4.74. A Series of Unfortunate Events

Preach's LFR experiment, in an attempt to determine how

far he can get by doing absolutely nothing

Picking Cherries

"Q. Why not just let casual players get rewards comparable to those from raids?

A. It would be almost impossible for us to do, and this is a philosophical decision. We need to put a structure in place for players where they feel that if they do more difficult encounters, they'll get rewarded for it. As soon as we give more equal rewards across the board, for a lot of players it will diminish the accomplishment of killing something like Nefarian."

- Former WoW Lead Content Designer Jeff Kaplan, on why raids like Naxxramas aren't intended for a casual audience.
The New York Times, Kill The Big, Bad Dragon (Teamwork Required) January 28th, 2006

---

"Dungeons too, we wanted them to be a much more hardcore experience, we wanted only groups in there, and so on. The dungeons are there to serve more of the core market. It's something to strive for, a bridge for the casual players to become a little more hardcore."

- Former Blizzard VP of Design Rob Pardo, speaking at the Austin Game Conference on WoW design strategy.
Raph Koster's Website, AGC: Rob Pardo's Keynote September 6th, 2006

---

"The whole point for a lot of hardcore players is to show off your advancement. So we chose the best gear to be from raids, so we can recognize someone’s achievements based on their gear. The tradeoffs is that you lose everyone looking different and users expressing creativity. And if you try to have both, you'll end up muddled and somewhere in the between."

- Former Blizzard VP of Design Rob Pardo, speaking at the Austin Game Conference on WoW design strategy.
Raph Koster's Website, AGC: Rob Pardo's Keynote September 6th, 2006

--- 

"[Game] designers need to understand human psychology, sociology, and philosophy behind design. They need especially to understand how persons and groups behave when anonymous...Balance is in the eyes of the player. It doesn't have to be balanced; the average player just has to feel like it is balanced. Totally balanced PvP means losing half the time. Losing half the time is not necessarily fun....the community is good at identifying problems. The community is bad at designing games and generating workable solutions. The community disagrees tremendously but does not recognize its disagreements. The community, though, is always right."

- Ethan Kennerly, recalling a talk given by Jeff Kaplan at USC's Videogame Production class (ITP 280).
Fine Game Design, World of Warcraft Content Design October 10th, 2007

---

"I think it's a great idea...The only caveat for me is that I feel that the highest-tier zone at a given time should start off as a 25-man-only experience and then have the 10-man version unlocked once the zone is defeated on a server, or once a given amount of time passes, whichever comes first...I do feel that 10-man-only players should get to experience the same lore and ultimately see the same content, but I don't think that the easier alternative should be available right away."

- Gurgthock, on the introduction of 10/25 raids in WotLK.
Curse, Interview with the Guild Leader of Elitist Jerks June 27th, 2008

---

"I'm not super interested in compromising LoL design in the name of accessibility. Yes, League is obnoxiously hard to learn if you don't have a friend showing you the ropes. That sucks, but it's not worth stripping away the depth or potential for mastery for our core audience -- you guys -- in order to attract new players. That's not an approach every game can or should take, but it's the right call for League."

- Former WoW Lead Systems Designer Greg Street, addressing the League of Legends community speculation about his charge at Riot Games.
Manaflask, Ghostcrawler on WoW's casualization, accessibility, and raiding August 26th, 2014

---

"First and foremost, I learned that you must put game quality and player experience first in everything that you do. Gamers are not driven to buy games because they have a clever business model, they buy games that are fun and immersive that deliver on what was promised. I also learned that being a trend chaser or first mover is not a key to victory...force feeding a development team to chase a business model or game type trend when the team doesn't love it is a likely losing proposition."

- Former Blizzard COO Paul Sams, reflecting on lessons learned.
GamesIndustry.biz, Blizzard's Paul Sams joins Ready at Dawn as new CEO June 8th, 2015

--- 

"We would have been in bad shape had we not done that,"

- Current WoW Game Director Tom Chilton, commenting on what state World of Warcraft would be in had Blizzard not embraced casual-centric features.
Polygon, World of Warcraft would be 'in bad shape' without embracing the casual revolution August 23rd, 2013

--- 

"How is your gaming experience diminished by it? I can't honestly understand what's the big deal on people that isn't you doing something that you don't want to do...Perhaps we should just tell the devs that we should close all raids until the Top 10 guilds clear them on heroic, so that they can feel superior to everyone else as they are seeing content that you, the raiders not-as-good-as-them aren't seeing."

