Yesterday, one of my guild members linked me to a video (Nub Tales 5.2) which was quite a clever video about how the 30% ICC buff essentially hands people their achievements, loot and titles. It was amusing.
Unfortunately, the image of Madrana as a Kingslayer, which I posted on this very blog in the wee hours on March 29th, was included in the video as the epitome of someone who’s been freely handed their title. (Around the 37-second mark.)
“Kingslayer titles? We’re practically giving them away!” (free tities!)
And then there is my image of my paladin as a Kingslayer.
(Yes, it says free tities and not titles in the video.)
Apart from the fact that everything on this blog is my copyrighted material, making the inclusion of my image in the video without my permission ethically wrong, if not legally wrong, I don’t particularly mind the implication that I got handed my title. I know how hard I worked on that fight. I know how much effort I put in. What I do mind is the implication that the 24 other people, most of whom I don’t speak to any longer or even really ever liked (healers being an exception), did not work their asses off to get Arthas down. My then-guild’s name is obscured (I did the obscuring), though my tabard is still clearly visible and, initially, my character’s name was visible until the creator threw up an annotation to cover Madrana.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s a pretty unique name in WoW, so it’s pretty obvious that it’s me and it would be extremely obvious to anyone I’ve raided with that it’s me. With more than 60,000 views on the video, you perhaps begin to understand my annoyance.
So, for the record, so that anyone viewing it knows that my guild at the time was not just handed their titles…
We got him down with the 5% buff on Sunday, March 28th. Our kill was the 105th attempt on him, the result of 104 wipes over eight raid nights, spread out over four weeks. It took more than 20 hours of working on the fight. It took everyone’s efforts over that time to troubleshoot everything from healing to dealing with Soul Reaper to dealing with Harvest Soul, not to mention learning how to collape for Valks then running out of Defile or vice-versa.
The Lich King is a difficult fight when you’re learning it. It’s a difficult fight in terms of mechanics even with the ICC buff. The buff only helps to cover mistakes to do with healing and DPS output. It doesn’t move you out of Defile, it doesn’t help you interrupt the spirit in Frostmourne or cleanse Terenas. It doesn’t prevent you from falling off the edge or getting blown back by an orb. The coordination required for the Lich King fight is beyond anything else in this expansion, with the possible exception of heroic Sindragosa and definitely heroic Lich King.
After some discussion with the video’s creator, he’s agreed to link to this blog post from the video page on YouTube, rather than remove the image and re-render the video, which I initially requested. While my image was used without my permission in the creation of the video, I have granted permission for it to be used so long as a link to this post exists on the video page.
So welcome to those from YouTube. Thanks for stopping in and I hope you’ll stick around if you enjoy posts about WoW, particularly holy paladin stuff and healing. I appreciate you taking the time to read this post.
Wow, glad to see it worked out okay in the end. But boy, what a mess.
My wife only got LK down last week, after a grand total of 5 attempts. Granted, with the 25% buff and only on 10 man. But still. I don’t think she was handed her title “for free” at all. She worked hard to learn that fight (as she wasn’t familiar with it *at all* when they started their attempts).
Kudos to you, Kurn, for not giving in.
I’m pretty sure you’d have a tough time making any kind of copyright claims stick. That said however, I’m more surprised that Yumfries didn’t just grab a random Kingslayer shot in game. Or that he didn’t toss a credit line in the video – who knows. My guess though is that he just did a Google for an image. As a test I Googled “Kingslayer WoW” and searched for images. Your picture was the first one that popped up (that was a solo screenshot, not a group kill).
Regardless, glad you got part of it sorted.
I can see your point for sure – you did the content when it was still relatively unbuffed (nerfed?). The joke now is that Kingslayer is the new “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” achievment. It’s certainly not that easy, since one moron in Defile can ruin your night, and no addon can fix stupid :)
What a way to start your week eh?
Well, it’s good to see that you got that sorted out. I must say I was miffed that my comment got flagged as spam when it certainly was not spam, but that’s okay. You’re awesome.
