PST - Episode 113

[Squirrels]

Well i'll never apply for a 'management' job in my life, but I can't imagine in my environment even thinking of putting World of Warcraft as a resume item. I wouldn't even mention it as a hobby if asked since a 'hobby' in a job interview is really just a backdoor way of asking if you do things to progress your career outside of work hours (i.e. you're supposed to say something along the lines of 'i write open source code' or 'i run a side business setting up networking for small businesses' in my spare time). Even the most open-minded manager isn't going to value WoW raid leadership as much as real job experience, and the question is going to be 'why did you spend that time playing a game when you could have been doing the same type of thing as a real job?'

From what I have read, everyone agrees with you that it can come off the wrong way, which is why we have been saying that you a) have to understand your audience and b) you have to understand that you are taking a risk by bringing it up. It really depends what you are trying to accomplish in your interview, and this is why I suggested only bringing it up as an extra after you have presented all of your normal information that should get you the job. All in all though, it is a big gamble.

... That leaves a big chunk of valor to get somewhere and its hard to motivate myself to do dailies when I am done with all of the factions.

I have found that challenge mode dungeons are an excellent and fast (if u have a good group) source of valor points for the week. In addition, challenge mode dungeons semi-bring me back to BC dungeons were if u make one small screw up, shit hits the fan HARD.

[Thels]

I guess i'm the only one but I run dungeons and scenarios all the time. It definitely seems faster for valor-capping than doing dailies as long as you only do one of each per day. I don't have any set time in which I can raid at the moment and pugs are effectively dead since the start of MOP (at least compared to Cata), so its just LFR for me and that only gets me to 450 on the first toon and 675 on the second (with bonus). That leaves a big chunk of valor to get somewhere and its hard to motivate myself to do dailies when I am done with all of the factions.

The problem is, if you raid, you gain somewhere between 240-640 valor from raiding. If you still need loot from a couple of LFR instances, that already means you're close to valor cap, and then if you do just only a few dailies, you're capped, and running another dungeon or scenario gives you barely anything.

Now that I'm only needing 2 LFRs for offspec reasons, that gap is growing a little again, and I find myself running a few more dungeons, because LFRs are just plain annoying. But when 5.2 hits, I'll be running all the LFRs I can, and if we got a decent amount of bosses down, and I'm doing some of the new dailies for the new rep as well, I won't be setting foot in dungeons at all.

[tawnos]

The problem is, if you raid, you gain somewhere between 240-640 valor from raiding. If you still need loot from a couple of LFR instances, that already means you're close to valor cap, and then if you do just only a few dailies, you're capped, and running another dungeon or scenario gives you barely anything.

Now that I'm only needing 2 LFRs for offspec reasons, that gap is growing a little again, and I find myself running a few more dungeons, because LFRs are just plain annoying. But when 5.2 hits, I'll be running all the LFRs I can, and if we got a decent amount of bosses down, and I'm doing some of the new dailies for the new rep as well, I won't be setting foot in dungeons at all.

Yes I get that if you are raiding significant amounts of t14 there isn't much need to do anything else for valour and I guess the tacit assumption is that most people on tankspot are in that category. At least from what I've seen compared to t13 though thats now just a niche of the playerbase - of the people I puged/raided with in t13 the vast majority are now LFR-only or at most doing their 1-4 in MSV in addition to LFR, so for the playerbase as a whole it seems like normal/heroic mode raiding is now back to the t11 type environment that it is ostensibly intended to be and not a major source of valour for very many people. That leaves a pretty big gap of valour for most thats either going to be dailies or heroics/scenarios.

[Thels]

I didn't assume you should be. Apologies if my message came across like that. I was merely explaining why you won't find most of the well-geared (which also represent a decent chunk of the well skilled) players in the Heroics/Scenarios.

It doesn't help that the skill seems to be dropping so much that when most people like me do run a HC or Scenario, we prefer to drag some guildies along.

[Squirrels]

Regarding the skill level of the player base:

Imo, it is not that players cannot achieve the skill, it is that they have no reason to work towards a high skill level when doing random dungeons and LFR. The bar is simply lower in both of those places. Why interrupt when you can spam more lightning bolts? However, random dungeons and LFR are designed for this type of play. This is the EXACT audience blizzard is targeting for dungeons and LFR.

Essentially, blizzard realized that if they develop these two different content types, they can attract most players to the game and thus, have more subscriptions. And for all things said, this has worked very well (10 mill. ppl is a lot of players). LFR / random dungeons are designed for the "casual" and "i really just want to face roll" gamer. Challenge modes and normal/heroic raiding were designed for players that want to use some sort of skill to kill things.

