Wow vs LotRO, a study in simplicity vs complexity

I've just gotten my internet restored after a month away (lightning strike, AT&T complete idiocy, 4 techs, new line, big ordeal), and re-subbed to WoW. That has a lot to do with my missing my awesome guildies and friends, and also missing the ease of it. I love lotro, but I love being able to just jump a griffon/wyvern and get where I need to be quickly and easily. On the other hand, when I'm in the mood for it, wandering around trying to find the next quest hub can be a lot of fun. But when I'm not in the mood for it, and just want to get some XP (I'd like to see 50 by the end of the year), very annoying and complicated.

On the other hand, I spent about 2 hours with a friend on facebook walking me through what I should be doing in WoW. I've been away since December, and lots had changed. I had almost full bags with no clue of what to do with any of it (still haven't tackled that) and no clue on where to go.  Apparently the Isle of Thunder is my friend, and I did run through the first two scenarios to start unlocking it (which also helped me remember how the heck to shadow which is also on the complex side).

I also can't help wondering if I'd have as much trouble re-acclimating if I had a max level character in lotro. Jumping back onto the hunter or minstrel's fairly easy, but one's level 40 and one's 30. That's less than halfway to level cap, so there's far less for me to think about. I don't have bags stuffed full of transmog and cooking ingredients (and I have no clue what the heck I was doing with so many scallions), they're full of trophies, wood, random crafting things I'm saving for other toons (which go in shared storage till I wanna craft on that toon), and leather. The only complexity there is which task board I need to go to, and if it makes sense to send some of them to a lower level toon (to get more XP for the buck, so to speak).

Some of the simplicity of WoW has come as it's aged. I remember when you had to discover each flight point for each toon (which you still need to do in lotro), and when Azeroth was weird and new and I ran the length of a continent using only a speed boost in my early 20s (trick or treating all of Eastern Kingdoms) and alt+tabbing out to maps. I generally don't alt+tab out to maps in lotro unless I'm looking for something specific (ruin, quest location, that sort of thing); I can generally figure out how to get where I need to go. I like that about lotro (and I like the mithral coins option which allows you to go to any travel hub for one, just wish I got a few every month as a subber as they cost points).

I suspect part of it comes down to how I think about and play these two similar games so differently. In LotRO, the journey is the point. If I try to start power-leveling, I get frustrated because it feels so slow (the rested XP change doesn't help). In WoW, the socialization and end-game are the points, and thus I expect the journey to be fairly short (I have no idea what it will take to get Lyllea raid-ready, and honestly I'm not going to worry about it, I have enough RL stuff to deal with). If the journey is the point, I want a journey to be interesting, with nifty things to see and options for side-journeys, and I'm willing to forgive a certain amount of complexity for that. If the journey's a commute, I want simple and easy, preferably short, with as few traffic jams as possible.

I don't think one game is more complex than the other, I think they're just complex in different ways. That's good, it lets me enjoy them both, but I do wonder how much my viewpoint (very experienced former raider in Wow vs newbie with highest toon at 40) has to do with it.

Women in game: Source of drama or easy scapegoats?

I was wandering through the new Raid and Guild Leadership forums when I came across How to Deal with a Girl in my Guild. Obviously I started reading it, and thus started pondering where this idea of women as drama-makers comes from and is it Truth?

First off, no, I don't think it's Truth. I think some women, like some men, cause drama. There is a certain subset of the human population that causes and enjoys causing drama, and both men and women are part of this subset.  Most women I know, both in and out of game, do not like drama. I personally hate any conflict in groups I am a part of, and want everyone to get along and be happy. Obviously I cannot make the assumption that the majority of women in game are like me, BUT neither can I assume that I am abnormal in my desire for no drama. My best guesstimate is that I have some level of familiarity with about 100 players in game, of which a substantial minority are female. With 11 million players, 100 is nowhere near a decent sample size. In fact, I very much doubt that any player could manage to interact with enough people in game to form a decent sample, not to mention the fact that different servers have different norms and personalities (for lack of a better word).  So, please bear in mind that there is no Truth here, only individual truths. 

Now, where does this women cause drama idea come from? I'm not sure, but here's my guess...

In the early days of the Internet, it was male-dominated, and dominated by a particular type of male. We all know the stereotype. The geek/nerd who doesn't interact much with women, and whose higher brain functions tend to shut down in their presence. From what I have seen, these men tend to think of women as a weird and strange species and treat us differently.  Some women (and some men) took and still take advantage of this tendency. If you like drama, and you can use your sex to cause drama, well then you're probably going to do that. If you don't like drama, and don't like being treated differently because of your sex, then you're likely to just keep your mouth shut so no one finds out which sex you are. Can you see where this is going? Those most likely to be open about being female are also the most likely to use that fact to cause drama, thus creating the perception that all females cause drama.