- Blizzard Community Manager Draztal, responding to community concerns over a lack of staggered endgame content between LFR and traditional raids.
Battle.net Europe Forums, we consume content too fast? March 8th, 2012

The "strategy game of money, power and wealth,"
Capitalism II

Whatever Fits the Narrative

"For a developer to acknowledge that their TWO YEAR OLD game is still one of the best multiplayer games around, to continue to support it through a FREE online system...and STILL patching the damn game? How many games don't get a single patch? For Blizzard delevopers [sic] to still be updating and fine-tuning a game this long after its release, and for people to STILL enjoy playing it is fucking incredible."

- Slashdot user Trillian_1138, commenting Blizzard's dedication to its community.
Slashdot, Diablo II 1.10 Patch Finally Released, October 28, 2003

---

"Outside resources don't play into it - no gold buying, etcetera. We take a hard line stance against it. What you get out of micro-transactions is kind of the same thing and I think our player base would feel betrayed by it."

- Former VP of Design Rob Pardo, on Blizzard's philosophy regarding in-game purchases.
Eurogamer, Micro-transactions "betray" players February 21st, 2008

---

"In an industry full of passionate gamers, Kotick stood apart: the guy who never picked up a joystick."

- Forbes, Guitar Hero, February 6th, 2009

---

"In the last cycle of videogames you spent $50 on a game, played it and took it back to the shop for credit. Today, we'll (charge) $100 for a guitar. You might add a microphone or drums; you might buy two or three expansions packs, different types of music. Over the life of your ownership you'll probably buy around 25 additional song packs in digital downloads. So, what used to be a $50 sale is a $500 sale today."

- The Escapist, Activison's Bobby Kotick hates developers, innovation, cheap games, [and] you, October 23rd, 2009

---

"Bobby, you're not on the fucking Death Star. You're Palpatine...You didn't get there by accident, you got there by the decisions you made."

- Game Lawyer Tom Buscaglia, responding to Bobby Kotick's involvement in the Infinity Ward fiasco.
The Escapist, Game Lawyer Calls Bobby Kotick "Emperor Palpatine", March 17th, 2010

---

"Well, he makes a big deal about not liking games, and I just don't think that attitude is good for games in general,"

- Tim Schafer, when asked why he thinks Activision/Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick should care more about how gaming consumers perceive him.
1up.com, Tim Schafer: Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is a 'Total Prick' July 4th, 2010

---

"Huge deal. The Chinese claim that they will put up between 1-2[billion dollars]...The boys are meeting with [Warren] Buffett on weds in Omaha. We are the only pe firm. Super confi[dential]"

Ex-Activision director Peter Nolan commenting on the stakes of the then-proposed buyout of Activision/Blizzard from Vivendi Universal.
Bloomberg, Vivendi Considered Firing Activision's Kotick Over Buyout July 16th, 2014

--- 

"Q: Will there be any management changes at Blizzard as a result of this deal?
A: No, there won’t be any management changes at Blizzard as a result of the combination."

- Activision / Blizzard FAQ forum post on Battle.net December 2nd, 2007

---

"This is an important change as it will allow me, with Thomas, to become more deeply involved in areas of the business where I believe we can capture great potential and opportunity..."

- Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, in a memo to employees, on his reassignment of Mike Morhaime's boss, Thomas Tippl, to COO.
Los Angeles Times, Activision quietly restructures senior management and internal organization March 30th, 2010

---

"In short, he has to either break even or make money to get the stocks, and he has to maintain that for the next four years."

- Ben Gilbert, commenting on the Tippl Amendment that outlines the requirements of his financial reimbursement plan as COO.
Engadget, Activision CFO Thomas Tippl now COO, March 30th, 2010

---

"[Franchise fatigue] is something that I have not bought into...I think it's an excuse for lack of innovation. If you have a great franchise and you stop innovating, then yes, you will lose your fan base."

- Activision Blizzard COO Thomas Tippl, on his opinion regarding franchises getting too old to retain consumer interest
Gamasutra, Activision COO Tippl: 'Franchise Fatigue' Is An 'Excuse' June 17th, 2010

---

"We're happy to announce that through the wonders of modern gnomish engineering, you are now able to change your characters' names."

- Engadget, Finally Paid Name Changes! October 26th, 2007

---

"Blizzard just announced that StarCraft II's single player campaign would be split into three separate products."

- Kotaku, StarCraft II Single Player Is A Trilogy! October 10th, 2008

---

"In short, for a fee of $15, you can rebuild your character, with some restrictions. You can change your gender, face, skin, hair, and name, but not your race or class."