At the end of the day, if you are a raider / challenge mode player, you have a much higher chance of being in a guild. And thus, you typically have access to like-minded players to group with. If you need to do a heroic, which if your raiding you should not have to outside of valor points (and even then, challenge modes are faster/give more valor), then you probably will bring your friends. Players who are not in it for the raiders, are typically in no guild or "meh" guilds, and thus, utilize the solo random dungeon queuing system.

Everyone players WoW differently. In Vanilla and BC, if you were not skilled, then you couldn't do anything. This is not a good model to keep subscribers/players in the game. Whether we like it or not, the current WoW is not vanilla WoW. To an outsider, they are two COMPLETELY different games. Going forward, the challenge we and blizzard have is how to bridge the gap between the "idc players" and the "elitist players", as going from LFR to normal/heroic raiding can be a shocker for many.

[ChampStanley]

Essentially, blizzard realized that if they develop these two different content types, they can attract most players to the game and thus, have more subscriptions. And for all things said, this has worked very well (10 mill. ppl is a lot of players). LFR / random dungeons are designed for the "casual" and "i really just want to face roll" gamer. Challenge modes and normal/heroic raiding were designed for players that want to use some sort of skill to kill things.

While I could quibble with a few of your points (there was plenty of room on 40 man raid teams for unskilled players; I was one), I think your main point about the two different types of content and their players is spot on. Moreover, I think the gap between the two levels of content is greater than it's ever been. I suspect this is intentional on Blizzard's part, but as someone who feels caught in between the two, bridging the gap feels tougher than its ever been.

Looking forward, I don't see it getting better. The disparity in item levels between the two groups is only going to increase, and catching up through 5.2 LFR will net better gear than catching up through nerfed 5.0 raids. I'm not a Cataclysm fan, but after Firelands came out, folks were still running and pugging BWD, BOT and Throne since the gear was as good as the JP gear and better than the ZA/ZG loot. Why finish tier 14 for loot worse than 5.2 LFR? Crappy guilds like my own, stuck on Elegon, will have little incentive to clear the old raids when the new one comes out, and will be gearing up individually through LFR and dailies rather than playing together. Hooray.

[Fetzie]

Why finish tier 14 for loot worse than 5.2 LFR

Because LFR never drops anything other than for slots that you filled with VP gear already?

[Aggathon]

Well i'll never apply for a 'management' job in my life, but I can't imagine in my environment even thinking of putting World of Warcraft as a resume item. I wouldn't even mention it as a hobby if asked since a 'hobby' in a job interview is really just a backdoor way of asking if you do things to progress your career outside of work hours (i.e. you're supposed to say something along the lines of 'i write open source code' or 'i run a side business setting up networking for small businesses' in my spare time). Even the most open-minded manager isn't going to value WoW raid leadership as much as real job experience, and the question is going to be 'why did you spend that time playing a game when you could have been doing the same type of thing as a real job?'

when I graduated college I applied to 17 different companies, got interviews with almost all of them

In those interviews, 3 of them I mentioned world of warcraft... extensively...

I got a job offer from each of those companies.

I didn't get a single offer from any of the others.

Those 3 companies? Tinker Airforce base as a civilian engineer, I actually got offered 4 different positions, I could have worked on a new smart engine design, been a hardware testing engineer for the B2 stealth bomber, or written code for either the B2 program or the E-3 "flying radar'.

The second company was Ericsson, they wanted me to be a solutions manager for Sprint.

The last was the job offer I took, with Burns & McDonnell as a TNE engineer. The company was ranked this year as Forbes magazine's 18th best place to work in the country.

Each of the people that offered me jobs has confirmed that my mentioning of world of warcraft, and specifically my raid leadership experience, made me stand out in a crowd of interviewees. To say that companies won't look at WoW is patently false as long as you sell it correctly.

Note: I did NOT put it on my resume. It's a good interview topic I think if you sell it right, like the stereotypical "conflict management" question or whatever.

[ryan4nayr]

15:03 - How can I teach someone to play MMOs who has no prior experience?

I agree with letting the newbie making her own mistakes, in principle. In reality, within 30 mins. of being in contact with the rest of the game population, her mistakes will be the focus of a lot of ... negative things.

[Lore]

I agree with letting the newbie making her own mistakes, in principle. In reality, within 30 mins. of being in contact with the rest of the game population, her mistakes will be the focus of a lot of ... negative things.

Not while she's leveling