Much has been said about how to kill the most mobs in a given time.  But as Daniel found out, we can just wax the car, or we can learn to kick ass at the same time.  Some also say that leveling doesn’t help you learn your class.  I say it depends on how we level.  When we do kills-per-time grinding, we learn good resource management.  When we do Karate Kid grinding, we learn to become lean, mean, Gnomish slaughter machines.  What follows are some Karate Kid grinding ideas.  Saa…ready?

Lesson 1 – Mind Your Mind

As mages, our mind is our most powerful weapon.  Throughout each lesson, pay as much attention to the workings of the mind as you do to the pixels on the screen.  As we learn each skill, we not only learn the technique, but the confidence that comes with mastery.  We need to learn quickness without haste, alertness without panic.  We need to think of mobs as actual foes, visualizing the fight as if it were real.  These are the kata of the mage world.

Lesson 2 – Run, Forrest, Run!

A mage that can’t kite is a dead mage.  Practice it.  Use your control spells to create space.   We normally don’t use spells like Slow, Rank 1 Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Blink, Cone of Cold, Dragon’s Breath, or Blast Wave while kills-per-time grinding, but they are essential for kiting.  Try creating some space before blasting the mob.  Learn to judge how much space you need to get off a nuke.

Lesson 3 – Combo Number Five

A one, two, a three four five… Combos are not just for Ken and Ryu.  A frost mage may practice a Frost Nova, Frostbolt, Ice Lance combo (i.e Shatter combo).  A fire mage might want to try Polymorph, Pyroblast, Dragon’s Breath, Fireball, Flamestrike (with Firestarter), Blastwave.  The combinations are endless.  Experiment, create, practice.  My rogue cousin ((alt)) practiced the art of the stunlock on mobs ever since his first dagger.  (Warning: Daggers for 1 year olds is only  a good idea in WoW.)  Needless to say, he’s gotten many compliments on his skill.  ”You #%$Fu#3*SH^$ stunlocking rogue!”

Lesson 4 – Gang Bang

Mages are a control class, so this exercise is to practice that control.  Pull multiple mobs, but instead of AOE grinding them, control and blast.  A Frost Nova here, Polymorph there.  See a caster casting?  Counterspell.  Pretend like you are Chow Yun Fat in a John Woo movie.  Kiting skills will come in handy too.  When you’ve managed to create space (everything is locked down), blast away using your combos.  Sometimes, the gang bangs you.  Sometimes, you bang the gang.  But both situations are fun times to be had.  ;-P

Lesson 5 – Macro Management

While creating and practicing your kata, look also at improving your setup.  Is there anywhere I need a new macro?  Do I need to tweak one?  Can I improve the way I’m keybinding?  (You are keybinding, right?)  Grinding is the perfect time to figure these things out.

Lesson 6 – Finally, Blow Your Load

Some people try to hold on for as long as possible.  I say, go ahead and blow it!  I’m talking about major cooldowns.  What were you thinking?  *Snicker*.  Um, as I was saying, major cooldowns are life savers in dangerous situations.  Many people save them for when that ganker comes or for when they’ve pulled too many mobs.  In the end, they end up hardly using them at all.  I recommend practicing using those cooldowns in non-emergency situations, because if you can’t use them in non-emergency situations, you’re likely to freeze up and forget them or misuse them at clutch times.  We need to eliminate the “Should I use it now?  Can I save it for later?” thinking time, because hesitation equals death.

The RL Daily Grind

In real life as well, the daily grind doesn’t have to be a grind.  We can use the opportunity for self improvement if we are creative.  Are there ways to slip in some built-in exercise?  What about memory improvement exercises?  Can we make a game out of the work?  It makes work more fun and interesting.  And as in the game, it may actually take longer to do the daily quest, but that doesn’t make it less efficient – we’re improving ourselves at the same time,  which has long term value.  If we focus on life with work as a part of it, the goal is no longer to “just get the damn thing done and go home”.  Our work becomes a passion that integrates into our ultimate meaning.

BEN: I suggest you try it again, Luke.
BEN: This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct.
LUKE: With the blast shield down, I can’t even see. How am I supposed to fight?
BEN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.
BEN: Stretch out with your feelings.

World of Warcraft battles are informationally intense.  We have to moniter health, mana, cooldowns, threat, position, buffs, debuffs, procs, enemy casts, boss abilities, diminishing returns, HoTs, DoTs, the 5 second rule, guild chat, raid chat, trade chat, ERP chat and CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  To help us manage all that information, we use unit frames, boss mods, event notifiers, threat meters, cooldown timers, DR timers, HoT timers, DoT timers, 5SR timers, egg timers and Minor Recombobulators.  Healers have traditionally been the ones that don’t know what bosses look like (having eyes glued to green bars), but casters can fall into the same situation.  Sometimes, we “play by the meters” so much that we might as well be playing a MUD of yesteryear.