- Engadget, Character Re-Customization available for a small fee December 10th, 2008

---

"...players wanting to 'switch teams' will only need to shell out [...] $30 USD before applicable taxes."

- Tom's Hardware, Paid Faction Change Now in WoW September 4th, 2009

---

"Purchase queues began forming soon after the virtual item went on sale, with players in the forums reporting upwards of 12,000 folks waiting at the virtual cash register at one time for a chance to purchase the translucent flying mount. Wow.com reported yesterday that at one point the number topped 140,000."

- Kotaku, Blizzard is Selling World of Warcraft Mounts Because Players Demanded Them April 16th, 2010

---

"'They can also claim that by bringing in the secondary market under their umbrella, they will be providing a better quality of experience for their players. And that's true, certainly, but it's also certainly true that if there was no additional money to be made, they wouldn't be interested.'"

- Wired, Sold! Hawk Your Diablo III Loot for Real World Cash August 1st, 2011

---

"On the heels of Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™ surpassing 50 million registered players, Whispers of the Old Gods™, the third expansion for Blizzard Entertainment's award-winning online strategy card game, is now live."

- Activision Blizzard Press Release,
Whispers of the Old Gods™ Takes Hold of Hearthstone® as Registered Players Top 50 Million, April 26th, 2016 

--- 

"...there's a lot of distrust out in the community, because I think a lot of players have felt like they've been burned in the past."

- Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan, on his observations regarding pricing skepticism following Blizzard's announcement of Overwatch
GameEspresso, Blizzard Still Debating Microtransactions for Overwatch December 11th, 2015

In-Game Store,
World of Warcraft

In-Game Real Money Auction House,
Diablo III

In-Game Store,
Hearthstone

In-Game Store,
Heroes of the Storm

In-Game Store,
Overwatch

Context is King

"I know that if something is instantly gratifying, it will be repeated."

- Casino Mogul Steve Wynn

---

"Each year [casino] revenues in the US yield more profits than the theatrical movie industry ($US 10.9 billion) and the recorded music industry ($US 7 billion) combined. Even the $US 22.5 billion combined revenue of the four major US sports leagues is dwarfed by earnings from the commercial casinos industry."

- The Conversation, Losses Disguised As Wins, The Science Behind Casino Profits November 3rd, 2014

---

"(High-rollers) drive business. They drive revenues. They drive profits."

- Las Vegas Sun, LV Casino Host Spoils His Big-Time Losers, April 22nd, 2002

--- 

"Of the 4,222 casino customers, just 2.8% -- or 119 big losers -- provided half of the casino's take, and 10.7% provided 80% of the take."

- The Wall Street Journal, How Often Do Gamblers Really Win, October 11th, 2013

---

"In general, [Casinos] need [whales] to stay in business. Atlantic City can no longer survive on a steady stream of casual east-coast gamblers."

- The Economist, Making the House Beat Itself,  May 5th, 2012

--- 

"I told [Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates] 'The most I can make from you is $10,000 a night -- my guy bets that on his first hand. You can move now or security will be here in an hour.'"

- Steve Cyr, on courting high-rolling 'whales' that become big spenders at his casinos
Sabotage Times, The Las Vegas Whale Hunter, June 26th, 2013 

--- 

"And if you are a whale, we take Facebook stalking to a whole new level. You spend enough money, we will friend you. Not officially, but with a fake account. Maybe it's a hot girl who shows too much cleavage? That's us. We learned as much before friending you, but once you let us in, we have the keys to the kingdom. We will use everything to figure out how to sell to you."

- TouchArcade, We Own You: Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Game Producer September 16th, 2015

---

"It's a weird hybrid of gambling addiction and more traditional video game addiction, neither of which is anything new, but the combination of the two is a relatively novel emerging phenomenon, and one all the mobile games giants are taking advantage of to full effect."

- Forbes, Why It's Scary When 0.15% of Mobile Gamers Bring in 50% of the Revenue, March 1st, 2014

---

"...if you're the CEO of McDonald's, you should not feel good about your job, you should feel ashamed. We don’t have that in the games business -- we don't have that sense, because we feel like they're 'just entertainment.' We don't feel like we can do things we can be ashamed of yet..."

- Jonathan Blow, on the ethics of certain reward systems in video games
Gamasutra, MIGS 2007: Jonathan Blow On The 'WoW Drug', Meaningful Games November 28th, 2007

--- 

"I'd use birthday money, I'd eat cheaper lunches, I'd ask my wife to pay for dinner so I'd have a spare $10-$20 to spend in the store."

