Too Greedy - WoW and Gold, The Perfect Combination: Thoughts

Showing posts with label Thoughts. Show all posts

Out of the blue we have received news of a playable demo of WoW Classic in Blizzcon 2018. No one was expecting it and yet here it is. Is Classic much closer to launch than we thought? And how will it work? Certainly every player who was present during the Vanilla days is asking himself these questions. Vanilla brings lots of memories to our minds and while most of them are very pleasant, I am pretty sure they are just sugar-coated by nostalgic feelings, making them seem better than the real experiences we had at that time. Do you disagree? Here are my top 3 Vanilla experiences which were not as nice as you remember them to be.

#3 Heirlooms & Mounts

Leveling alts in a few days or weeks? In Vanilla that was a big no-no. It took you so long to level up that having a maximum level alt was an amazing accomplishment for the average player. Heirlooms weren't even close to being invented yet, so you had to go through all the low-level areas again without any XP boost. To top it all off you could only obtain your first mount at level 40, so you needed to play for 39 levels ON FOOT!

Do you need to turn in a quest at the other end of the Barrens? No problem, just walk there for 20 damn minutes!

#2 Looking For Group

WoW dungeon group fighting boss in Vanilla

Do you enjoy the current Dungeon Finder where you can get into dungeons by pressing a button and waiting a few minutes? In Vanilla you had to do the whole work yourself. You needed to spam trade chat for a long time looking for members to your group and hoping that by the time you found your last member, your first member didn't have to leave. Then, if everything worked out on this first phase you all had to move to the dungeon (sometimes in another continent, meaning you had to wait for a boat in Booty Bay or something similar) and take a minimum of another hour or so to clear it. Will WoW Classic eliminate Dungeon Finder? That would be fun to watch.

#1 Making Gold

Of course #1 would have to be about making gold!

When I played Vanilla I was far from good in the AH. In fact, I don't even know how someone could be so bad at it like I was. I took so many months to get enough gold to buy my first mount (60% speed at level 40) and even longer to get my first epic mount (the 100% speed horse for the Human Mage I was playing by then!). I was mostly farming cloths in Western Plaguelands and doing dungeons to get even more materials. Afterwards I would sell them at the AH along with other random items I came across with. Sometimes I would also sell enchants - through the Trade Window because tradeable enchant scrolls weren't invented yet!

Making gold was tough, and even something as simple as having a bank alt was hard. You could only send 1 item or stack per mail so it took a long time to transfer items around your characters, and to top it all off, mailboxes were rare! Major cities had very few mailboxes and they were far away from the AH which made you run around a lot. Do you own a guild bank in order to have extra storage in your bank alt? Yep, you didn't have that either in Vanilla.

You've got to love this vintage gear but I wouldn't go back to Vanilla. Would you?

What were your best and worst experiences in Vanilla and how were you making gold? Share your memories below!

This week, I came back to raiding. This is part of my Cataclysm preparation, because as you know, I came back to the game recently, so it's good for me to start reliving everything again. Since I returned, I've probably been spending more time handling all my stocks and gold than anything else, so I'm now trying something "new". (Raiding posts may be reborn!)

Diversifying has been the key to not becoming insane. I've been doing PvP (even though I'm a noob), raids, mount hunting (got my Albino Drake now), and my auctions are still selling at the same rate, which shows me that I probably shouldn't have been spending so much time looking at Auctioneers in Orgrimmar. Gold is my main passion, but I'm moderating my behaviour now.

I know Cataclysm is getting close, and sometimes it feels that time isn't enough because November 2nd is only a month and a half away, but why not relax a bit and prevent yourself from getting burned before it arrives?

In case you're going through the same, take my words for it, try new waters, they're still as refreshing as making gold like a mad man, even if you're too greedy like a certain person.

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I've been hit with loads of information (and I really mean LOADS) about Cataclysm lately, which are said to influence the economies by then. There's a lot of speculation going on apparently, on subjects like:

Zul'Gurub is no longer a raid instance.
Glyphs will be needed only once (they will be like spells).
Some vendors that currently sell valuable items will disappear.
...And there's a lot of other examples.

I know the Beta is online at the moment, but how reliable is this kind of information this far away from the actual 4.0 release? How can people immediatly guess all the consequences of such events? I think it's good to speculate, because when people are brainstorming possibilites, some of them actually make sense, but I've been reading lots of non-sense like "Inscription will die" or "I won't be able to make money anymore due to these stupid changes, bla bla".

