Thursday 12 July 2012

Godmother's Guild Questions

The Godmother recently posted about Blizzard’s announcement of the Guild Mentoring Program, wherein select guilds on each server will take in and ‘train’ new WoW players, the idea being, I guess, to improve the overall standard of players.

She also posted a list of ten questions that applicants to her guild are asked, and while I originally was going to answer them in a comment on her blog, it turns out I have quite a lot to say in some answers, so I’m posting them here instead.

What’s your favourite joke?

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The barman says, “Is this some kind of joke?”

What’s the best 5 man instance currently in game?

First instinct is to say Vortex Pinnacle, just because it’s so pretty, but I’m also partial to the ‘subterranean city’ aesthetic of Blackrock Depths and Grim Batol. I think I’d like BRD more if it was a normal zone, rather than a dungeon that you always feel pressured to complete quickly.

What has been the best show on TV over the last 25 years and why?

Everyone says The Wire. I’ve only seen the first few episodes so I don’t know. Really enjoyed Warehouse 13 and Game of Thrones, but they’re both fairly recent. Going back 25 years… well, that’s tricky cos 25 years ago I was only 6 ;)

As for why: WH13 because it’s just really good lighthearted entertainment. Also Joanne Kelly. GoT firstly because it’s so well made, and second because it’s unusual to see a fantasy series be so popular, and may help get people to take the genre more seriously.

If you had a choice what would it be: cake or pie?

Pie. I love pie, and pie can be sweet or savoury. So versatile!

Should Blizzard put more crowd control back into dungeons?

Yes. No. Maybe. I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand it’s a way to make dungeons harder, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s a very good way to do that. It doesn’t require skill to perform, and it disrupts the flow of a group. Some players may be fine with that, taking each pack of mobs one by one, working out the best way to tackle them. Others, though, might prefer the high-speed thrills of doing a dungeon as fast as possible, and when these two opposing ideologies meet, QQ ensues.

I think dungeons should be harder, generally, and I like where Blizzard is going with the Challenge Modes – if they incorporate crowd-control, then it’ll be OK because players will need skill to pull it off quickly.

Have you left Trade/General chat channels at any point, and if so why?

Only until I got a monitor big enough that I could have guild chat separate from everything else. On a busy server it got annoying having trade/general break up conversations in guild.

Also a couple of times when idiots started up with the ‘anal’ spam :-/

Who would you choose as the next James Bond?

I can only think of Michael Fassbender at the moment, and for no good reason.

What’s the best change Blizzard has made to the game in the last twelve months?

Probably Raid Finder. I know it almost always has a few morons, but letting more people access raid content is a good thing, and it gives ‘non-raiders’ something else to do at endgame. I’m quite excited to see what Blizzard do with it in Mists.

Who was better: Blur or Oasis, or some random third band you may now name.

Oasis. They had more good tunes.

If you had to ask me one question, what would it be?

When is Mists coming out?