. What makes me think I have time to schedule a flex raid?
This seems really odd to me. I’d be ecstatic if they had followed Rohan’s idea of 7 to 13 people. Blizzard’s implementation won’t really help my guild and will likely feel like a burden I can’t fulfill. It’s an interesting first iteration of the scaling feature regardless. Even if I don’t have time to schedule anything, maybe a guildie will occasionally ask me to join a flex raid, but I don’t see it happening lately. It’s hard to judge a feature without experiencing it, but it seems to me that Blizzard took an interesting idea and executed it poorly.
A Raid for All Seasons: Flexible Raid Preview – World of Warcraft.
Alliance vs Horde Storyline Favoritism, Rohan, Blessing of Kings, 6/3/13.
Is there favoritism in the story or is it a natural consequence of the story being told?
Class Distribution Data for Patch 5.3, Cynwise, Cynwise’s Warcraft Manual, 6/1/13.
No big change with priests. Who cares about other classes? Okay, lots of people.
Darkspear Rebellion, and making events more accessible, Jods, Jods’ Blog, 6/3/13.
Jod wants to make these types of events more accessible by scaling everyone’s level.
Rumour – Final stage Legendary, might not be a weapon…, TyphoonAndrew, TyphoonAndrew’s – Eye of the Storm, 6/5/13.
TyphoonAndrew gives some ideas for a final legendary that isn’t a weapon.
#228 A Change in the Warcraft’s Log-in Screen, Spencer Nozell, Be MOP, 6/3/13.
Spencer thinks that despite normally receiving one log-in screen per expansion, it’s time for a change.
Know Your Lore: The Alliance and Horde, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 6/2/13.
This is a nice consideration of the relationship between the Horde and the Alliance over their history.
Stormwind Keep valued at $10,293,472, Sarah Pine, WoW Insider, 6/5/13.
That’s pretty cheap actually.
Worlds Yet to Conquer: Ideas for new content in old places, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 6/3/13.
There are plenty of places to still explore.
Vanessa VanCleef should come back from the dead, Michael Gray, WoW Insider, 6/1/13.
No, Michael isn’t suggesting that she become Forsaken. But that’s not an interesting idea!
Diminishing returns on valor instead of a cap?, Adam Holisky, WoW Insider, 5/30/13.
Great idea.
Look how cute my yak is! LOOK! I finally became best friends with Farmer Fung, so I he gave me this yak, Shaggy, to live on my farm.
This was the reward I most wanted from the different NPCs, and I’m happy to finally get her. Now I just need to get the rest of the animals!
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