Maybe what we need is to unplug once in a while.  Play naked.  No, I don’t mean one handed typing kind of naked.  And I don’t mean just disabling all mods.  I mean the alt-z (turn off the UI) kind of naked.  Yes, that’s right.  Take it off…I mean, turn it off…whatever.  It’s time to use the Force…

Making Room in the Conscious Mind

Running blind is an exercise in making room in the conscious mind by moving stuff into the subconscious.  When we walk to the fridge to get a beer, we don’t have to think out “Ok, first raise right foot 2cm off the ground.  Move it forward 30cm.  Now put it back on the ground…”  We just do it.  And it’s a good thing we can walk, breath, and create 3D models from a pair of 2D arrays of light intensity (see) completely subconsciously.  It frees our conscious mind to concentrate on the greater task at hand, like figuring out who drank the last beer.  Things to practice while running blind:

• Internalize timings – instinctively know when they are up.  You may find that you can already do this, especially for short cooldowns/DoTs/buffs/debuffs that you use often.  Short timings (3-10 seconds) are easy to learn and important to learn because we don’t want to be glancing at a timer every few seconds.  It’s not that much harder to internalize medium timings (20-40 seconds).  And with practice, even long timings (2+ minutes) can be learned.
• Learn cast times:
  • Doing a shatter combo should be automatic.  Looking at the cast bar to know when to launch the Ice Lance is a waste of conscious mind space.
  • We can learn to judge whether or not we have enough space to get a nuke off, or whether we need to cast instants on the run – a key ability for kiting.
• Learn casting and proc animations.
  • At the very least, we should learn the animations for our own procs so that we don’t have to go read what just procced or check our buff bar.  Learning enemy cast animations frees us from having to constantly glance at unit frames.  It also allows us to see casts done by enemies not currently /targeted or /focused.
• Learn to gauge the incoming damage as well as the damage output.  That is, internalize the damage delta.

Once we learn to internalize the rhythm of our spells, fighting as a mage becomes a dance.  Move in, move out, blink, jump-cast, pirouette, crowd control, nuke, boom…boom-boom…boom-boom……..boom.

By weening ourselves off the meters, we can refocus ourselves on the environment around us.  A mage’s power comes from situational awareness and making key moves at the right time – we don’t just run in and bash things like, ahem, some classes.  When a mage approaches an epic battle, he slows down time, reads the situation, then acts with lightning speed.

Meditation

There is something meditative about playing naked.  No chatbox distractions, no maps, no alerts, no bells, no whistles, no nothing.  It’s just pure unadultered you, the mob and the environment.  The lack of interface allows much better immersion into the world.  It feels like you actually are on a snowy mountain top in a silk dress slaying and skinning rabbits.  A HUD and all that junk is too much of a reminder that it’s just a game.

Playing naked is relaxing and is a chance to unwind.  (Unwind from the part of the game that we use to unwind from real life?  Sad but true…or rather, sad because it’s true.)  Many people already unwind while grinding or doing dailies by playing music to “zone out” doing something mindless.  Removing the UI is another option for this type of play time.  Maybe a glass of wine or a fattie (if you’re into that) is another good addition to a relaxation session.  And if you are so inclined, maybe even actually play naked, as in, in real life with your clothes off.  There is something freeing about being naked (that’s why there are so many nudist colonies), which fits into the whole “freedom from meters” theme.  (If this is your thing, please drop me a line so I can…um, interview you for a future article…yeah, that’s right…unless your name is Bob and you have more hair on your butt than I have in my armpits.)

Other than just a relaxation/sanity restoration mechanism, meditation is a means to practice visualization and focus.  It is practice to get into that “zone” where you just do everything right, without really thinking about it.  It is part of pushing things from the conscious mind into the subconscious mind.  Writers know that feeling when the words just flow through the fingertips, pages and pages just spewing out.  Samurai called the state of mind “mushin“.  The Tao, or “The Way”, describes the same phenomenon as “wu wei” – “action without action”.  A world class tennis player does not think about the position and velocity of his arm when he hits the ball, he just does it.  In the same way, world class mages polymorph target A, counterspell target B, shatter combo target C, renews his Ice Barrier, Spellsteals that pesky ret pally’s Hand of Freedom and solves the world’s energy crisis all at the same time, without thought, by being “in the zone”.

So there we have it.  Throw it all away.  Get back to basics.  Namaste.

BEN: You see, you can do it.
LUKE: You know, I did feel something. I could almost see the remote.
BEN: That’s good. You have taken your first step into a larger world.

* Disclaimer:  This may be as obvious as not trying to stop the chain on a chainsaw with your hand or genitals, but please don’t play naked in raids or other group situations.

With Cataclysm, we’re getting another secondary profession with archeology.  It seems like a really cool profession and all, but there is another secondary profession that I’ve always wanted to see.

I like how fishing works as a “support” profession for cooking.  So I would like to see a support profession for fishing as well – one that creates baits, lures and other fishing items that grant +fishing skill but perhaps some other buffs as well.  It’s reagents would be items you fish up and maybe even items you cook up.  Here are some examples of possible items that can be created with this new profession.

Lucky Lure
Tooltip: Apply to your fishing pole to slightly increase the chance of catching extremely rare items. (e.g. Old Ironjaw, Mr. Pinchy, Sea Turtle)
Reagents: 1x Gold Coin, 1x Sharpened Fish Hook, 1x Nightcrawlers
Tag line: “You always seem to catch the big ones with this lure.”

This would give people a reason to continue fishing in the fountain after achieving Coin Master, as well as help with the other achievements.

Chum
Tooltip: Throw it in the water to attract a really big…
Reagents: 1x Zesty Clam Meat, 1x Goretusk Liver, 1x Murloc Eye, 1x Gooey Spider Leg, 1x Mystery Meat
Tag line: “We’ll need a bigger boat.”

