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Why do so many (casual) players whinge about raid content they claim they'll never see? Lets take a look at WoW's raids with active lockouts:
Molten Core/Onyxia : Still in the game
Zul'gurub: Still in the game.
Blackwing Lair: Still in the game
AQ20: Still in the game
AQ40: Still in the game
40 Man Naxxramas: No longer in the game in this format.
Karazhan: Still in the game
Gruuls's Lair: Still in the game
Magtheridon's Lair: Still in the game
SSC/TK: Still in the game. No longer need attunements.
Mount Hyjal/Black Temple: Still in the game. No longer need attunements.
Zul'Aman: Still in the game. The Amani war bear had been removed from the loot table of the 4th chest.
Sunwell Plateau: Still in the game
World bosses: Azuregos, Lord Kazzak was moved to outlands as Doom Lord Kazzak, Ysondre/Lethon/Emeriss/Taerer and Doomwalker are still in the game. Only Kazzak was removed from the Blasted Lands and re-tuned for lvl 70's and placed in outlands.
So why are people complaining about content that "they will never see". You never saw Black Temple at lvl 70? Fine, go get a group and go back and clear it. Theres nothing stopping you.
The only content that has been removed from the game is lvl 60 Naxx which was re-done as 10/25 man Naxxramas.
Comments
I do not play wow. I have not been on any raids obviously.
Casual gamers ,like myself, cant do raids for a number of reasons. One is they cannot adhere to a gaming schedule. Meaning, they cannot be at their PC for 5 pm tuesday. They have a job, wife, kids, friends, social obligations etc.
They are frequent afkers His wife might call him away from the keyboard every 20 minutes. Their kids might cry. Their dog might of just pissed on the sofa. They cannot commit to being at the keyboard at that crucial raid moment.
Simply, they just dont have the time. Maybe they cant play for an hour or two or 3.
I do not think the most uber content should only be raid attainable for these reasons and more. I pay money. I dont say dont raid. I might even keep my sub as long as a raider because it takes me longer to hit max level. Why not give me the best loots too and make the raid more about badass content. In other words make the gear equal, regardless if its top tier crafted or top tier quested.
Funny, I've raided with people with kids, jobs, mortgages, social lives. Some even played sport. Its rubbish that all these "casual" players have such rock'n'roll lifestyles they cant attend a raid for a couple hours. Do you know what most adults do when they get home from work? They sit down on the sofa like slobs and watch television. Dont believe me? Go and look at the research yourself.
And only the super hardcore guilds raid on Fridays and Saturdays or even sundays.
And middle of the range guilds usually raid 3-4 nights a week and a 75% raid attendance is still satisfactory. Sorry, your life just isn't that interesting that you can't afford 3 nights a week of 3 hours to raid. Thats a total of 9 hours.
Whats his wife calling this guy away from the keyboard for? To listen to some idiot sing on American Idol? Dog peeing on the rug? Dont be a fat slob and walk the dog beforehand. The problem, and this applies to EVERYTHING, is that most people are un-organised, and well, basically useless.
Thousands of people can go to training for a sport 2 nights then play on the weekend. They dont tell the coach that their life is sooooooooooo full of exciting stuff they can't attend training. Or that training should be moved to suit them and their jet set lifestyle.
"sorry coach, I was hanging out with the kids AND MICK JAGGER and I couldn't come to the match on saturday".
And thats WoW today. Dumbed down for the American Idol, reality television watching, brainless "gimme gimme gimme" genertaion. And thats fine. But spare me the "my life is so brilliant I can only play WoW for 5 nanoseconds a month". 99% of people, myself included, lead tedious and boring lives.
Funny, I've raided with people with kids, jobs, mortgages, social lives. Some even played sport. Its rubbish that all these "casual" players have such rock'n'roll lifestyles they cant attend a raid for a couple hours. Do you know what most adults do when they get home from work? They sit down on the sofa like slobs and watch television. Dont believe me? Go and look at the research yourself.
And only the super hardcore guilds raid on Fridays and Saturdays or even sundays.