Maybe I was unlucky on finding mostly this kind of quitters (I called them slackers a few months back) but it makes me be happy about it. Strange feeling, I know, but bear with me. People cannot be 100% right when they speculate and come to a conclusion. But if they find out that they were wrong, they can and WILL change their mind (especially in this game), and take a step on the opposite direction. So, all these quitters that I'm talking about will be there on the markets that they criticised themselves, it's just a matter of when. With their loser attitude, they will probably not take action towards leveling their professions right when Deathwing blows Azeroth up, which gives us - astute people - an immediate step ahead of these competitors. For how long? Until all the losers realise they were wrong and start climbing their way to the mountain top that we set foot in a few weeks (or months) back! So, think ahead of time and you'll make a blast on the beginning, but eventually, everyone will catch up, and the role you'll play will be exactly the same as it is right now. Why worry about it so much, if you'll be rich either way?

Make your money now, while you're preparing to go ahead all those slackers. But remember, they'll be your competitors soon enough.

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We're all slaves! Slaves to the gold. Well, some are more than others, but if you think about, your power in this game has a limit, and that's not the limit of the gear stats, it's the gold you have. Let's take a look at this.

If you're a raider, you need several things to be at your top game: enchants, gems (epic ones), belt buckles, that extra BoE that helps you when the RNG doesn't allow to get upgrades. All these require gold, and lots of it. I see discussions all over the Internet all the time about this. Raiders need to be as good as they can, period. If you seem to be skint all the time, it's time for you to get some spare time and earn gold. It benefits you and your raidmates.

If you're a PvPer, the same principle applies. You need the best enchants and gems, thus you need lots of gold.

If you're bored, you may want to create a twink. Twinking a character requires lots of gold too.

I could go on all day with this, but my point is, gold is your limitation in anything you do, so why not take some time out of your "jumping around in Dalaran", or even your "farming herbs for selling at the AH", and actually doing something more. Jump to the next level, and try to be rich. "Well, that's easy for you to say", you might say. It's easy to say and to do. The AH is no rocket science. There's people like you there, trying to make a living. Join them!

How? The Internet is filled with information about how the AH works, and how people use it most of the times. What you have to do is taking advantage of some people's bad use of the AH. After you know those basic skills, it's just a matter of learning the right times to buy and sell, and you're set. Does it seem too hard? It isn't, that's a myth. Let's go into details, and perhaps I can even teach you something.

I mentioned that people use the AH in a wrong way previously. What I mean by this is that some people just dump their goods there and pray that they sell; they don't care about the price, all they care about is to undercut the competition. On a few cases, that's the way to go, but it often isn't. First, think about how popular the item is, and think about its probability of selling. By using common sense, you will probably find out that stuff like gems, enchants, metal, cloth, are the most popular. So, if these items sell all the time, why undercut? Every silver coin you're missing is money. Do you like to lose money? No, that's why you should not undercut in these cases. Post it a little higher than the cheapest one that is there. That one will sell, and then your item will be the first on the list. Try it and you'll see!

This is just the beginning of a neverending list of stuff you can do every day at the AH that will allow you to have no limits on this game. And does it feel nice to open the AH window and buy anything you feel like buying, just for the sake of it. Even stuff you don't really need.

I hope you find this little help useful. Make a comment below on how it works for you if you didn't know this yet!

I'm done with Zangarmarsh (no achievement, though!), and have now moved on to Nagrand. I probably won't complete Nagrand Slam either, but who knows. And now that we're talking about achievements, I would also like to complete PvP achievements. There's only one problem: I cannot find any alliance player! If I find a couple a week I'm lucky!

You may say, just go do a BG and problem solved. No, it's not that simple. Battlegrounds take ages to start (last night, I was on the queue to AV for over 2 hours!), and when it's time to go in, I usually have to log off. That's what happens when you go to a low population realm/battlegroup, so take this as a lesson. Always try and do some research on where you're re-rolling before you actually start leveling a new character. Don't be a fool like me.

Hey, but this post is not just shameless whining about how unaware I was. I will still pull my weight when it comes to achieving other stuff, even if PvP isn't that acessible. The Auction House has got nearly 20,000 items every day, which isn't bad at all, I think. That's where I'm aiming, besides doing some PvE action of course! And it has been working well so far, with low level mats, and random stuff that I get while questing.