Gives you a chance to reel in a huge shark. It will try to eat you.  Great for altaholics who must have tons of chum parts.

And no profession would be complete without its own achievement!

I know that you can’t please everyone and some people will like it more than others.  Some will do it daily or maybe even several times a day.  For some it will be once in a blue moon.  For yet others, it might just be something they do to relax after a stressful raid.  And I guess that’s the point.  It is meant for R&R, so enjoy!

The first rule of Fight Club is, keybind.  The second rule of Fight Club is, keybind!  From what I’ve seen around Azeroth, many of you have been breaking the first two rules.  Don’t worry, I’ll have y’all fixed up in a jiffy.

Why Keybind?

Keybinding is an absolute must for PvP.  And with the increasing number of mobile fights, keybinding and mouse turning are becoming increasingly important for PvE as well.  You will be able to get out of the fire faster, kite adds and dps at the same time.  But finding keys to bind all our spells can be a daunting task.  It is more a problem for the PvP mage than the PvE mage, as the PvE mage only uses a few spells so it’s quite easy to find bindings.

I’m extremely anal meticulous about my keybindings.  I guess it’s because I PvP a lot and in PvP, the moment you hesitate, you’re a gnome-shaped blood splatter.  So I thought I’d share with you the fruits of my hours of arranging, rearranging and tinkering (Gnomes like to tinker, right?).  This is not the way to keybind, but it works for me and I think it makes sense.  What makes sense for me does not necessarily make sense for everyone.  I’ve even heard of (might be urban legend) a high rated arena player who uses the arrow keys to move!  You can borrow (yes you have to give them back!) some, all or none of the ideas here.  The bottom line is, do whatever works for you.

Design Philosophy

Let’s warm up with a little of my favourite subject and talk design philosophy.

• Frequently used skills should be the easiest to reach.
• Twitchy skills should be easy to reach.  Sometimes this conflicts with the above principle,  (i.e. a twitchy skill that is not used frequently) so a judgement call comes into effect.
• I bind similar types of skills on the different classes I play to the same keys, to lessen brain adjustment overload when I switch between them.  For example, I bind Sprint to the same key as Blink.
• I organize the bindings into general areas of functionality.

Movement Keys

Some of you might be surprised that I am going to talk about where to bind the movement keys.  WASD is so ubiquitous that some might think it is hardwired into the game.  But I don’t use WASD.  I use ESDF instead.  The advantages of ESDF are so stacked against WASD that I don’t know why it is not more popular.  In fact, I can’t think of a single advantage WASD has over ESDF.

• Since the movement keys are closer to the center of the keyboard, there are more keys available for binding around the movement keys and more keys can be reached comfortably.  We gain the ability to bind Q, A, Z to the left of the movement keys, but also more of the 1-9 keys are comfortable to reach.  This is important, because as we said before, us mages have a lot of spells we need to use.
• It is the natural typing position, which provides 3 benefits:
  • You don’t have to shift hand position between playing and typing.
  • Most (if not all) keyboards have a special “nub” on the F key to help you find your home position without looking down (which is the whole point of keybinding).
  • The Shift key is in a much more natural position relative to your hand (because your hand is in the position the keyboard was designed for), which makes Shift macros easier to use.

It might feel weird at first, but please give it an earnest try.  It will take some time for your brain to rewire itself.

The Bindings

These are my bindings when I am in PvP Frost spec.  I always put my most frequently used bindings on C and V.  Hence, you’ll notice that the C and V keys in the picture of my keyboard at the top of the post are pretty badly mashed.  No, it’s not just a glowy camera/light effect – the skin on those keys has been rubbed off so badly that you can’t see the C or the V anymore.

My trinket and Escape Artist are bound to my mouse buttons, as these are both highly twitchy skills.

Be The Binding

Violinists spend years connecting themselves to their instrument.  Through practice and adjustment, the muscles in their body conform to the mechanics of the violin.  The nerves in the hand and fingertips become ever so sensitive to the vibration of the strings.  In the brain, the neurons rewire to create specialized controllers for manipulating what has become a part of the violinist.  We can imagine a violinist to be a person who has molded a violin-shaped receptacle into their body.  And once placed into that receptacle, the violin becomes the violinist’s voice, and she creates music with as much ease, finesse, power and passion as an opera singer would with his biological vocal chords.

Quick skill selection is the most commonly given reason for keybinding.  But keybinding is also about aligning our tool (yeah, yeah, you pervs!) and our brain to each other so that we can use our abilities as naturally as breathing.  We must practice to the point where we don’t consciously know where all the our abilities are – we just use them.  And it is only after such practice that we can become the masters of life and death that we truly are.

Hardcores loathe casuals for “dumbing down the game”.  Casuals accuse hardcores of being basement-dwelling elitists.  But aside from their differences,  what do these two camps have to share and learn from each other?

The Differences

Materialism And Sentimentalism

Casuals emphasize interpersonal relationships and having a relaxed environment – the touchy-feely stuff.  I’ll call this property “sentimentalism”.  Hardcores emphasize performance, dedication and skill - the “real” stuff.  I’ll call this property “materialism”.  (In colloqial speech, “sentimentalism” and “materialism” sometimes connote overvaluing emotional needs and overvaluing material needs respectively.  I am using these words to describe the want for emotional well-being and the want for material well-being, without any value judgements attached to them.)

