InksEnd

Zahraah at Pugnacious Priest asks,

“Do you need an ego to tank? Should I roll a ‘tank’ and see?”

Lao Tzu is credited with the following quote -

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

I love that quote and its variations and forgive its author for a 600BC gender bias.

To have or not have an ego isn’t an option. By classical definition, our sense of self is our ego. However, if I read the question as “Do I need an inflated ego to tank?” I can have some fun. Now our answer revolves around whether an inflated ‘sense of self’ manifested (occasionally?) as arrogance helps a successful tank. I’d say at times “yes” but in the long run absolutely not.

However, what we’re talking about here isn’t exclusively about tanking. It’s leadership. As a tank, the [simplified] job is to make sure everybody wants to smack you around more than they do your generally more squishy compatriots. Do that and stay alive and you get the cookie. I think that’s trainable through research (EJ) and class mentoring.

Leadership is much more complex and not the exclusive domain of tanks. I’ve seen some great dungeon/raid leaders that were confident, patient, knowledgeable and most importantly aware of the need to work as a team to be successful. I’ve also seen plenty of groups with poor or no leadership. In my experience, that leadership role seems to more commonly fall on tanks, but I have seen great leaders in the DPS and heals spots too.

So what about this ego issue? Here’s it in a nutshell: Leaders see the success of the group as part of the value they add. If you’re a tank and find yourself as the defacto leader AND you accept that responsibility then confidence (in the form of appropriate self esteem / healthy ego) balanced with humility (it’s not the “Mr. Tank and scrubs” show) can get even a mediocre group through difficult content. That’s not an inflated ego.

On the other hand, tanks relied upon to lead that don’t accept or understand the role can easily become arrogant (“oh it’s all up to me”), hostile (“what the hell are you thinking with that gem?”), and or just disengaged (“pulling w/o watching mana levels or group proximity”). They might be proficient tanks, but lousy leaders.

Personally, I don’t know if I’m good at either. I’ve been druid tanking for about two months as I moved from 75-80. I’ve tanked most of the Northrend 5-mans but no raids. Some people have been very complimentary of my ‘tanking skills’ and others have offered good suggestions about gear/gems/etc. I have occasionally pulled a boss too early and to my amazement, I’ve pulled before my healer is ready. I heal as Resto too and have an 80 holy priest I’ve healed on for over a year /facepalm.

I start most instances with an honest statement about how many times I’ve tanked it (either reg or heroic). Most people seem to respond very well after that. In my approach, I’ve also had to step up my game and read more about bosses and fight strategies. I also feel I need to understand what all classes bring to fights and how to best use them. Many of those skills I learned as a healer, e.g. raid wide resistances make healing so much easier.

Does any of that make me an effective leader? Only time will tell, but I suspect that the better I get at bringing out the best in the rest of the group the closer I’ll get.

Interesting commentary at Wired on virtual killing [and death].

– you watch as your corpse goes pinwheeling
gracefully through the air, arms and legs flailing in the grip of
rag-doll physics.

Clive Thompson recounts the ways he’s died in video games and a new paper on emotions of gamers by Niklas Ravaja. It appears we actually enjoy getting fragged. Or as Shakespeare writes in Othello:

If after every tempest come such calms,May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!

Ok, so it draws a little power even when turned off. Big deal. At least it’s efficient, right? The team at DXGaming put consoles to the power test to determine how much juice they suck out of the wall and your wallet while turned off, sitting idle and playing games.

The results – You guessed it, the Xbox 360 draws the most power of any current console devouring 17.52 kWh (annual) while turned off, 145W while sitting idle, and 165W after playing 5 minutes of Burnout Revenge.

• Cheapest to run for a year – the venerable Playstation 1 at $0.90
• Most expensive to run for a year – Xbox 360 at $19.88

The good news is that while it’s the hungriest electron attractor in the bunch, it’s also the most efficient in terms of CPU cycles/Watt. No measurements exist for the upcoming PS3 and Wii, but DXGaming estimates they’ll book-end the 360. Until then all I can say is, “Put me on the budget plan with the power company. While you’re at it, turn the ‘fridge down a notch. That last Jolt was too warm.”

In the never-ending saga of Xbox 360 hardware maintenance agreements, I recently received three refund checks for the one extra maintenance agreement they accidentally charged to my credit card. The backstory can be found here, but I’ll just say “wanted ONE, got TWO due to their double entry” and it’s been almost half a year since I spotted the problem.

I called the team at Xbox support to inform them:

• I have received three checks
• I will cash one and shred the other two
• I still want the first contract I purchased

..and I was told:

• Hey, you might get full coverage until 2010, we don’t really know. [shh] don’t say anything
• That department’s kind of weird to work with (you think!?)
• Call back in a month to find out if you still have a service contract (great, this will never end!)

I have such high hopes for Microsoft’s in this business, but occasionally you see a sign they still have work to do handling hardware. Sometimes that sign haunts you like the paperboy in Better off Dead. Wait, I think in this case I’m the paperboy and Microsoft is John Cusack. At least in this case, “I got my two dollars.”

In recent years the big three console makers are pretty consistent in their pricing strategies with Playstation 2 taking an early lead and launching at $299, Xbox (original) following at the same price a year later, and Nintendo GC coming in as the value player. Price drops seem to occur during the first half of the year around the time of E3.

In the last generation of consoles, the PS2 launched at a higher price point than the SEGA Dreamcast the year before but brought superiour technology to the table and got away with it. SEGA found themselves shown the door quickly and exited the business. At the time everyone was fighting the 900 lb gorilla known as Nintendo.
Since then, Microsoft followed Sony’s PS2 price with [slightly] better technology in 2001. Each price drop for either MS or Sony has been matched by the other while Nintendo stays below them both in the value category (possibly due to the GC being ONLY a game platform and not playing DVDs).