However, I don't play much at the moment because RL doesn't allow, so these goals may take a good while to fulfill. But they will be fulfilled!

2006. Pre-TBC. "The days when having epics meant something". Was it better than today?

I found this while browsing the web: WoW @ 60. It's a (now outdated) guide that teached 'new' 60's what to do when they got to max level. They could do instances like Stratholme, Scholomance, Blackrock Spire/Depths (which were raids at that time, by the way); they could do some nice quest chains...everything required a solid group to beat. And hell, it would be hard to get a 40 people PuG back in those days. Was it enough?

PvP "wasn't balanced"; has it ever been? Rogues only needed one skill to kill people. Shamans only needed Frost Shock to crit and they were successful. Basically, it wasn't much different from nowadays, except for the whole plethora of skills you have to use now. The only totally new thing that was implemented in PvP was Arenas, but that's a whole new story.

My point is: was it a lot different? Therefore, was it better or worse back then?

It was definitely worse from a 'casual' point of view. Very few had epics back then, and whoever did was admired by others, who only managed to get blues from 'lower quality' raids. Doing MC/BWL/OL meant you were pro. You were recognised by your T2 helm. Having a Thunderfury was amazing, and it actually required effort rather than luck to obtain.

From a hardcore player point of view, it was probably better, because people complimented their gear and how pro they were. I'm sure they loved that, everyone does. However, they can't say it was better because content was harder to beat. I'm willing to say that I find some encounters from WotLK (Hard Modes) even harder than MC or BWL.

I'm completely sure there will never be a conclusion about the previously stated questions. It's something that people will always be divided about, but if we think about it, we have a much bigger variety of stuff to do now, than we did in 2006. We got lots of intances, heroic instances, barber shops, arenas, a lot of dailies, achievements...I could go on all day. And last, but not least, 2 new professions: Jewelcrafting (introduced in TBC) and Inscription (introduced in Wrath). And that's why I prefer WotLK against Vanilla. It wasn't as easy to make money as it is now, not even close. A lot more money circulates; people have new things to buy (which they didn't back in pre-TBC), specially 'must-have' items like gems and glyphs. That's why those 2 professions are the best features ever. I make insane amounts of money with them. With that money, I make sure that I am properly prepared for my raids (or any activity I'm part of), and I can certainly enjoy the game more than I did 3 years ago, and still not be a hardcore player.

We follow and "mymic" the ones who we think we have something in common with. Since childhood, we always have someone who we take as a role model. A family member, a friend...someone whose life seems perfect, hassle free. Someone who doesn't by any chance connect to a "bad" adjective, like "greedy" (did you see what I did there?) or "arrogant". It's usually someone who we connect to knowledge and we would just love if that person would give us advice all day, teaching us how to, well, become someone like him/her. But no one is perfect. Everyone, even those who look flawless, fails in some aspect of life. And when we realise that our "mentality master" - the one who we want to be like - is not perfect, it doesn't feel good. What do we do?

Boubouille from MMO-Champion is an example on how most people behave on these "take someone as a role model" situations. He shared his knowledge on several aspects of money making in WoW. I've talked about what I think of his reasons already, but let's deeply analyze the situation (this will be kind of a followup from my previous post about this). He "taught" people on how to make money using Enchanting, Inscription, and Jewelcrafting. His website is incredibly big, reader wise. Bigger than we can imagine. That would probably mean these ways of making gold would become obsolete (because everyone would do it), but they didn't. A large portion of the readers who would like to make tons of gold is filtered by one single fact: all the work these methods require in order to work properly and award large amounts of gold, which is what everyone wants. Those who used Boub's techniques along with a functioning brain might have found out beforehand it wouldn't work so well on their server. But! Just like Markco mentioned on his post a few days ago, some people kept buying Thorium, no matter the price, thinking they were making a wise decision. It was their role model, Boub, the one who knows a lot about economy he even made a few guides, who told them it worked, so it must always work, no matter what, right? I'm sure a lot of people did have this way of thinking, and that is my point. They followed someone they thought that had superior knowledge on something, and if he said it worked, it's because it works everywhere, anytime. Wrong way of thinking, but pretty obvious.