- Gamasutra, Chasing the Whale: Examining the Ethics of Free-to-Play Games July 9th, 2013

--- 

"The illusion of control is a crucial element in the maintenance of gambling addiction … [as it] instills a feeling of skill or control...there are a number of in-game features [such as the boosters in Candy Crush] that allow players to believe they are affecting the outcome of the game, and in some cases they are, but those instances are rare."

- The Guardian, This is What Candy Crush Saga Does to Your Brain, April 1st, 2014 

---

"More effective treatment is increasingly necessary because gambling is more acceptable and accessible than ever before...Today you do not even need to leave your house to gamble -- all you need is an Internet connection or a phone."

- Scientific American, How the Brain Gets Addicted to Gambling, November 1st, 2013

---

"[World of Warcraft] didn't even account for the majority of sales. For the first time, that honor went to a batch of different titles: Diablo and two new brands, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm."

- Fool.com, Activision Blizzard Inc. Doesn't Need "World of Warcraft" Anymore, August 18th, 2015

---

"There are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance."

- Activision Blizzard, at the Q4 2015 earnings call, after revealing that World of Warcraft's subscription numbers had dropped to 5.5 million.
Gamespot, Blizzard Will No Longer Report World of Warcraft Subscriber Numbers November 3rd, 2015

---

"These companies were really smart around analytics and monetization and very light in terms of product and content creation. I'm not sure any of those things are particularly sustainable. The future lies in going into the larger part of the market which is people that self-identify as gamers, and where the user acquisition and long-term value creation comes from making great games."

- Paul Thelen, CEO of Big Fish, on the decline of profitability in the casual gaming market,
GameIndustry.biz, Gamers rule: Only 10% of the industry's $50 billion comes from casuals December 12th, 2012

---

"He's like my dad,"

- Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, referring to the influence and impact Steve Wynn, Casino Mogul, has had on him
Kotaku, A Delightful Chat With the Most Hated Man in Video Games June 14th, 2010

3.65. Questionable Ethics

Gunsmokeco earns the #1 position in the world for
restoration shamans on Blood Queen Lana'thel,
World of Logs

Dissecting the Queen's Demise

It was big news for Descendants of Draenor. Really big. A small time, not completely casual, not entirely hardcore, just your average run-of-the-mill 25-Man raiding guild had managed to claim some celebrity. It wasn't exactly Wall Street Journal material, nor was it even WoW Insider worthy, but it was the biggest news among our little raiding community. Each week, I diligently loaded reams of combat data into World of Logs, a website that analyzed our performance, scrutinized our players, and gave us a window into knowledge we would otherwise be left in the dark about. Each week the process repeated; thousands of guild/raid leaders analyzing the performance of their respective raiders. Sitting on such a wealth of data brought interesting...and often surprising...analytical comparisons to light. Each player could be ranked against one another, per raid, per boss, individually...however you chose to display the data. All of this translated into a fancy widget in the lower-right hand corner of the screen, telling you where your extra special players ranked among their world-wide raiding peers. It was in this widget that we would occasionally see the truly exceptional players, denoted with a number next to their name -- their rank in the world. At least, from World of Logs' perspective.

I glanced down at the freshly uploaded report from our Blood Queen Lana'thel defeat the night before, and zeroed in on the widget, looking to see who had ranked this week, reading from the bottom up. There's Jungard, very good, very good. Ah yes, Bulwinkul. He ranks nearly every week. Excellent job. There you are, Hellspectral. Pushing Frost deeps to new heights, I see. Nice work, there. Ha, there's Jungard again. Cleave more, perhaps? Oh, nice work, Guns! World-wide 15th on Lord Jaraxxus, not too shabby!

...wait, this next one can't be right...

At first glance, I thought it was a bug in the analysis. I pulled up the complete Restoration Shaman report for that week, ranking the top 500 players across the world. Sure enough, the first page listing the top 100 best restoration shamans for the week of February 15th, there he was. Gunsmokeco, my healing officer, resided in the #1 position at the top of this list. This was monumental! I immediately captured screenshots of the report and posted announcements in guild chat and on the forums. Guildies, both new and old, joined in congratulating the shaman on his award-winning play. Guns was the official celebrity of the guild, he ran with it. Jokes soon began to fill our raids with how the great and mighty Gunsmokeco honored us with his presence. And who wouldn't want to get an occasional tip or recommendation on how to adjust their play from the #1 ranked shaman in the world?

Players that knew how a sinister sheet of statistics can paint anything positively, that's who.

"He's getting a bit of a big head," Blain whispered over.