And middle of the range guilds usually raid 3-4 nights a week and a 75% raid attendance is still satisfactory. Sorry, your life just isn't that interesting that you can't afford 3 nights a week of 3 hours to raid. Thats a total of 9 hours.
Whats his wife calling this guy away from the keyboard for? To listen to some idiot sing on American Idol? Dog peeing on the rug? Dont be a fat slob and walk the dog beforehand. The problem, and this applies to EVERYTHING, is that most people are un-organised, and well, basically useless.
Thousands of people can go to training for a sport 2 nights then play on the weekend. They dont tell the coach that their life is sooooooooooo full of exciting stuff they can't attend training. Or that training should be moved to suit them and their jet set lifestyle.
"sorry coach, I was hanging out with the kids AND MICK JAGGER and I couldn't come to the match on saturday".
And thats WoW today. Dumbed down for the American Idol, reality television watching, brainless "gimme gimme gimme" genertaion. And thats fine. But spare me the "my life is so brilliant I can only play WoW for 5 nanoseconds a month". 99% of people, myself included, lead tedious and boring lives.
Some people put their real life before a game. If they were to raid, they'd be yelled at if they had constant afk's, because of life aggro. People have different priorities in life. They may just have a few minutes to set down and play a game and relax.
The part in red I disagree with. The hardcore guilds raid 3-4 times a week, sometimes more. My husband is in one of these "Hardcore" guilds. His guild's schedule is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. They also do 10 man's one night a week. I allow him to raid two nights a week, his pick of which night. They don't like to raid on Friday and Saturday because the lag in the instance is often bad on those days. Many of the other "hardcore" guilds echo this sentiment, at least, on his server, Gorefiend.
Wow! Spoken by someone who's probably not married, probably doesn't have kids, and doesn't understand how priorities and responsibilities change as you progress through your 20s and into your 30s and later.
I don't think the person who responded to your original post deserved your nasty, smarmy, and incredibly naive response. He merely stated his opinion and you responded to him in the same way a 6 year-old responds when another child calls him "smelly." I don't think that Dinurium ever claimed that he had a "rock'n'roll lifestyle" or that his life was "brilliant." He (I'm assuming Dinurium is a "he") clearly has responsibilities that you have no clue about. You simply jumped to incredible conclusions about this guy based on NOTHING. That speaks volumes about your character I'm afraid.
You met people who can juggle some of their RL responsibilities with WoW? Well good for you and for them. However, many casual gamers can't. Accepting that fact and being tolerant of other peoples' opinions will make you a happier person
Anheuser
Wow is about the most casual friendly raid game on the market. There is always a guild to fit your playstyle and there are plenty of raids that have people afk all the time. Trash is easy and bosses take no more than a few minutes.
If the person responding about not being able to raid for so many various interuptions, why would that somehow change in any group based activity they do? In the end all they are saying is that they cannot commit a few hours a week (split into 5-10 minute chunks) to the team based aspect of a multiplayer game and they want access to the same rewards.
I'm sorry but that just doesn't make sense. Solo content is cake walk compared to anything team based. The moment solo play is given the same rewards is the moment people stop grouping and simply solo for raid level gear. They just are not seeing the big picture, because they are focusing on the rewards they feel are denied to them.
Solo content would either be so much easier/faster than raid content people would simply stop raiding in favor of getting gear from the easy route. The only other real option is to make it incredibly long which is just going to put it out of reach of the casual player who it is aimed at in the first place.
There are plenty of casual guilds with flexable formats and don't mind frequent afks. A little effort will find a guild that suits your playstyle or maybe you can start one yourself if there are so many casuals around that you feel a gamewide change is needed. Band together and raid a bit.
If your dog pees on the sofa so much that you can't dedicate 5-10 minutes for an encounter then maybe single player games with a pause feature would be a better fit.
Wow! Spoken by someone who's probably not married, probably doesn't have kids, and doesn't understand how priorities and responsibilities change as you progress through your 20s and into your 30s and later.