Bring more MMO-C guides! They don't actually teach people how to think. Those "guides" show people how Boub can make gold himself, not how they can make gold themselves. Read the guides deeply you'll find most people will find emptiness in it, because they won't even care reading it properly. They'll just copy their master's decisions. He, the wise one, will guide them to success. Or at least they think he will. Will they profit? Perhaps, and maybe it's a good profit for them, but if they search around the internet for more knowledge instead of just getting spoonfed by their gold making master for a short time, they probably wouldn't regret it. But hey, I'm not against making gold with the usual "casual" methods. I actually prospect Saronite now and then and hate to find only overpriced stacks in the AH.

Recently, a new donation option was opened at the JMTC Forums. With it, some stuff changed, some say for worse, some say it's for the greater good. Who is right?

As we all know, a website doesn't run itself, and out of empty pockets. It requires investment, not just time investment; JMTC required money investment too, and if we all like to read stuff there for free, we should be aware that someone was in the background making it possible. That was Markco. His blog reader numbers are big, and the Forums are growing each day. In order to keep the website alive, money is needed. Of course that it won't become mandatory to donate. Not all of us are able to donate, not all of us are willing to donate. But some people are starting to say they're upset by seeing some functionalities being used only by Premium members. They feel like it's their right to use everything. Now tell me, how many places like JMTC can you find in the whole Web? Where else can you find the most brilliant auctioneering minds, who constantly share their thoughts and bathe you in knowledge?

Every single WoW related website you know gets donations to stay alive. When you go to any big WoW website, someone is donating so you're able to know how the latest Armor Tiers look like, and how the latest PTR is working for testers. Someone is donating so you're able to learn the tactics for the latest bosses. Someone is donating so you're able to get the latest analysis on your class. Why would it be different for JMTC? If it gets to a point where many thousands of members pass by during the day, someone must be willing to keep it alive, other than Markco. It's changed from a 1 person project, to something made by an entire community. You can't donate? No one said you must, but if you can't, contribute by being a good member. Help others, be part of the Forums positively, and help the Admins run the place. It's not easy to run such a big house.

Why so much drama? It's part of the evolution process of a website. If it gets big, you can't expect the costs to be covered by just one person. Think for a moment on everything Markco has done to provide you the best gold making website around. And be thankful for it.

I have to admit I haven't paid much attention to Brewfest this year, but from what I've seen already, it's basically the same quests! The only interesting feature they present is the boss in BRD who drops mounts and now apparently he drops a BoE epic too. I know World Events are supposed to be funny for everyone, but they could at least implement new stuff instead of the already known "drunk all day" behaviour and the Dark Iron Attacks (I'm actually surprised they didn't bug this year!).

They could implement something more related to the lore itself, and combine it with the World Events. Say you could actually have visions of Arthas' story (similar to an already existing quest), or other characters. Interacting in that story would be nice too. I don't find it funny to do the same quests every year with little to zero new things, and I've seen more people complaining too.

I mean, we're nearly 1 year into WotLK and all they introduced was a Pirate's Day achievement where you just have to talk to an NPC, and a Day of the Dead (or whatever it's called)? Come on, we all know it's not just about raiding anymore. If they want to make these events appealing, they can't just change the name of some of the quests.

Boubouille from MMO-Champion posted an Auction House Guide yesterday. There were lots of QQ replies to the topic I linked, stating he had just crashed every economy on every server in the world. There's also a topic at the JMTC Forums discussing it.

People will always QQ about everything, no exceptions, but I'm not discussing this now. What I found interesting in Boub's post was the fact that his intentions were based on "everyone should be able to do X, because only 0.1% of the WoW population uses these methods [or mods, or whatever]". Why would he use his website's popularity to spread info among "everyone"? Why is he also intending to give away an Inscription guide (like if I didn't have enough glyph undercutters already)? He must have some sort of "background" interest, by revealing this kind of methods most people don't even suspect about.

Still... there are ways for us old-school (who knew how to play the AH way before Boub's post) players who have already grown roots to the floors of the Orgrimmar/SW/(...) banks and Auction Houses. Think to yourselves, what will all those uneducated and gold hungry masses do? They'll surely buy the materials which the new "Gold Expert" Boubouille told them, and they'll face one out of two situation: either they'll find an empty market, because another MMO-C reader bought everything first, or they will arrive first, and buy everything, regardless of the prices. This means that they're lucky because they brainlessly bought lots of stacks of items which will give profit after all, or they'll fail miserably and will end up with even less money than they started (they'll go angry, like some people did when they took Markco's advice on Icy Dragonscales). Nonetheless, all these miracle techniques to earn gold will only be well used by a few, so it's not as much of a big deal as some may think. We all know those methods don't work on every server.