Casuals emphasize sentimentalism, but they have material needs too.  They wouldn’t play if they never got any XP, gear, achievements or never downed any bosses – there wouldn’t be any game left to play!  And even though hardcores emphasize materialism, what would be the point of downing every boss within two days of release and getting every realm first achievement if there was nobody around to appreciate the feat?  But more than bragging rights, hardcores create the special bond that happens when like-minded people unite to achieve a common goal.  So inside the materialist hardcore, there is a little sentimentalism and inside the sentimentalist casual, there is a little materialism.

Yin And Yang

We can say that hardcores and casuals are like the yin and the yang of eastern philosophy.  Yin and yang are opposites, but they are not opposed.  Yin contains yang and yang also contains yin.  Together, they work to create harmony.  So how can casuals and hardcores work together to create harmony?

Casuals can learn from hardcores in the most obvious way:  hardcores know how to minimax, know the strategies and know the how to work as a team.  They also know enough to tell that huntard to buy arrows and stop using melee attacks in instances.

But hardcores can also learn from casuals.  When progression isn’t as smooth as we like, when tensions start to rise, when members need to be replaced, when politics escalate, the hardcore can turn to the casual and remember the human side to why we are doing all this in the first place.  And when things are going well, being in touch with the sentimental will remind us that the true prize is not the realm or world first achievement, but the admiration, respect and camaraderie we’ve built along the way.

IRL

Do you play life hardcore or casual?  Probably a little of both, since, just like the game, we need balance.  Love without bread is short-lived, and bread without love is just a prolonged torturous emptiness.  And like all guilds that are neither completely hardcore nor completely casual, but a mixture of both,  so is our life.  Some will choose to be more hardcore while some will choose to be more casual.  And as in the game, the key to life is to choose the balance that is right for us and promotes the greatest harmony.

Today’s concept is something I call the damage delta.  The damage delta at any given point in a fight is a snapshot of how we are faring in a given battle.  But it is not a metric to come up with a number to measure our performance.  It is a way to conceptualize the swings in a battle to help us recognize danger and opportunity.  We will define the damage delta using some simple math equations, but don’t fret about those or the numbers they produce.  Concentrate more on the meaning and relationships between the components.

Some Grade 8 Algebra

Our damage delta (Δ) is our net dps (Np) minus our opponent’s net dps (No).

Δ = Np – No

Our net dps is our dps (Dp) minus our opponent’s healing and mitigation (Ho), and our opponent’s net dps is their dps (Do) minus our healing and mitigation (Hp).

Np = Dp – Ho

No = Do – Hp

Substituting, we get the damage delta equation:

Δ = (Dp – Ho) – (Do – Hp)

Implications of the damage delta:

• If we are doing more net damage than our opponent is, our damage delta is positive.  If our opponent is doing more net damage than we are, our damage delta is negative.
• We strive to have a higher damage delta, although we may give up some short term damage delta in order to maximize the overall damage delta.  A mage, for example, may choose to sit through a cheap shot and save blink for the coming kidney shot.
• If our hp is greater than our opponent’s hp, we can win even with an overall negative damage delta.  If our hp is less than our opponent’s hp, we must have a higher overall damage delta in order to win.

Below is a graphical representation of the damage delta.  We can imagine the delta being like a meter that swings to the left or the right, indicating the direction of the damage.

Ways to Increase the Damage Delta

Offensive Cooldowns

Blowing cooldowns on offensive abilities and trinkets increases Dp and therefore increases our damage delta.

Defensive Cooldowns

Remember it’s the damage delta (delta usually denotes a difference in something) we’re trying to increase and not necessarily damage.  By blowing cooldowns on defensive abilities, we increase Hp and therefore increase our damage delta.

Movement

As mages, most of the time we are running away from our opponents.  This is called kiting.  Moving away does not increase Dp, but rather decreases Do against melee classes.  Kiting is even more important for hunters because as well as the decrease in Do, their Dp also increases with range.  This is why, as mages, hunters are the only class that kite us.  We want to get close to decrease Do while our Dp isn’t penalized at close range.

Crowd Control

Crowd control is a very effective way to increase the damage delta.  In fact, in arena, most kills happen when blowing offensive cooldowns while using crowd control to create an extreme spike in the damage delta.  It is easy to see why if we look at the damage delta equation.  Let’s say a paladin just blew his wings and is running over to 1-2-3-4 you.  Being quick and nimble mages, we polymorph him, spellsteal wings and pop icy veins.  What just happened?  Dp just went up from taking wings and popping icy veins, but the real show stealer is the polymorph, because now Ho=0 and Do=o.  We go from him hitting us for 10k to us shattering him for 8k - an 18k swing in damage.  I’m not saying that any decent pally will pop wings far enough for us to get a poly off or sit in it while we burst him.  The damage delta is just a instantaneous snapshot of potentials.  Any fight is actually a series of potentials and we as players manipulate those potentials to realize a desired outcome.  In our example, the pally realizing his predicament (a really negative damage delta), might trinket or pop his bubble, thus changing the damage delta again.  It is this constant swaying back and forth of  the damage delta that is the game. 

And that’s it!  Keep this simple and useful concept in mind when analyzing battles and planning strategy.