Now, there is some female drama that the woman herself has nothing to do with. If player A finds out player B is female, and treats her differently from then on, then the fault lies with player A, not with player B. Any drama caused by this different (and likely preferential) treatment is player A's fault. But sadly, many will look at a scenario like this and say "See, girls in game cause drama!" and place blame on B instead of A. This is rather like introducing a minority person into a group and having drama because a member of the group reacted in a racially-insensitive fashion. Would you really blame the minority person? I doubt so.

If you look at the original post in the thread I linked, the scenario is not so cut and dried. You have a loot council member who is spending most of his time socializing with a female guildie, and his loot council decisions show favoritism towards this guildie. We have no way of knowing if the guildie has asked him to give her preference, or if she expects him to socialize almost exclusively with her. It is a fairly well-known phenomenon that people tend to want to spend time with the people they're dating, and many do take that to an extreme. Also, people tend to favor giving loot to people they like, a known problem with loot councils in general. So, if you remove the female guildie, would there still be drama? I'd say yes, sooner or later. The loot council member has shown that he has trouble removing his personal prejudices from his decisions. A woman may have brought that tendency to the forefront, but it's probably been there all along.

In closing, I would like to point something out that most of us forget in these kinds of discussions. When you generalize about women, or men, you are generalizing about 3 BILLION people. Even if you're saying something like "women get tetchy once a month", which may or may not be true for any woman who menstruates monthly. Assuming that statement is true for all women still means you're ignoring a substantial population of women who have passed menopause, are currently pregnant, or due to medical abnormalities do not menstruate or do not do so monthly.  It's a natural tendency of humans to generalize, it makes the world easier for us to deal with if we can put people in neat little boxes, but in real life, people don't always fit into those boxes and trying to force them to fit is harmful both to them and to you. Sometimes women cause drama, just like sometimes men cause drama. If you're not comfortable making the blanket statement "men cause drama", then why are you comfortable saying that women cause drama?

Holy Wall of Text, Batman!

So, my hands no longer hurt much, but they are randomly trembling (tired muscle sort of thing). Sadly, this means I've not gotten much done. All alts are at level 5 or above, and they're all parked at inns. Garetia is 73% through level 68, with enough rested XP to get her halfway through 69, but I just can't play her for long. Trembling hands are not good when you're trying to keep up precise shot rotations.

I did take down Gutripper by myself (okay, with Boo the tanking warp stalker), and I am insanely proud of that. (Gutripper is one of the Nesingwary elites in Nagrand, and the last time I took one on (with a warrior partner), we both got squished. I think it's the new gun and the level I've gained since then).

But I've been doing a lot of reading (I really don't idle well, and have to be doing something), and I started thinking about this new dual spec thing. First, the cost. 1k. I'll be over here laughing my arse off. I have 4oo gold spread out over 10 characters. I've been saving up for flying training (and a griffon, but not the elite kind). I could start selling herbs rather than using them to level alchemy, but I don't really want to do that again. I don't buy things in the auction house (okay, so there were those two stacks of iron bars a week ago, but I just finished mithril on Llonya and I couldn't face going back for more iron ore, again). Perhaps I should rephrase to I generally don't buy things on the AH, with occasional profession leveling related exceptions.

Now, I've been told by a friend that if you save all the gold you get from quest rewards, equipment drops, and dungeon running from 60-70, you'll have enough for flying. That's 900 gold total, or 800 if you're just buying the skill Now, I'm thinking she did this before they sped up the leveling, but I could be wrong. I'm hopeful I'll have the gold by 70, but if not, no loss. I can't use flying till 77 now anyway. But that's the drawback to the increase in leveling speed (not that I'm complaining about it). Less quests per level means less quest rewards and less gold. Yes, I could go run dailies, but I need to level. Gold is secondary to the leveling thing. But if I hit 77 and can't buy the cold weather flying, I may be doing a ton of dailies. And do I have to buy the Outlands training before I buy cold weather? Cause if not, I'll just be putting the Outlands one off for a bit.

So 1k is just out of my reach right now. And then there's the second thing...

What good is a dual spec to a hunter? When am I likely to use this?
I thought about it for a little while, and this is what I came up with.
If you can't find a tank for an instance, respecing BM, and respecing your pet (probably a gorilla) to tank. Now, Boo is already speced to tank, but the lack of BM talents means that he's nowhere near strong enough to survive against a boss. I had enough trouble keeping him up against Gutripper. And yes, I pull threat off him on occasion. I should probably figure out what my DPS is.

Respeccing for crowd control or maximum damage. You could also respec for PVP, but I am massive levels of suck at PVP, and thus have no knowledge of the subject. (I have never seen the Alliance win in any battleground I've been in, ever. I'm not sure if it's my battlegroup, just when I go into them, or if I am just massive bad luck)

Now, when I get the shammy and the pally to 40 (if I do), I will be seriously looking at the dualspecs on them. I'm thinking ret/holy for the pally and elemental/resto for the shaman. But that's a long way off and by then I'll have Garetia all the way to 80, running dailies and gathering herbs for cash. Hopefully Llonya (dk) will also be at 80, and I'll also be using her as a cash cow.