But... no, I'm not against Boubouille! Good for him if he did it just to be a "good" website admin to his users.

Although I'm not against Boub, I'm far from concerned with it. Since I'm pretty sure the herb markets may dry (even if just for a few days) when the Inscription Guide is released, I actually took a look at my bank and found hundreds of inks. So, markets drying mean less supply of inks. Brainless MMO-C readers (there should be a lot of them who will go buy stuff right away) will just find inks for sale and buy them even for insane prices, which means lots of profits for me. A few weeks later, the dust will settle anyway, because I don't believe many people will actually like to use their (limited) precious playing time just to mill herbs and post glyphs, and I'll be back to my regular routine. Am I being to confident? Perhaps, but I've learnt that underestimating the brainless WoW masses is always the way to go. They always follow another person's way of thinking, and think they've found the golden eggs for life.

I'm now officially an orc, which means that the Auction House in Orgrimmar in my new home.

My new guild is Left Hand Path (Thunderhorn EU), and I will be raiding better content now , like full Ulduar 25, ToC 10/25, and that includes Heroic Modes.

Bear with me on this journey which is about to start. I will start making money on a new faction, so it's a new challenge. I hope these markets are as juicy as the ones on the Alliance :)

You may be wondering if I brought items with me for selling on the Horde. Well, only some cats from the Cat Lady near SW, and Moths from Exodar. The rest will be up to my JC and Inscription. Might have not been very wise choices, but hey, I don't need more stuff to make money.

Blog wise, from now on, it will all be written from a Horde point of view.

And last but not least, there will be a new logo with a new face on it (with more green ^^).

There are lots of opportunities that show up throughout life. Some are like doors, which you choose to leave open or not; some are like trains, meaning you only have one chance to catch it. There's always a time when you have to look at a situation and choose your path. This may be either a good or bad decision, but it's not just about luck. There are ways of knowing which option is more likely to be a good one, and that possibility is often inside us. All we need to reveal it is some sort of a motivation, something that acts as a fuel to our brains (which tend to be lazy, thus the need to wake them up with this motivation).

Take the professions in WoW as an example. You obviously have no way to know what Blizzard will implement, but you can know what's the potential of each profession in the present. If you're well-informed about them, you'll know you can make higher profits by combining a few professions than with just one of them. If you're in a "frozen" state, unsure if you should or should not take Inscription, Jewelcrafting, or whatever, don't hesitate in taking them. Cataclysm is for sure a year away. Isn't a year more than enough to take as much as you can from a profession? You'll make plenty of gold until then, and if you regret of it by the time the expansion comes, you can always walk back, and choose another door. It's not a train. Changing professions is just a click away.

Now, let's take the example of Titanium Ore pre-3.2. It was a train. You either took all your luggage in it, spending loads on Titanium, expecting a trip to Wonderland (which is what happened), or you were too scared to go on a train trip, didn't get on it, and you'll never be able to get on it again. Deep inside, you knew there was potential on Titanium, but you were afraid to take the risk. That's where luck comes in. Luck to have the right hunch at the right time. Some time before 3.2 I went "Hey, what the heck! I can still prospect it all if it doesn't pull off as I want!" and bought a lot of Titanium. I had that hunch and was lucky for it to work nicely. The fuel to my brains was a plan B (it's always good to have one). You can't really know beforehand if all this betting pays off, but you can do your best to minimise damage to you if it doesn't go as you expect.

With these examples, I want to tell you that there are opportunities you should evaluate as either a door or a train in this game. If it's a door, you can go back and forth if you want. If it's a train, you must decide if you want to take the risk, but remember it's not just about luck. You can have something to say on it.

I never had a slice of bread,
Particularly large and wide,
That did not fall upon the floor,
And always on the buttered side.