A notorious trade troll resides on my server - the kind every server has.  His name is Oathkeeper.  I would lend him a blanket of anonymity, but I don’t think he minds.  Anyways, this is not a post to criticize him.  It is about speaking the truth – the truth about Oathkeeper.

Let’s be frank.  Through all his misogynistic, racist, demeaning and generally negative comments, we want him.  We crave him.  He wants attention and we clamor to him – just like the women who keep dating jerks and complaining to the nice guys, or the men who keep going back to the women who use them.  We say that we hate Oathkeeper, but we keep going back to him.  It’s as easy as /ignore, but do we choose that route?  And we hide that fact by deriding him, but that veil is thin.

When we ticket a GM against his comments or commission a gank on him or publicly denounce him, it is to satisfy that craving of beating down on something immoral, something indecent.  We are mistaken, however, to think that everything immoral and indecent lies in Oathkeeper.  Though we may pretend, it is not Oathkeeper that we despise, but the sick puppy inside of us that we project onto him.  Have we not all done or thought much worse things than call somebody a “Fail<insertname>”? Do we not each have deep dark secrets that we dare not share with anyone?  Should we not first remove the log from our own eye?  It is that same sick puppy inside us that revels at every celebrity scandal and political slugfest.  Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that “he is evil” and “we are good”.  Aren’t all the insults going his way just as bad as the stuff coming out of his mouth?  And yeah, “he started it first”…um, how old are we?  And aren’t we the ones accusing him of being childish?

But it is not just about hypocrisy, for even the hypocrite speaks truth – it is true that many of his comments are deplorable.  No, it’s worse because we are active participants in perpetuating those comments.  If he never got any response, would he continue to exist as Oathkeeper the trade troll?  If we did not subscribe to the trash news depicting and spreading the worst that humanity has to offer, would it still be around?  In the movie Untraceable, a serial killer sets up a website where people can log in to watch his victim be tortured to death.  The twist is that the intensity of the torture is directly proportional to the number of viewers.  Of course, every single time, the website gathers enough viewers to torture his victim to death.  The movie may be partially allegorical, but I find it hard to doubt that were a serial killer to do this in real life, the result would be the same.  It is easy to point an accusing finger at a public sicko from the safety of anonymity hiding our private inner sicko.

In fact, it may be Oathkeeper who is the righteous one by sacrificing himself to be our moral pinata.  I reckon we should thank him for holding out a mirror so brightly reflecting our darkness, our misgivings, our many faults.  And perhaps Oathkeeper just needed a thanks, an open embrace, a sympathetic ear.  How would each of us have turned out without a supportive environment?  Would we have ended up the same way?  Who are we to say.  And think of the name.  “Oathkeeper”.  Righteous, is it not?  What kind of a person, as he sat down at the character creation screen, would come up with a name like that?  What kind of thought process did he have?  And why does he crave the attention?  Or maybe he simply is just a complete asshole.  The point is, it is much easier to throw stones than it is to try and understand each other and actually make a difference in the world.  In the end, whatever the truth is about Oathkeeper, that same truth applies to us as well.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” -William Shakespeare

The above quote is also at the top of Blizzard’s naming policy overview page.  Usually, a quotation at the top of the page captures the essence of the content to follow.  How ironic that Blizzard’s naming policy runs exactly contrary to the meaning of the quote.  I reckon the author searched for “quotes about names” and that’s how the most overused cliché quote ended up on the page.  What kind of post can be so unoriginal as to use that at the top of the page…oh…nevermind.  But this is not a post about Shakespeare.  It’s about Blizzard’s naming policy and what we can learn from it.

A Brief Critique

Let us examine Blizzard’s banned name categories to find any problems such a policy may have.

Racial/Ethnic/National

• Have any racial/ethnic connotations
• Have any national connotations

Any racial/ethic/national connotations whatsoever?  Positive or negative?  What about neutral?  What about cultural connotations?  Language?  Associations?  And how far do we carry the connotation?  Does fried chicken have racial connotations, or is it just fried chicken?  What about a bald eagle?  What about Gnome punting?

Extreme Sexuality/Violence

• Refer to extreme and/or violent sexual acts
• Refer to extremely violent real life actions

What’s extreme?  For some people, anything other than missionary is extreme.  For some, making an eiffel tower while your nipples are clamped to a car battery and the dog licks the butter off your balls is a perfectly normal way to spend a Saturday evening.

I find the qualification “violent real life actions” interesting.  I guess to distinguish between that and game violence, like evisceration (disembowelment) or chewing off a limb.  And if I do refer to chewing off a limb, am I referring to it in real life or just the game version?

Sexual Orientation

• Refer to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players

Even my own sexuality?  Because I might offend somebody by being homosexual?  Or trysexual?  (Not a typo, it’s when you’ll try anything sexual at least once.)

Obscene/Vulgar

• Are inappropriate references to human anatomy or bodily functions
• Are pornographic in nature

This category suffers from the same problem as the extreme sexuality/violence category.  What’s an inappropriate piece of anatomy?  An inappropriate bodily function?  Are toes okay?  There are people with foot fetishes after all.  What about hair?  In some cultures, exposing hair is as risqué as exposing a boob.  Is eating okay?  What about masticating?  Masticating together with friends and family, in the kitchen, then swallowing the fruits of your mastication?  Is swallowing okay?