"Let him have his fifteen minutes. We rarely get the opportunity to win anything in life, might as well let him run with this for awhile."

"Just remember that how he got #1 wasn't exactly accurate."

"I get it. Fred's Divine Sacrifice inflated the duration of the fight by five seconds. Everybody got to do a little extra deeps and healing than the majority of the reported attempts. Chain Heal spam ftw. I get that it's a bit of a fudge."

"There's more to it than that. When you get a sec, take a look at the 'Damage Taken' report."

I pulled up colored bar graph at Blain's request, "Ok, what am I looking for?"

"Filter by Swarming Shadows."

Ah, the dreaded purple flames left under unsuspecting players' feet, forcing them to run out of the group. In an optimal situation, players afflicted with Swarming Shadows rushed out of the group, leaving a long trail of violet flames behind them. Slow movers, and those referred to by Dalans as mouthbreathers, did us a disservice. By not reacting, they would jeopardize the safety of the players around them, the purple flames needlessly folding back upon themselves, growing outward, causing massive amounts of damage to all who stood mindlessly in them.

I did as instructed, filtering the report by damage taken from Swarming Shadows. It appeared that another award was in order. Behind the two tanks (who had a verifiable excuse), Guns also took the most damage from Swarming Shadows. Why? Why would he have even been standing in the Shadows at the end of the fight? In the heat of battle, did he lose his shit? That's not Gunsmokeco. Think about who you are dealing with. You made him an officer because of his quality of play. Hell, he’s one of the few people in the guild capable of raiding with the default UI. No, there was a very real and thoughtful decision behind standing in Swarming Shadows...

...he knew it would inflate his healing to record levels.

"Clever guy," I typed back to Blain, "he lined those up to knock 'em over, eh?"

"Makes ya think, don't it?"

I had to admit it was a neat trick. Even neater, though, was the validation of Blain's watchful eye. Apparently my last minute negotiation tactic in joining Si Team was paying off. But as with all things Blain, his attention to minute details went far beyond just casual Omaric and Bretthew observation.

I wondered if Blain would ever return to the throne of raid leadership.

The Eh Team completes their first clear of 10-Man ICC,
while Mature farms Hydraxian Waterlords reputation,
Molten Core

An Agenda to Keep

We had regular award winners on World of Logs, and another one of these familiar faces was Bulwinkul. Not only an esteemed member of The Eh Team, he was one of the few competitive Boomkins to emerge on Deathwing-US. As February waned, he expressed feeling burnt out and wished to take advantage of the time-off feature I granted to the Elite. Like a respectful employee, he gave me the full two week notice I asked of my distinguished members, giving me adequate time to search for his replacement. That was on the 20th of February. Two days later, while I chiseled away at the Hydraxian Waterlords reputation deep within Molten Core, guild chat filled up with achievement spam as "Fall of the Lich King (10 Player)" scrolled up through the window. The Eh Team had finished off the 10-Man version of Icecrown Citadel. I immediately joined in the guild in typing a congratulations to them, but secretly, was disappointed that Eh Team pulled out a win over Blain's Si Team....our team.

Forget about who rushes over the finish line for a moment. Didn’t Bulwinkul just come to you regarding the need to take time off? If Eh Team was close to wrapping things up in ICC, don’t you think he would’ve known this before coming to you?

I couldn't argue about the timing, it seemed oddly coincidental that my solitary Boomkin requested time off only days before Eh Team finished their work in the Citadel. If his loyalty to the 25-Man was waning, perhaps he felt taking time off would innervate his focus and attention to progression. There was also the possibility that stuff was going on in his personal life that I wasn't privy to, so I tried to keep an open mind and continue to support him in his request, returning to the backlog of applications for more fodder.

...but Bulwinkul's timing never left my mind. It wasn't exactly a red flag...but it had the makings of one.

---

To replace Bulwinkul in the lineup, I had the good fortune of being contacted by another old-school DoD member. Goldenrod had finally cooled down from his angry exit near the end of The Burning Crusade. He never had a bone to pick with anything in DoD; his contempt was primarily focused at the botched BlizzCon 2008 ticket fiasco, lumped on top of the "butchering" of the mage class in PvP. I didn't have to tell Goldy that much had changed in the guild since his departure. He revealed that he had quietly followed the forums the entire time, reading along, checking in on our progress, seeing the swaths of raid progression we were slicing through; he wanted to return. I had no problems bringing Goldy back into the foray -- it was much easier for me to give the greenlight to an ex-member, than it was to take a gamble on someone I knew nothing about. Goldenrod was kind, considerate, and respectful of others' opinions, even in the trolliest of debates.