You must be wondering if I've gone insane, because this verse doesn't seem to be related to WoW. But if you think of it, Murphy's Law does apply in this game. How? Just think of all those days when your guild just can't down a boss because of a bug. Or because of disconnects. Or because of any other possible reason. If any of these happens on any of the raids I attend, I just say to myself "Anything that can go wrong, will you go wrong". It doesn't change anything, but it does de-frustrate me a bit. Why? Because that's just the way it is, even in real life. Those days when you mustn't be late for something are the days you're most likely to be late. You're focusing so much on the "I must not be late" idea that you neglect the whole process required to not be late, and there you go, Murphy's Law applies.

Think of this as a way to ease your frustrations. If it can go wrong, it will, and there's often nothing we can do about it. You can't expect that things always go right. It will (more often that you probably expect) go wrong, sooner or later.

So, what was the general reaction to the new Cataclysm features? Myself, I love Worgens, thought Goblins weren't right for the Horde at first, but changed my mind, etc. But overall, I got this feeling of "I must play it!". Lots of people say they will come back to WoW when Cataclysm arrives, and of course, they share the same feeling as me. So, why do we get so excited with new features which are still far away, and not as much by stuff like the Crusader's Coliseum, or Icecrown Citadel?

Do we unconsciously have a need for "fresh starts", even though, it's not really a fresh start, but you get "fresh" raids and other content that make you feel like starting gathering stuff again, like new gear tiers, etc?
Perhaps, and that's all we need to keep paying for this game. People whine a lot about this new expansion, but they will play it for sure, like they did with BC and WotLK, because they're addicts...well, in a certain way, we all are!

I found this video that kind of represents a lot of people's reactions, parody style:

"Once an addict, always an addict" :)

Now that I've found out that my own competitors read my blog, I started thinking. Will they use it against me? You see, they can know nearly everything I'm doing just by alt-tabbing out, and checking Too Greedy, and perhaps that's something I don't want? Bah, I'll live through it. I won't stop making gold, and it may aswell work the way around, and maybe I'll hint someone to do something that I want? (Oh, ethics!)

Hey, I'm all okay with making new friends, but business is business, and I'm not acting friendly to someone who's actually using my info against me. On the other hand, if you're willing to have a nice discussion, just message me on one of my characters (Blackwolf, Tugamage, or Verde), and I'll surely reply.

So, competitors: read my blog, do it. It's something that doesn't bother me, and it's certainly something interesting to see, specially if you comment posts and behave nicely here. There's no need to become enemies :)

When I say I'm greedy, I don't mean obsessively greedy. I mean that I find it hard to spend money on stuff that is either only visual (mounts, for instance), or will eventually get replaced in short term. What I am obsessed about, so to speak, is being the best (I have already mentioned it before).

So, am I really too greedy? Sometimes, yes. I didn't sell a lot of my stockpiled Titanium for 3.2, because I wanted gems for myself, and still got a lot of money out of the bulk I sold. Of course I would have made a lot of more if I had sold all stacks, but I didn't want to. I resisted being momentarily greedy, and actually thought about the near future. I didn't want to be sorry for not having proper gem recipes. I rather make less money from auctions, and do more effective healing in raids. If I had sold all my Titanium, I would still have to buy stuff from the AH to improve myself, so glad I didn't do it.

I look at it like this: being greedy is good sometimes, because you'll probably never be a successful business person if you aren't, but not resisting some of those sudden desires of quick money is not rational. Always trying to predict what will happen in the long run is a good thing, and gaining something today which you will spend tomorrow, is definitely what I called being obsessively greedy, or let's say it, "being too greedy". After all, you'll just end up the same way, but will waste more time.

So, to be or not to be (too) greedy?
"Be greedy, but don't let greediness control you" is my answer.

Just like in real life, people should have pride in what they do. When we do something, we should focus on doing it right, and not do it just because we have to. Doing your job without even caring for it just shows how much of a "slacker" you are. If you don't care about doing your best, and everything you only care about is your pay check, you obviously think the same way when you're playing World of Warcraft.

If you're a raider, you must do your best, both before, during, and after raids.

Before the raids, you should make sure your gear is enchanted with the best available enchants for your role, you should be properly gemmed, you should have potions, flasks, elixirs, buff-food, and every sort of consumables to maximise your presence there. Those few extra stats like AP, SP, MP5 (etc.) you will get may not sound like much, but if everyone in the raid has those extra stats, you'll most likely progress easier.
During raids, you should pay attention during the encounters, you should know your spell rotations (which must be studied deeply before the raids, obviously), and you mustn't stand in the fire. Knowing tactics is a must.
After raids, you should enchant/gem any new gear you got, and also reflect on what happened during the raid. Did you do the best you could? Did others do the best they could? Any raid tracking tools are helpful for this. Numbers actually say a lot about someone.