“I know it when I see it.” Defining what is obsene or pornographic is a task even beyond 7 justices in the highest court in the United States of America.  After all the years of studying, interpreting, understanding and practicing law, that’s the best definition they could come up with.  So what is pornographic and in who’s eyes?

Contain “Leet” or “Dudespeak”

• Consist of language existent only in online communication (i.e. Roflcopter, xxnewbxx, Roxxoryou)

This one is borderline segregational.  It is speaks against an entire culture.  Imagine if the category was “no ebonics“.

Real World References

• Are references to very well known people, characters, places, or icons (i.e. Britneyspears, Austinpowers, Mcdonalds, Georgewashington, Newyork)

What if my name was Austin Powers?  Then would my toon named Austinpowers be referring to me or the well known character?  And what if I work in a geek environment where we named our file server “USS Enterprise”?  So I name my toon after the server, which is named after the Star Trek spaceship?  Do indirect references count?

Partial or Complete Sentences

• Consist of multiple (generally more than 2) words strung together to create partial or complete sentences (i.e. Inyourface, Welovebeef, Howareyou)

I’m at a loss.  I really don’t see what’s wrong with these types of names.  They are in fact some of the most entertaining names in the game and give me, at least, a great amount of pleasure to see the creativity in my fellow Azerothians.

Inappropriate

• Are references to illegal drugs or activities
• Have any connotations of major religions or religious figures (i.e. Jesus, Christianity, Buddha)
• Include names of World of Warcraft realms, zones, or names of major characters from Warcraft lore
• Are otherwise considered inappropriate for the game world

Ah, the all encompassing “Inappropriate” category.  I really hate that word, “inappropriate”.  It says absolutely nothing.  At one time, it was inappropriate for women to vote or wear pants, or comment on politics.  It was inappropriate for a black man to talk to a white man unless spoken to.  “Inappropriate” is never an argument against something, it is merely an expression of how we feel towards it.

Illegal drugs or activites.  Illegal where?  Anywhere?  In Arkansas, it’s illegal to keep an alligator in a bathtub.  So “BathtubAlligator” is a banned name?

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  We could go on for a long time poking holes in the policy, but let’s stop beating the poor dead murloc…okay, we’ll come back and beat it some more another time…damn murlocs.

Interpretation

Even if we grant that each section of the policy is well defined, there is still the problem of multiple meanings and interpretations.  Like in the case of real world references, if my name is “Jim”, I can make that my toon’s name, but if my name is “Gandhi”, I can’t because a famous person happens to have the same name?  What about “Jeebus”?  Is it really a reference to Jesus, or just a silly name?  And how do we decide on how to break down the name into individual words?  Is “Howareyou” to be broken up as “how are you” or is it one word, pronounced “ho-ware-yoo”?  Does “Assassin” violate the sexual/sexual orientation category because it could be broken down as “Ass-ass-in”?

Blizzard’s Philosophy

But I don’t think Blizzard is out to get us.  Blizzard has the difficult task of pleasing the shareholders, which means making money, which means pleasing their customers, which means trying to please the “easily offended people” while at the same time trying not to piss off the, um…”creative people”.  Whether they are “missionary only” people or “nipple clamp” people, they are all paying customers and just as valuable to Blizzard.  As such, the naming policy is not so much of an operational moral code than a public moral/legal face.  Blizzard can say, “this is what we stand for” while at the same time having a laxer, more practical enforcement policy:

• If nobody complains, why spend resources changing it?  The ultimate purpose of the policy is to keep customers happy.  If everyone is happy, why do anything about it?
• If somebody complains, enforce the policy.  Here we’re balancing the happiness of the complainer with that of the complainee.  The problem is that we appeal to the lowest common denominator of people who are most easily offended.  But this has long been a complaint of any democratic system.
• Do “spot checks” to preempt any names that would most likely generate complaints.  This also falls in line with balancing customers’ happiness.  I can also see some conscientious Blizzard employees taking it upon themselves to enforce the policy in earnest, making themselves a moral police.  This has the problem of submitting customers to the whim of a particular individual’s moral code and interpretation.

 From what I can observe about the policy itself and anecdotes about enforcement, it does seem that the naming policy is more pragmatic than philosophical, which makes sense for a commercial entity.

Punishment

From Blizzard’s website:

If a player is found in violation of the Naming Policy, he/she may:

• Be given a warning
• Be assigned a randomly generated name
• Be temporarily suspended from the game
• Be given a Final Warning, any further ToU violations will result in permanent suspension

I have a real problem with the last two policies.  They are outright forms of punishment.  I regard the purpose of punishment to be corrective and not retributive.  In order to be corrective, the offender must actually feel that they have done something wrong.  But people have different judgments and values about what is inappropriate.  People can also have different interpretations of any given string of letters.  In order to give corrective punishment, we have to show that the offender intended to maliciously offend (as opposed to offending for a greater purpose, as the late and great George Carlin often did) other players with their name.  And there lies the problem.  Intention is difficult, if not impossible to prove.  If Blizzard wants me to change my name, fine.  I don’t mind.  I understand that Blizzard is attempting to navigate a moral minefield and I will gladly change my name even if I think it is in no way inappropriate.  But to be suspended for it?  No, suspension says that “My moral code is the moral code and you intentionally violated it.” 