I don't think the person who responded to your original post deserved your nasty, smarmy, and incredibly naive response. He merely stated his opinion and you responded to him in the same way a 6 year-old responds when another child calls him "smelly." I don't think that Dinurium ever claimed that he had a "rock'n'roll lifestyle" or that his life was "brilliant." He (I'm assuming Dinurium is a "he") clearly has responsibilities that you have no clue about. You simply jumped to incredible conclusions about this guy based on NOTHING. That speaks volumes about your character I'm afraid.
You met people who can juggle some of their RL responsibilities with WoW? Well good for you and for them. However, many casual gamers can't. Accepting that fact and being tolerant of other peoples' opinions will make you a happier person
Anheuser
Amen. Kids are funny this way, sometimes they can play unattended for 5 hours straight, but sometimes they cling to you stronger that glue. You just can't predict your hours with family. Hence raiding is usually out of question.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
You have to remember that you are looking at things from YOUR perspective and, in that light, you seem to be having trouble understanding how others play. You find it 'rubbish' that there are people that can't attend a raid for a couple hours.
There are people that think it's insane to schedule 3-hour blocks of time for playing a video game, especially when that 3-hour block is on someone else's schedule. Now, heaven forbid that casual gamer is a hunter/ranger/archer/etc... he very well may not be playing an acceptable class for raiding.
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I, personally, find this ridiculous. You're suggesting here that a casual gamer is one that raids 3-4 times a week, for 3 hours each night. Wtf? That is far from casual in my book. I'm not a casual gamer; when I play a game, I become helplessly addicted, usually. 3 nights a week is half of the week. You're basically saying that someone who plays casually should spend 3 hours a night, every other night, raiding with a guild. That's not casual by any stretch of the imagination. If you have responsibilities, you can't afford to give up half of your nights to a game, to meet someone else's schedule. If the time of the raids happens to be later at night, like say 9 o'clock, when maybe the kids are asleep and you have a few hours to yourself, then I can see that as a possibility. For guilds that raid earlier rather than later, that is out of the question.
I think the problem here is that a lot of gamers these days have come into the genre starting off with WoW. They think MMOs are all about raiding. In older MMOs and some of the better ones, there's plenty to do. A casual gamer could come on and craft, or grind a little or just sit in town talking to friends. Then, when they had time, they could go on large hunts for several hours - usually unscheduled. That, to me, is a casual gamer. Someone who decides to dedicate half of their weeknights to raiding is more of an addict or, at the very least, a hardcore gamer.
Also, casual gamers don't only consist of those with little time to spare for a game. It's not as though they would play if only they always had the time. Sometimes you just don't want to play or you do. I've had games that I've played casually which meant I got on when I felt like it, not just when time permitted.
Ah youth, it must be nice thinking that 3 hours a night 3 nights a week isn't a big issue. Guess there was a time that I was playing that much. I could play that much now but there are better things I could be doing with my very limited time.
Old content doesn't get used much. Thats the life of a mmorpg - huge chunks of content never touched. Yes, a single group could go back and clear an old raid zone. But its just not the same. It doesn't play the same when the challenge is removed.
Someone said earlier that many casual players do not have the option of juggling family issues to participate in raids and I say many casual players DO juggle these issues every week and can raid. So the answer to all those who can't is simple: DO NOT RAID. I mean no where in the ULA was it a guarantee that if you paid your 14.95 you would see raid content. There is plenty to do without even stepping in a raid instance. And more than enough to keep those with busy lifestyles occupied.
I think the problem comes from what someone briefly touched on. Players that USE to have the time to raid now find themselves in different situations that will not allow the freedom they once had 4 years ago to obtain that level performance they once had. Guess what? Tough. I'm a father of 2 girls, husband, full time job and still manage to find at least 2 hours to participate in my guilds raids (Thursday-Sunday), not all of them, but I do raid enough to get pretty decent gear (Rhomeo-Mannaroth). But now I'm wanting to spend a little more time outside sprucing up my yard this spring/summer so my raid time will drop. Does this mean everyone else should stop raiding until I get back or Blizzard should change something to cater to my situation in life? Nope.
Everyone has different lifestyles that hinder or allow them to enjoy many different aspects of WoW. This is a fact. Saying that many casual players do or do not have time to enjoy raiding in WoW is an opinion. That's why it's always followed up by someone making the argument: "That may be true but........."