I'm proud to be a good healer. I'm not cocky; I know my skills, and care a lot about my performances. When I compare myself to other healers, I often am on top of the effective heals (I never out heal a Priest, though), and got one of the lowest overhealing. When compared to other shamans, my Earth Shield often healed a lot more than others' (because I focus on ALWAYS keeping it up), I had more Critical heals (which also cause Ancestral Healing), and my Riptide ticked more often and for higher amounts (Riptide also causes Tidal Waves, which enhances both my HW and LHW. I choose which one to use according to the situation, of course). No special skills required really. To be good at it, I'm properly enchanted, gemmed and flasked, everytime. I'm always looking to learn more about my class, and there's always room for improving, either rotation or stats wise.

It's always about motivation; you don't need to be one of those obsessed gamers (who play 24/7) in order to show your skills as a player in WoW. However, you need to keep in mind that you can't achieve success on your own, so help others helping you (considering you're in a guild with good players), by doing it right. And does it feel good when you put out a hell of a performance!

Raiding without doing your best is irrational, because that means you're leeching skilled people, and not allowing them to progress, just because you expect easy purples. Why would you play this game after all then, if all you want is gear to show off to people you don't even know and don't care about?

We're a few weeks into 3.2 now, and my guild hasn't even cleared Ulduar 10 or 25 normal modes (we've downed 7 bosses on 25, and 10 bosses on 10 so far), but we've downed 2 bosses in Trial of the Crusader 10. My point is, are we far behind when compared to the majority of other guilds? According to WoW-Heroes, we're #47 on our server, when it comes to 25 man progress. On 10 mans, we're on #62. We're not hardcore raiders, but we do take raids seriously when we do them. Still, I have to admit some people on my guild may not have enough skills for it.

So, how many of you are actually more or less at the same place as me, with Ulduar half/three quarters cleared? What concerns me is that we're getting closer to 3.3, and I had the hope that I would have Ulduar on farm by the time it launched, and progress has been slow. On the other hand, we kept doing Naxxramas 25 after Ulduar came out, and it should happen again with Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel, so it might not be such a big deal.

Gevlon (at Greedy Goblin) explained why some "Guilds s(t)uck". He states that people are afraid to /gquit. Based on his "Skill > Gear" theory, it makes sense. People should find other players who are similarly skilled, if they want to achieve high goals. The thing is, and I'm speaking for myself, I have the skills, but I don't have the time to play on high-end guilds, who are clearing Hard Modes. They usually require a minimum attendance, often for far more than 3 hours a day, which I can't deliver. Not everyone has the money nor the time to even buy places in "better" guilds (even though I could use my money for it). The so called "casuals" can clear hard modes if they have the skills, but there aren't many guilds where you can find skilled casuals at all. So, what options does such a player have? He can: join an "average" raiding guild, which progresses slowly, and doesn't demand an every day attendance, or he can...? Stop playing MMOs?

Anyway, all I want is to have seen everything in all raids before Cataclysm. I'll be happy if I'm able to clear Icecrown in normal modes. Clearing hard modes would be amazing, but perhaps a player like me isn't suited to do it...? I still get to see content like people in "better" guilds, the difference is that their activities require better gear, and a RL possibility I currently don't have.

I found the reason why zombies are always hungry for brains...and why that hunger is never gone. It's because there are a lot of brainless beings in this game (and I don't mean all the brainless creatures, like basilisks and raptors that never drop their brain for that damn quest).

The amount of stupidity is amazingly annoying. It's incredible how some people behave. Fortunately us auctioneers can take advantage of part of their ignorance, but that's not what I'm talking about right now.
Lack of brains tends to guide the (close-to-)no-brain to a few already existing stereotypes. Those are: Death Knights with names that contain any variation of "Dk", "Death" and "Knight"... -- Night Elves named after the LotR character Legolas (Légolas, Lègolas, Lególas, Legòlas, Légólas...I could go on all day) -- People in guilds like «grate nation of spartans», yes written exactly that way.
Surprisingly (or not), every single person that I've ever met and that matches these stereotypes are either slackers, annoying or a combination of both.