His re-entry to the roster couldn't have come at a better time, because deep within Goldenrod lay another attribute I was yet to learn about, one that would have significant impact on DoD until its final days.

A guild attempts Professor Putricide using the
AVR (Augmented Virtual Reality) add-on,
Icecrown Citadel

No Spoon to Speak Of

The forum topic pointed us to a brand new add-on. It was unlike any mod we had yet to employ in progression. Most modifications to the UI assisted us with more efficient healing, tracking the raid's damage and/or health, or gave us warnings that deadly mechanics were quickly approaching. This add-on, however, took it to an entirely new level. Looking at the screenshots and watching a few videos of it in action gave me pause, if but for a moment.

It was the first time I can remember being hesitant about adopting an add-on into our suite of tools.

The add-on in question was AVR, which stood for Augmented Virtual Reality, and how it enhanced a raider's environment was both impressive and disturbing. AVR built upon the foundation of other raid tools like Deadly Boss Mods and BigWigs, providing alerts and warnings to the raider about impending changes to the encounter while it played out...but with an important difference. Rather than simple messages splashed on the screen while alarms blared from desktop speakers, AVR went so far as to paint the room with gigantic, multicolored circles, indicating physical locations for players that were both safe and unsafe to move into. The encounter that AVR truly shined on was Professor Putricide, coloring virtual blocks of safety (and non-safety) from the oozes. In the case of Putricide, AVR was a godsend, providing clarity to an overly complex fight, rife with logistical coordination demands that often turned a well-meaning set of players into a handful of infuriated children.

But using AVR completely transformed the way a raider saw the encounter. Like Neo finally setting his mind free, the World of Warcraft was stripped of its digital magic, the terror of abominations and slimes replaced by non-threatening virtual arrows and rainbow paths no more difficult to follow than a set of directions spewed out of Google Maps. The result? The raid absolutely wielded a level of power and control over their environment unmatched, and to say these bosses were trivialized as a result would paint the situation in a positive light. More realistically, for a 25-Man raid that was already pushing the competitive envelope for our schedule, encounters exploded like so many Mr. Smiths.

In trying to decide if this was "the right thing to do", all that came to mind were the many defenses we stood by in support of add-ons. They are just tools. We don't hammer nails into boards with bare hands, we use a hammer and we get the job done like professionals. We work smarter, not harder. The problem with AVR was that it wasn't a hammer, it was robotic nail gun firing hundreds of nails a second. That kind of enhancement doesn't make the job easier...it puts us out of a job.

When Descendants of Draenor experimented with AVR, Goldenrod was one of the few who left the add-on uninstalled.

"I'm not going to use it. At best, it's for a casual guild who can't progress without it. We've already gone through Putricide without it, we're better than that."

"I'm having a hard time trying to determine what the cut-off point is. Where do you draw the line? How is this any different that running, say...Deadly Boss Mods?"

"Let me put it this way: when we down the Lich King, and you snap a screenshot to post up on the forums and the guild website...do you want the world to see those yellow and red blotches all over your screen?"

It was a succinct way to put the situation into perspective. Is that how we wanted to advertise ourselves? Is that the type of player we wanted to attract?

"Like I said, some people may need it. We don't."

For Descendants of Draenor, AVR was an amusing experiment, and one I felt better leaving behind, agreeing with Blizzard (who disabled its functionality shortly thereafter) on what constituted a valid add-on. What we posted on our website should reflect who we are, and that wasn't us. More importantly, we didn't want it to attract that type of raider, the kind that would need AVR. It was about more than just making "the right decision", it was how those decisions reflected back upon us. Others may not have cared, but we did. So I needed to make sure all of our decisions reflected that...even if those decisions were buried in screenshots.

I wanted everyone in the roster to be a straight shooter. That meant in order to overcome our next obstacles, we would have to resort to good old fashioned elbow grease...

...with perhaps just a little help from the enemy.

3.10. Divine Forgiveness

Graulm updates Kerulak on Dreadlocker's need to
hearth and retrieve a forgotten Onyxia Scale Cloak,
Blackwing Lair

Bygones

Along with garnering interest from brand new players, tales of our exploits trickled back across the internet's sea of digital waves. Our cohorts were pulled back, alcoholics getting a whiff of that intoxicating aroma, falling completely off the wagon into Azeroth's mud. The question was: do we embrace them with open arms and welcome them into our perpetual AA meeting? After four years of running Descendants of Draenor, we had developed a colorful history of departures. Some were clean. Others were so filthy I still feel the dirt under my fingernails. Discreetly, they would approach me, striking up a conversion over in-game whispers. "Kerulak! How's it going? Long time, no chat!", as if I had forgotten the painful details surrounding their exit, and the many sleepless night they had caused me. Memories are short. Recruiting for your absence wasn't something I enjoyed. But, I responded politely, carrying the conversation as long as they wished. Secretly, I timed how long it would take for them to drop the big question.