A Case Study

So, a…uh…friend decided to name his toon “Analorgy”.  It is a play on the word “analogy” and pronouced the same way.  He got a warning that the name is obscene and that he must change it.  Whoever thought the name was inappropriate (be it another customer or a Blizzard employee) obviously broke the name down into “anal orgy”.  So my friend renamed the toon “Analorgie”, still sticking to the “analogy” reading, oblivious the the “anal orgy” breakdown.   His account then got slammed with a 3 hour suspension.  Really?  Because somebody other than the originator of the name decided that he really meant “anal orgy” and not “analorgy” (analogy).  The suspender was probably thinking, “We’ve warned him about the name, and he’s still trying to use that same dirty name, ban him!” without even seeing the alternate interpretation.  The suspendee, oblivous to what he was doing wrong, got hit with the ban hammer.  After the 3 hour ban, my friend renamed the toon “Asswage”.  Yes, it could be broken down into “ass wage” (i.e. prostitute reference), but it’s also a word in the dictionary!  It’s an older spelling of “assuage”.  You won’t ban a dictionary word right?  And you won’t ban olde spellings (i.e. banning RP) right?  And banning “asswage” is as asinine as banning “assassin”, right?  Checkmate.

A Nod to Blizzard

The point of this post, however, is not to “QQ about Blizzard and their stupid policy”.  Not just because they assassinate miscreants for political reasons, but because it wouldn’t accomplish anything and it would be doing the exact opposite of what this post is asking for: benefit of the doubt.  You see, with all it’s flaws, loopholes and inconsistencies, the policy is not a horrible policy.  What is full of flaws, loopholes and inconsistencies is our moral model.  It’s an amazingly complex puzzle and much blood has been spilled over it, both from wars and from philosphers banging their head on the wall.  The naming policy and any other set of rules, like a country’s constitution or laws, can only be as good as our mental moral model, for they are a reflection of it.  And so we struggle to constantly revise and improve those rules as we find problems with them.  I really don’t think there was a person (or group of people) at Blizzard grinning wickidly as they tried to concoct the worst naming policy ever to try and piss people off.  They probably did the best they could, with a mixture of moral intuition and principled reasoning.  I give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt that they are trying the best they can to make everyone happy, a nigh impossible and head exploding job.  In recognition that it is such a difficult task, I’ll be a team player and change the name of my toon who’s name is “Bob” because somebody complained that it means “battery operated boyfriend“.  In return, I would ask that Blizzard also give us the benifit of the doubt to act on our moral judgments, even if they do not coincide with Blizzard’s.  This means not coming down with the Ban Hammer of Wrath for naming policy violations and truly embrace the meaning of the quote on their own policy:  What’s in a name?

“Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.” -Sun Tzu, Art of War

Last time, we talked about territory.  Territory is the static view, a snapshot of the current situation.  Today we talk about another useful concept – time, or change in territory.  We will look at how to change the territory to our advantage and how to “gain time” over the enemy.  In chess, the concept is called tempo.

Flow

We can view spawn points as spouts, spewing out a wave of soldiers that flows over the territory.  If we look at the map below, we can visualize the flow of the two opposing teams as they head towards each other.  The point at which they clash is the border between the two territories - the contested area, or the front line.  So the territory is defined by the constant ebb and flow of soldier movement towards the front.   Where is the enemy moving?  Where should we reinforce?  Where should we move the line forward?  Where do we fall back?  Where do we direct our flow in order to maximize our territory?

Now consider what happens when the enemy successfully attacks one of our spawn points.  What happens to our flow?  In the map below, the Horde have attacked Stables and the Alliance have lost one of their spawn points.  Notice the new flow patterns and change in the territory line.

Pulse

Spawn points resurrect soldiers every 30 seconds, so the flow from them comes in “pulses”.  We can take advantage of the time between pulses to enhance our position.  Let’s say we’ve just had an epic battle at the south crossroads (the big green X) and Alliance won.  There will be on average 15 seconds available to move our position forward and take more territory:

• Capture the base.  This takes away one of the enemy’s spawn points, disrupting their flow.
• Move up to fill the forward choke points (the small green X’s).  This also helps to capture the base because it stops enemy players from disrupting the cap.

How much time we actually have between killing the enemy and them spawning is a bit of luck.  Sometimes they resurrect immediately and other times they have a full 30 second rez timer.  Also, it isn’t so neat and tidy where everyone killed will respawn in the same pulse.   The important thing is to keep in mind the time between pulses when deciding to advance or hold the position.  We should also look at our numbers after the battle.  If we have 3 left and expect 5 to rez soon, we may just hold back and wait for our reinforcements.  Otherwise, we may be attacking just to have them rez and obliterate us, giving them a time between our pulses to counterattack.

In Summary

Territory and time are our key concepts.  With them in mind, we can decide where and when to engage the enemy.  Winning will consist of making the right decisions.

In future posts, we will look at specific strategies using our key concepts.

“Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.”  -Sun Tzu, Art of War

Territory is a key concept in many games.  In go, territory is the game.  In chess, the concept is called space .  What does territory mean in terms of battlegrounds?

Territory Means Control

• Areas that we can reach before the enemy can is under our control.
• Areas that the enemy can reach before we can is under their control.
• Areas that both we and the enemy can reach at the same time is under neither side’s control and is contested.
• All the areas under our control make up our territory.
• All the areas under the enemy’s control make up their territory.