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Doing raid content at the designed level is totally different then doing it at a high level and blowing through it.
It's not the same thing and for you to actually consider it the same thing makes you clueless.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
I think its hilarious all these people with kids and wives or husbands are complaining about not being able to raid on WoW.
I have friends in FFXI an entire family that plays together, their kid is 24, they're both in their 50's one is a nurse.
FFXI is a LOT more demanding when it comes to amount of time it takes to set up a raid or party. Yet they manage it with very busy schedules.
They even play with their son, imagine that family activies!!!
Never played with a more fun group of folks than this family of gamers.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
No where did I imply raids shouldnt be available to people that can make time for them. I just said that some people cant schedule the time to raid. No one is better than the other. Im not better than someone that can play 12 hours a day.
My ole lady thinks video games are for nerds. IM not gonna stop what Im doing in RL for a video game. i would rather spend time with her. Im lucky to have someone. Im no better than someone that does plan his day around video games. What do I care what you do with your time.
I merely gave a few examples as to why some people cant find the time for raids. Sorry if I kicked your chicken.
I still think that crafted gear should be comparable to raid gear. Raids should be more about extremely fun content, in my opinion, and less about gear checks and loot givers. I understand of course that raids will always be about gear checks and phat loots. I dont say take away raids. Make more raids.. what do I care?
You guys are right of course, I just cant prioritze my life correctly. Its been the bane of my existance. I shall strive to meet such strict demands.
My guild had Nefarian on farm and I had his main hand and offhand drops. That makes be better than all of you who never saw him or the instance. /flex
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
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Best post in thread.
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I noticed no one responded that I have known people with family, jobs, very active social lives, sporting committments and managed to raid to a schedule?
Why can they do it and you can't? Thats a rhetorical question actually. Since I know the answer. They were motivated and organised people who like to think for themselves and decide how they wantd to live their lives rather than the suburbanite slobs that make up the mindless drones that we call the masses.
And again no one has told me what is so fascinating and brilliant about their lives that they can't committ to a very lenient raid schedule. Dont like schedules? If you play in a band you have a schedule to rehearse and play gigs. If you play a sport you have schedules to train and play matches. If you are in a community theatre group you have schedules to rehearse and then do shows. Everything we do in life is based around schedules? Want to see a movie? Check the times it is showing. Want to watch a TV show(legally)? Look at the TV Guide and make sure you are ready at a certain time. I can go on and on and on.
Spare me this "my live is soooooooooo fascinating and action packed that I dont time" nonsense. You sit down after work, like the millions of non-mmorpg playing people, in front of the television and watch slop like "country" Idol or So You Think You Can Dance or whatever brainless drivel commercial TV has to offer. Why is it documentaries about important issues get watched by a fraction of the amount of people who watch reality TV?
Spare me the cliches, banalities and claims that you hang out with Bono and save the world and that you have 15 kids that need 24/7 attention. Or that you're a CEO in a top 500 company. Just admit you like WoW dumbed dumb because you are lazy, incompetent and you dont like anything that is challenging or requires any effort. Look at movies, music, TV and popular selling books. All are simple to understand, do not challenge you intellectually or make you think. WoW is the same.
I dont blame Blizzard. They're a company out to make the maximum profit they can. They're just giving the people what they want. So many mmo's in the early days never got as big as WoW because the developers made games they wanted to play, not games people wanted to play.
I like ridiculing the masses as much as the next guy, probably more, but in this case they have a point. When a game has PvP, soloable PvE, small group PvE, and raid level PvE, that means that it is serving at least four different markets. Is there overlap between those markets? Sure, but the vast majority aren't going to be dedicated members of all four. Maybe three, probably two in most cases, and in a fair number just one. The tactic WoW has taken is to say that *only* the raid market deserves to have really high quality gear. Just because a player doesn't raid doesn't make him lazy, it may just mean he doesn't like raids. Why should he get the leftover crap equipment, while some other player who happens to only like raids gets great equipment? We enjoy what we enjoy, if a game is going to support a play style, it shouldn't treat that playstyle as a red-headed step child in terms of the available rewards. It would be fair to argue that it is the *developers* who are being lazy, in that they don't want to put in the time and effort to find an appropriate way to balance loot that doesn't punish people for not liking raids.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
non raid gear is not crap and in fact is pretty good gear, especially for the effort required to get it.
