GameFly; Boss Kills; 10-man vs. 25-man.

Holy smokes, it finally shipped!

I love GameFly, I really do. I even had a clever plan with them – keep my queue insanely small, and they’ll be forced to send me the games I want. It worked up until now. This time, Bioshock 2 was the only game in my queue for two weeks. Looks like they will not, in fact, just buy another copy to fill the demand. All is good now, though, for they have finally shipped me a copy, and I should have it by Monday. I look forward to revisiting Rapture next week.

If you’re in Cambridge tonight, you have the chance to see me in rare form, which is to say out and about on the town instead of sequestered away in my office, working on Loremaster on my Death Knight. I will instead be at TT the Bear’s, greatly enjoying the music of The Luxury. Freakin’ awesome Brit-pop-rock band from Boston, winners of the 31st annual Rock and Roll Rumble, totally awesome ninja robots that breath lava while they play and more badass than Chuck Norris after he beheaded the Highlander. No, really. Check it out.

Some new Kill Shots/Achievements up – check em out.

Aeman (one of my guild‘s two raid leaders – trust me, they make it work well) has been working on an off-official-raidtimes 10-man Glory of the Icecrown Raider run for a few weeks now, and we’ve been making some steady progress. I’m quite excited about what’s to come. So far, the fights haven’t been too tricky; I’d say just enough for a 10-man run, enough to make you work for it. Averna and I were talking about the ease of 10m vs. 25m last night, and I’m of the mind that it’s not so much that the 10m runs are easier, per se, but rather that there’s less to carry, less confusion, and each and every member is important. On the one hand, that puts a lot more pressure on each raid member, but on the other, that’s a lot less chances to mess up; it narrows the margin of error by 15 players, and that’s a lot of confusion removed. Someone died? It’s pretty easy to notice, and probably pretty easy to get a battle rez up (it’s not like you have five druids in the raid – well, you probably don’t).

Thing is, with 25 people, someone’s more likely to mess up, someone’s more likely to need to be carried, and in some 25-man encounters, people can’t be carried. Everyone has a job, and they need to perform it flawlessly or everyone dies. That’s just how it goes sometimes, and I think that just becomes more apparent when there are more chances/people to mess up. 10 man runs aren’t inherently easier, they’re just easier to manage. I guess my point is, no hatin’ on those who push out 10-man runs/kills/achievements – they’re working just as hard as you are at them. They just might be working harder than the weakest link in your 25-man, and that can be the difference between a kill and a wipe.

This just in! Patch notes for 3.3.3 just hit, and boy am I pissed about some of it (just some, though – some is sweet!). Next post will cover what I think; stay tuned and see you soon!