Daily Bloggery 2009-05-13: Welcome to Kul Tiras, a No-Ninja Zone, or Death Cab for Gnomie

Very interesting night in WoW last night.

1. "If it's Tuesday . . ." -- Tuesday in WoW is Instance Lock Reset Day for virtually all the raids and heroic dungeons from the two expansion packs to the game. An "Instance Lock" is something that happens when you enter a 1o+ person raid dungeon (Karazhan, Naxxramas, Gruul's Lair, Serpentshrine Caverns, Ulduar, etc) or a 5-person "Heroic" (hard mode, better loot) dungeon like those in Outland (Hellfire Ramparts, etc) or Northrend (Utgarde Keep, Drak'Theron Keep, Old Kingdom, The Nexus, etc) limit you to entering one copy ("instance") of the dungeon per character per weeek for raids and per day for heroic 5-person dungeons. Non-heroics can be run as often as you can find a group for the run. On Tuesdays each week the instance locks expire on the post-expansion raids. For example, last week I ran regular Vault of Archeron, regular Obsidian Sanctum and *most* of regular Naxxramas -- so the locks on those three instances expired yesterday.

So yesterday was a busy day in WoW. Gwenny and I agreed to meet up in game after she got off work and got done with a meeting she had then, which was in a few hours. A guild mate starts a demi-PuG for Heroic (25-man) Vault and Heroic OS. Unlike the PuG from a couple weeks ago, this one rips right through both instances -- they're brief with a single loot-piñata boss at the end -- like a hot broadsword through buttered armor, all bosses went down for their long overdue dirt naps as planned. Sartharion (Dwarven for "Draconic Loot Piñata") in OS dropped the token for my Tier 7 armor set gloves.

Tier 7 is this expansion pack's top-end raid armor. It's the gear you need to have before progressing to Ulduar and ultimately, Icecrown Citadel. It is character class and in some cases (shaman, druid, paladin) is specialization-specific. The token is taken to a vendor and redeemed like the Golden Ticket in Willie Wonka for the piece you need.

So, how do we decide who gets the token? How do RPGers decide *anything*? Through a die roll, of course, via the console command /roll. To prevent "ninja looting" -- just having anyone take the loot and leaving everyone else screwed -- virtually all raids designate a Loot Master who loots the Good Stuff™, administers the /rolls and distributes the candy. If there is no Master Looter in a raid, I drop from that raid faster than a Level 70 can solo Hogger.

OK, so this blood elf female hunter, a warrior and I roll on the token, and the hunter's roll is highest with me next, the warr rolled a 1. I /bow to her and "gratz!" her on her new T7 gloves and manage to win a nice epic helm on the next roll. I leave for the auction house to buy two gemstones for my helm.

250 gold and an hour later, the hunter sends me a message: "Gratz on the helm. I think I may have improperly rolled on those gloves. I contacted a GM (game master) to fix it, but I need your agreement that the token was rightfully yours."

My reply: OK, I have gemmed the helm and it is soulbound (cannot be sold or given to another player, can be sold to a vendor).
Hunter: GM can fix it. Gems will be refunded
Me: OK, what about the old helm I sold to a vendor?
Hunter: GM can fix it.
An hour later, with GM intervention, I am poorer by 6 gold (vendor payment for helm) and an epic helm and richer by one Tier 7 gloves token.

That most awesome of hunters is now on my friends list. It's incredibly gratifying to meet a player in WoW who shows just how few players are ninja-looting self-centered scamming pricks.

Once my esteemed Guild Mistress -- Gwenny -- logged on, she pinged me and we grouped up to spend a pleasent evening traveling about Azeroth together looting dungeons and slaying gnomes. I carve her troll tribal glyphs into each gnome skull I loot for her and toss her pet Chimalli Scooby-Snacks™. She says that is sweet. Seriously. Gnomes need to die. When fighting those Alliance dogs, I always -- even unto turning into a berserking Leeroy Jenkins -- attack gnomes first. Always. Give me a choice between attacking a cloth-armored healer at 10% health who is not a gnome and a gnome death knight in full plate with health buffs, I go for the gnome first. Tactically wise? Not. I'm role-playing!