You can solo in several varieties of pvp and get gear that is on par with raid grear. Not only that, but you can continue that same aspect of play with better gear and the difficulty never goes up, but the rewards do each "season". Yes it is on par with raid gear.
You can run heroic dungeons for badges and get fantastic gear, which you are calling "crap left overs". You can get raid level gear without doing half the difficulty of raiding. Also if blizzard holds true to their previous expansion that gear will get upgraded every with every new raid tier dungeon for the exact same level of difficulty to run the same heroic dungeons.
Face it, raiding is harder than solo pve play. Right now developers lack a meaningful way to make solo/small group gameplay as difficult as raiding, so the rewards are better for raiding. Removing those rewards and placing them easier content would just eliminate raiding as a playstyle, because currently is impossible to make solo content that would reward ultra casuals and not be drastically easier than raiding.
You may not realize this, but what you are asking is for one playstyle to die so that you can have those rewards. While I don't agree with the views you have about being denied something due to your choice to not participate in content the game offers, what you ask for is not only selfish in nature (intentional or not), but it causes more problems than it potentially solves.
Nothing is stopping casual players from banding together for an hour or two a night whenever they get a chance to run a 10 man raid. Even at that schedule it is possible to clear raid dungeons. It just takes a little more effort to do and is much harder than complaining about not getting treated equally.
In response to the Orignial Poster, there is a specific reason a great number of casuals say there's a good deal of "content [they will] never see." It's because they will never see it. It has nothing to do with someone saying they have a "rockstar" lifestyle. It has nothing to do with being poorly organized. It has everything to do with unpredictibility of life. There are, honestly, two examples that I can think of this that apply to both schools.
I don't raid. It's not that I don't want to. I find that I don't have the time. It's not because I'm running around with Bono or Bruce Springstean being a Rockstar. It's because I enjoy the time I get to spend with my wife. The way our schedules work out is I get home about two hours or so before her, so that's the time I have scheduled (yes, scheduled) to play MMORPGs. Unfortunately, no one raids at one or two in the afternoon. So I'm stuck out of raiding. Do I complain that I might not be ever able to access "phat lewts", sure. But honestly, who wouldn't. One of the major points of most MMORPGs is the progression (and yes, gear progression is a big part of that feeling of being successful). Would it be nice if I could buy some crafted gear that nice, sure! Am I getting onto forums nerd-raging about the "banality" of common television and insulting those that choose to schedule their lives around their families and not a video game? No. When push comes to shove, it's all a matter of different priorities. I choose to spend time with my wife and friends at night and play MMORPGs during the day. I know the bed I've made and choose to lay in it. Yes, it does "suck" that I'll never see a large number of raids, but trying to stick to a schedule (and nine hours out of my nights for the whole week is, in essence, giving up one half of my nights) is just too time consuming. Also, to someone's example about FFXI, playing with a 25 year old "child" and having an 8 year old living with you are two completely different things. The game completely changes when they're infants.
On the other hand, I have a good friend who raids religiously. I think he raids three or four nights out of the week! He married his wife about the same time I married mine, and lives in a similar situation as I do. He, on the other hand, chooses to schedule his MMORPG time at night so he can participate in his guild raids. Is there anything wrong with what he does? Of course not! Is going to have better gear that I do, of course. Is it THAT big of a deal, no!
I think that you'll find a great number of the casuals aren't as whiney as you seem to think they are. I'm sure there are some that are out there that complain constantly, but not all of us are like that. Trying to insult people who have different priorities than you is, well, childish and banal.
To repeat, I don't think anyone who said they can't raid has ever said it was because they have a "rock star" life. It's because they don't have the time. The reason (and I think anyone who thinks they don't have the time will agree) is because, not of their own schedule, but that of their family. They have different priorities and goals. Is one set of priorities better than another? Hell no.