In truth, area control is better expressed as a gradient (i.e. percentage of control), but the above categories will serve our purposes.

Territory is not to be confused with capture of towers or nodes.  In the map above (highly construed, unrealistic situation for illustrative purposes), every node has been captured by the Horde, but the Alliance controls all of the territory.  Every player that has ever been boxed into the starting area can see why.  The Alliance soldiers can waltz over to any node in 30 seconds or so, but the Horde soldiers must battle through all the Alliance troups.

Territory control is based on the relative position of soldiers.  Even if the our soldiers are standing in the same place, our territory changes, depending on where the enemy is.  As a trivial example, if the Horde soldiers were on the other side of the Alliance soldiers, the territories would be reversed, as in the map below.

The larger our territory, the more resources we will gain relative to our enemy, which gives us a better chance of winning.  Note that “resources” means anything that helps us win the battle – it can be flags, towers, nodes or even just protection of a movement path.  Warsong Gulch is a good example of a map where what we want to control is a movement path (i.e. a path from the enemy flag room to our flag room.)

And that’s really all there is to it.  It’s a simple, but useful concept, as we shall see.

Choke Points

Choke points have always been strategic areas since the beginning of wars because they allow an army to secure a large territory using a relatively small number of soldiers.

A common situation in Arathi Basin is when one side holds 3 bases and wants to defend them to maintain the lead.  If we focus on the nodes, we may think that placing 5 soldiers at each node (let us call this the “3×5 Defence”) might be a good defence, but this is not the case.

• If we look at the contested areas (in yellow), we can see that the 3 Alliance groups are cut off from each other, so sending reinforcements could prove difficult.
• Consider where the Horde soldiers may attack:
  • The northern group may attack the stables or the blacksmith and outnumber the Alliance 8 to 5.
  • The southern group may attack the lumbermill or the blacksmith and outnumber the Alliance 7 yo 5.
  • The northern and southern groups may attack the blacksmith together and outnumber the Alliance 15 to 5, almost guaranteeing a quick cap.

Now consider placing soldiers at the choke points (crossroads areas).  Let us call this the “Choke Points Defence”.

• Now the battles are evenly matched, 8 to 8 in the north and 7 to 7 in the south.  All other things being equal, each battle should be at a stalemate, which is a good thing if you are ahead 3 nodes to 2.
• The key is efficient use of soldiers.  The northern group is protecting both the stables and the blacksmith.  The southern group is protecting both the lumber mill and the blacksmith and to some extent the stables as well.

• Some enemy soldiers may slip by and “ninja” a node.  If this happens, we have  a full minute to recap the node.  There are enough soldiers near each node to get there in time.  The whole group does not need to go!  It’s important to hold the front line.  One soldier who is good at dueling or two (to be safe and quick) should go recap, then promptly rejoin the front.  If the enemy has lots of stealthers, we may wish to station one soldier at the node.  The idea is not that this soldier is will defend the node solo.  This soldier is responsible for alerting the rest of the team of the number of enemies attacking the node and delay the node capture until reinforcements arrive.  Generally, a robust class is good for this role, such as a prot-holy paladin.
• Notice that we are also in a better position to attack the enemy, should their defence fail, or should they choose to combine their two groups in a zerg.  Our southern group can readily attack the farm, while the northern group can readily attack the gold mine.

Capping Flags

On a micro level, the concept of territory is also useful when trying to cap a node.  How many times has it happened where we finally kill off all the enemies and begin capping a node, only to have them respawn and interrupt the capping?  Then we have to start all over again, wasting precious time.  By fighting in the correct areas, we can avoid this and make our hard work pay off.  The key is to have the majority of the attacking party fight where the enemy is spawning (away from the node) and have only 1 soldier at the node capping.

Capping Arathi Basin Gold Mine.

Capping Arathi Basin Blacksmith.

Other Considerations

• When we moved our soldiers from the flag to the choke points, notice that the shape of the contested areas changed.  Once the choke points are occupied, the enemy has less inroads into our territory.  The contested areas are the front line.
• Most soldiers should be placed at the front line, because soldiers inside our territory are contributing neither to offence nor to defence.  An exception is the placement of a small number of “beacons” to expose and delay any would-be ninja cappers.
• Winning consists of expanding our territory to include more resources than the enemy.
• By thinking about and visualizing the territory, rather than the resources, we can make more efficient use of our soldiers through better positioning.  Battlegrounds are more about being at the right place at the right time than individual fighting ability.
• Since territory depends on relative position of soldiers, it is important to know the enemy position.  So communication is key!  Call out where the enemy is and in what numbers.  Where are they moving to?  Where are they moving from?

Words From The Master

How does all this relate to the Sun Tzu quote at the top of the article?  In the 3×5 Defence, we are preparing against possible attacks at any point and from any direction, reducing our numerical strength in the process.  But we can do better than that – we know where the enemy is coming from (their spawn points).  By employing the Choke Points Defence, we compel our adversary to make preparations against a possible attack from the north or from the south, as our soldiers are in striking position.

In Summary

We’ve used Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm as an example, but once we master the concept of territory, we can apply it to any battleground (and for that matter, any territorial game).  Think about territory in your next battleground.  Try to visualize the boundaries of your team’s territory.  Recognize the weak points, the strong points, and go to where it matters the most.  Look to push the enemy back, crush them, and conquer the world.  But most importantly, remember to have fun!