Addressing the prospect of a player's return boiled down to a number of items. First, I had to consider their past and the context of their exit before I let the water rush under the bridge. In some cases, it wasn't appropriate to have them return, because I had completely lost trust in them when they were in a role of responsibility. This was the case with Dreadlocker, my second warlock officer who left us mid-TBC after being given too many direct orders from Annihilation on how to play his class. I remember how I felt when it happened: frantic. I had no answers and nothing made sense. It was a situation that, as a leader, made me feel like I had no control over anything. When he finally spoke, it was to draw attention to my mistreatment of the B-team players, increasingly left behind when we shifted gears to solve our stagnation problem. I saw things differently. By accepting the promotion to officership, Dreadlocker's responsibility was to the guild, not to the B-team. As a result, his alignment with players inhibiting progress, rather than contributing, ultimately led to the second exodus from DoD. Some time later, word got around about our accomplishments -- the Twilight Vanquisher titles spoke for themselves. And although Dreadlocker and I continued an amicable relationship, speaking infrequently via /tell about how things had transpired since the exodus, he dropped hints that it might be beneficial for us to return to our combined former glory.

Personally, I did not see the need.

Another type of exit I was loathe to forgive were ones that sent my moral compass spinning. We are human, we make mistakes; part of being a good leader means forgiving and moving forward. But ethical mistakes cannot and should not be forgiven; they paint a picture of a person with either ulterior motives or they are too easily manipulated to put faith into. The DoD raiding environment I set out to rebuild in Wrath was steeped in trust and communication. Violations of that meant chipping away at our raiding foundation until the tower collapsed, no matter how trivial the infraction seemed. In a virtual social environment where honesty and strength-of-character are often cast to the wayside, I did everything in my power to compel the guild to be honest and follow through with their commitments. This mutual trust formed the basis of my raid rotation policy and promotion structure in WotLK. There is no need to mention names here, but players in Vanilla and TBC I came to trust...who made me believe they were aligned with the goals of the guild, only to betray that trust later...weren't given a second chance. Furthermore, I instituted a rule that prevented alts from joining other guilds. Hanging out with us on your alt, only to flip to your main raiding toon in another guild and sap our resources for our competition's benefit was a prime use case I wanted to avoid. Alignment aside, it caused too many hard feelings. I was a big boy and could put it behind me, but I couldn't say the same for the rest of the raiders. Animosity between them only chipped away at that raiding foundation further.

Forgiveness is tricky, but it helps if the person genuinely knows where they went wrong, as was the case with Bretthew.

Kerulak keeps an eye on heals
while Taba tanks Buru the Gorger,
The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

Bretthew

Buried within the folklore of Descendants of Draenor exists the amusing tale of a certain paladin, an old-school DoDer, who sought passage back into the guild. In the days of Vanilla, he played a warrior named Taba. Taba's fellow 40-Man clansman will forever remember the events surrounding a Blackwing Lair clear one night, a night of infamy in which the coveted sword Ashkandi was pulled from Nefarian's carcass. In our zero-sum, fixed price loot system of Vanilla, Taba was the highest DKP holder next in line, and won the coveted blade of crimson and black. Upon receiving the loot, screams of joy burst through Vent as he stepped away from his keyboard, proceeding to dance in uninhibited delight, running frantically from room to room. He screamed the sword's name with all the excitement of a child tearing into that one present they had dreamed for all year.

I remember when loot had that effect on players.

With the release of TBC, Taba was retired and a new blood elf paladin named Bretthew took his place. As he had tanked in Vanilla, Bretthew continued this tradition and assisted in the defeat of Gruul and Magtheridon, preparing for the challenges of Serpentshrine Cavern. Since the Horde had only just gained paladins, we lacked expertise in this department. Some of our healing shamans had cut over to the plate-wearing, flash-of-light spamming fair skinned elves. Of what little facts we knew, paladins weren't viable tanks for the Alliance in Vanilla; pallies could spec that way, but simply weren't cut out to do it competitively. All of this changed in TBC, so Bretthew dove deep into those mechanics, learning the nuances of the class in a quest to become an expert Tankadin. He tanked for the 25-Man progression team alongside folks like Ater, Kurst and Dalans, and played a particularly key role in tanking the massive waves of murlocs that rushed in during Morogrim Tidewalker's attempts to drown us.