I bet if you put some effort into networking with players around your playtime you could put together a raid for an hour or two for how ever many days a week you chose. There are plenty of people with wide open schedules, with alts, casual playtimes like yourself, etc that would most likely jump on the chance to raid in your time slot. I'm not talking about spamming trade channel for pug players, but put a post up on your guild forum or server forum. When you group with people in dungeons see if the would be interested and write their names down. There is almost always a pug raid after a wintergrasp victory that needs more people, etc. The opportunities are out there if people put in the effort.
An hour or two is plenty of time to raid and get the same rewards as anyone else. My casual 10 man raid already has a specific 1 hour raid night where we clear the first 3 encounters in ulduar. This lets us spend our 3 hour raid night just on progression with other encounters. It didn't take to long to get to the point of clearing naxx in one 3 hour night and I suspect ulduar will turn into the same thing in the coming months.
I think the real problem with the casual crowd that is upset that they "cannot" raid is that there is noone to do the organization and have something ready to jump right into. That is not meant as an insult. Facts of life are that some people are leaders and some are followers.
You gave me some information I didn't have. Thank you. The last time I spent any significant amount of time in WoW it *was* the case that, compared to raid loot, the non-raid loot was pretty much crap. I was unaware that steps had been taken to address the problem.
That being said, if, as you say, the removal of superior rewards would eliminate raiding as a playstyle, perhaps that means it *should* be eliminated. My original argument was based on the premise that people should not have to adopt a playstyle they don't enjoy in order to get the best rewards. If the only reason people raid is because they get the best rewards, not because they actually *enjoy* the raids, then we should get rid of the raids and move the rewards to the playstyles that people do enjoy on their own merits. If I am misreading your argument, and people do enjoy raids for the experience itself, then they shouldn't need better rewards in order to raid, they should only need the satisfaction of enjoying the experience. One thing a lot of people playing online games seem to forget is that they are games. If you are spending any significant amount of time doing things you don't enjoy in a game, it might be time to rethink your priorities.
I am beginning to wonder if "uber loot" is just another way that developers try to gloss over bad writing and failure to provide scenarios which are engaging on their own merits.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
there is one thing alot of people are forgetting. when u finally free up enough time to get the raid in, find a group (yes not everyone has a raiding guild), you get to the starting spot and guess what........."you're gear sucks. you cant raid with us".
ahh, the age old issue. u dont have raid gear so u cant raid. that issue happens to alot of people. im in a great guild that i personally know. but we dont have enough 80's yet to raid as a guild. and everyone who plays wow knows how difficult it is to get a pug for raids. if u dont have the uber gear score, they dont want you to raid.
That being said, if, as you say, the removal of superior rewards would eliminate raiding as a playstyle, perhaps that means it *should* be eliminated. My original argument was based on the premise that people should not have to adopt a playstyle they don't enjoy in order to get the best rewards. If the only reason people raid is because they get the best rewards, not because they actually *enjoy* the raids, then we should get rid of the raids and move the rewards to the playstyles that people do enjoy on their own merits. If I am misreading your argument, and people do enjoy raids for the experience itself, then they shouldn't need better rewards in order to raid, they should only need the satisfaction of enjoying the experience. One thing a lot of people playing online games seem to forget is that they are games. If you are spending any significant amount of time doing things you don't enjoy in a game, it might be time to rethink your priorities.
I don't even play WoW anymore and stopped when I got bored of raiding. The game is designed around obtaining new equipment through raids. MMORPG enforces groups and group efforts, particuallry guilds. Enjoyment is for single player. Better rewards to get people to go through content that will keep their sub until you finish more content = WoW Business model.
Sadly if you don't like that play style find another MMO or play something else.
Darkfall for now.
Quit bashing games YOU don't like! Including WoW, you know you liked it before you got burned out.
http://live.xbox.com/member/Njai
That's why they should create craftable gear that is like just enough to get in for certain content. I haven't played since the release of WOtLK so I dunno if that is currently what is going on, but that is why LOTRO is on my mind because, from what I have read, it eliminates this problem.
Darkfall for now.
Quit bashing games YOU don't like! Including WoW, you know you liked it before you got burned out.
http://live.xbox.com/member/Njai