On the "other side" of this issue, the game is getting easier (so says the majority, I believe). But the brainless aren't getting better; in fact, they may be even worse. I totally resignate to the fact that this kind of people exist, because I'm used to interacting with similar beings in the real world too; they're unavoidable. If they're hopeless beings, why ease the game? Or is it not aimed at people like this?

Now, to specific situations.

Beggers. I'm willing to say 0,1% of beggers have a tiny piece of brain, and that's because I once found one that wasn't totally hopeless. I taught him that meat and bird eggs from places where he could quest were very valuable at the AH and he actually took my advice and thanked me a few days later. Other than that case, they surely can't think by themselves, and actually may live in a world (imaginary one) where people actually care for each other.

Slackers. They are too lazy to play properly. They may have the skills in them, but it's just not worth it, because other people do their work for them, so why bother? Generally, they are also permanently skint, and probably fit in the first category on their alts.

They always say they "cannot" do something by themselves. I always tell them "try harder, quitting makes you a loser". And being a loser in a place where you start your 'journey' just like everyone, and have the same opportunities as everyone, is only due to YOUR behaviour. Do something for a living, just like you would in real life!

That's right, I digged all this begger and slacker people arguments just to say that we all have the same possibilities in this game, and if you can't do as much as other player, you're definitely not using your brain, therefore you're on your way to being brainless. Try harder (read, better), and you'll reach the goals you want. You can achieve anything in this game, if you put the due effort to it. This applies to everything; raiding, PvP, auctioneering. You will obviously never make it if you don't try. Play intelligently, and actually do something for yourself instead of being part of the group I mentioned above.

Stats simplification
What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.

If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right. (Source)

How exactly will choosing stats be hard in Cataclysm? If we analyze the new stat system (based on the information so far), we have:

MP5 removed, Spirit will be the regen stat for everyone.

Spell Power removed, Intellect will raise your damage/healing.

Attack Power removed. Leather/Mail armour will give Attack Power through Agility and Plate will give Attack Power through Strength.

Defense removed. Tanks will get it through talents, so they don't have to get 'capped' through gear.

Armor Penetration removed. It seems it's too ~~hard~~ "mathy".

Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed.

Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.

With this, we have 5 main stats: Spirit, Intellect, Stamina, Strenght and Haste.

Can we think about this in a non-easy mode way, by any chance...? I mean, Warrior and Death Knight tanks will stack Stamina and Strength (and DKs will also stack Haste because of the quickest rune gaining); Paladin tanks will stack Stamina and Strenght (and Intellect? Not sure as I'm not into Pally tanks); Druid tanks will stack Stamina and Agility. Healers will stack Intellect, Spirit and Haste (considering Haste will stay the same for healers). As for DPS:
Rogues - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Hunters - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Mage - Intellect/Spirit(?)
...You see where I'm getting.

Am I missing something here, or is Blizzard intending to make those fewer stats much more complex than what was shown?

Note, I'm not whining on this post, I'm just looking at information and trying to understand it, based on what everyone knows so far. The ultimate difference between two players isn't their stats; it's skill. And Blizzard will never be able to change that. :)

Other than gear itself, the stat changes will also cause severe gem changes (and, therefore, Jewelcrafting changes). There's still not much to speculate on at the moment, because there was (close to) no information on this; we have to wait a bit longer.

Markco at Just My Two Copper made a good point 2 days ago, regarding these changes. He said that "Gems will either be destroyed or changed in some way".

I believe this change won't happen like the prismatic to coloured Dragon's Eye change, mainly because they wouldn't be able to change AP gems into Agility/Strength according to the player's will. These changes imply something bigger, something like destroying the gems themselves (removing them from the game), which means a demand boom for gems.

I'm 100% sure JC won't be negatively affected by these changes, and I'm confident that everyone will have to re-gem, meaning thousands of profit (some might be saying "Dream on!", but hey I'm a dreamer ^^). So, considering the information already given remains unchanged (ah, the usual gamble), it should be wise to start gathering Agility, Strength, Haste, Spirit and Intellect gems for that tiny little space in your bank tab named "For the not-so-far away future".

If you're too greedy to stockpile just yet, just wait for the Beta! ;) I'm making decent amounts of money from Jewelcrafting at the moment anyway! But hey, putting some gems "to the side" can't hurt, can it?

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