Then, drama.

Not long after Tidewalker's defeat, Bretthew's WoW account was hacked. He lost all his characters; we lost a fully geared and experienced paladin tank. The hacker had even gone so far as to rename Bretthew to "Pumpintitan". The guild flipped out, spammed this illegitimate account holder, threatening him, demanding he return the account to its rightful owner. It was no use. The hacker only responded with disemvoweled speech, insisting that the account was his, spreading lies about how he had legitimately purchased it. Apparently, we were all wrong and just needed to leave him alone.

The hacker stuck to his guns so fiercely, that eventually I began to question whether or not Bretthew had, in fact, been hacked at all. Surely, he had no reason to make up a story like that? I mean, he was an adequate tank, well liked among the guild; a funny, decent player with competency behind the wheel. And we were making progress! Blain was back in charge of the raid team, and we were on our way to completing SSC. All lights were green, and doubt surrounding our ability had all but completely dried up. What possible reason would he have to step out of progression, cold-turkey, right at the start of our second wind?

The only thing I could think of was: embarrassment.

Bretthew stands among the 25-Man progression team
after defeating Morogrim Tidewalker,
Serpentshrine Cavern

Repent of Your Sins

Bretthew laid the entire story out for me in Vent one night. "Shock" would not be a word I'd use to describe how I felt as it unfolded. Allegedly filled with rage during a late night PvP session, Bretthew became the victim of a temper tantrum. That tantrum caused him to make some bad judgments (pardon the pun). And in the heat of anger, he grabbed his keyboard and flung it against the wall. As tiny plastic letters of the alphabet rained down on his head, realization quickly set in. The keyboard left a gaping hole in the wall...the wall of a rental apartment. In an instant, he committed himself to a brand new loan, money he would need to repair the damage, money he didn't have. Money, he reasoned, that would have to come from selling the WoW account.

But not before covering his blood-laden tracks.

Once Bretthew secured a new owner, and the money exchanged hands, all that remained was delivering the awful news to the guild leader. He knew I would be furious, as we'd come to rely on him in progression. He wasn't ready to deal with the ramifications of coming clean. So, he concocted a story to get a free pass -- that he'd been hacked. What could I do? It wasn't his fault his account was gone! It sucked, but that's what happened and he was very sorry; conveniently, responsibility was out of his hands. My only option was to handle the situation on those terms: a hacking, something Bretthew wasn't responsible for, and certainly couldn't be blamed for. Just another hacked account in the long line of wedges driven into our progress throughout The Burning Crusade.

No, "shock" was definitely not what I felt after getting all the facts. Instead, it was mostly "disappointment".

With his full disclosure now presented, I had to reason, is it worth taking a risk on someone like Bretthew again? On the one hand, I clung to my age-old biases which had been tempered with one experience after another: people don't change. If he had the capacity to pull something like that on me once, I reasoned, there was nothing to stop him from doing it again. When presented with such a rationale, he agreed,

"You have absolutely every right to feel that way about me, Hanzo," he said over Vent. 

I flew across Northrend, searching for more achievements to complete, "I assume you've read all the rules that I've published for Wrath," I said, "things are different now. I intend on running a much tighter ship this time."

"I've read it all, I think it's great...what you've done."

"And you’re 100% clear on the tank situation? That it's going to be difficult for you to find a spot on a regular basis? Y'know? Because I just had this conversation with Beercow. He opted to switch roles entirely because of that."

"I'm completely clear and fine with it; I can help fill other runs if needed."

I paused a moment, then delivered the next sentence slowly, giving impact to every individual word, "You realize that there is a very slim chance you'll see the Elite rank under my new system...ever. Based on your previous exploits."

"No, I hear you. I get where I messed up and that's not something I'm interested in reliving. I just want to be able to contribute in some way."

I pondered the other side of the case a moment. He came clean, after all. He made the effort to give me the real story regarding his account. While his motives painted him with the maturity of a child, and his timing was more representative of a treasure-hungry goblin, I decided that it was important to give a player a second chance whom genuinely knew where they had fucked up, expressed remorse, and were dedicated to fixing it. If they could be man enough to acknowledge the error of their ways, I wagered, it was the first step toward growing into a better person. I appreciated players who were willing to take accountability for their actions, and wanted to reward that behavior with positive reinforcement. So, Bretthew returned to the lineup in late March. The 25-Man progression team grew stronger.

But there was still the case of a missing raid leader...