Oh, and if people think they are getting their titles handed to them because of the increased buff, they are sorely mistaken. Like you said, if they don’t follow the mechanics of the fight, they aren’t getting anything.
:3
Kaboomski – It could have been way messier. Yumfries was prompt in addressing my concerns, so I appreciate that.
I think that the buff adds additional difficulty levels. I cleared most of ICC without a buff. But that doesn’t mean that what anyone does with the buff is not legitimate. It just means that instead of gaining buffs via gear upgrades, which could take months for everyone in a guild to get, they get a chance to progress.
What I do resent is the implications that my teammates, with whom I GOT that title, didn’t work for it. Say what you will about me; I can take care of myself. But my various guildies over the last five years? That’s where I draw the line.
adgamorix – Well, that’s why I say ethically wrong if not legally wrong. As crappy the image is, it’s my screenshot and then I altered it to obfuscate my guild name (and throw the H off my toon’s name, too). Technically speaking, that’s my intellectual property. Something I learned when I was a content producer for a top ten web destination is that you have to chase down copyright infringement if you ever hope to maintain your copyright. If you don’t make efforts to claim your work and there’s a lot of derivative work from it, or outright copies of it, then if you ever decide to go to court and there IS no evidence you ever tried to enforce your copyright claim, then they’re liable to allow it with no compensation.
It’s fuzzier than that, but that was drilled into me. What I’ve done here, apart from anything else, is set a precedent that all content here at Kurn’s Corner is copyrighted to me and if I find someone using my stuff, I’ll work with them to allow it to continue under my terms. If that doesn’t work (and it did here) then I’d have to examine my options based on the severity of the infringement.
So I’m okay with how it worked out, I’m okay with setting that precedent and I’m okay with people knowing what happened and how my raid group did it. I’m actually pretty pleased that I could tell the brief story of how long my raid group worked on him, because 105 attempts deserves more respect than “Kingslayer titles? We’re practically giving them away!”. If only for my raid group (and the tabard is still recognizable), they deserve that much respect.
Freaking Defiles. The other night, with my new guild, I don’t know WHAT happened, but the Defile actually covered the entire platform. I laughed. :)
Definitely a busy week thus far, sheesh. :)
Osephala – haha, at least I know I can count on you if I ever have to turn to my vast Internet army. ;)
People can be such asses! I am glad it got cleared up. My guild has been working on the Lich King for months now. As a Disc Priest, I hate that stupid zone buff but we can’t get rid of it because it’s too important to the 9 other people in my raid. I do not get any mana return from my Rapture talent as none of my bubbles break until really far into the fight. I was literally doing several attempts in full on T9 with level 200/213 trinkets with none of my bubbles breaking. It was very, very frustrating. But not as frustrating as sub 4% wipes. :(
Tobeume – The solution for you is to downrank PW:S up until the point where it *just* gets consumed by Infest.
http://talesofapriest.com/?p=807
I think you’ll really notice a difference and if you’re being brought as a shield monkey and not expected to do a lot of healing on the tanks, then don’t shield the tanks to prevent Rapture’s ICD from kicking in unhappily. :)
Hope that helps!
So, since Madrana is a total copy of my pally, does that mean that he’s insulting me too?!
Daey – Yes, Football, that’s exactly what it means. Go kick his ass for me. ;)
Kurn – that Defile thing happened once on an attempt with my wife as well. It was hilarious! Apparently, if somebody stands in the Defile for too long, it becomes too big to avoid and everybody will suddenly stand in the Defile, causing it to grow even bigger.. snowball effect, anyone? I didn’t even know about the Defile growing bigger, so I was both surprised and laughing so hard my tummy hurt :(
Kaboomski – haha, yes, I’m aware of WHY Defile grows. I just don’t understand how or why someone stood in it long enough for it to get THAT big. Someone was either not paying attention or it was a bad case of RNG.
Kurn – “shield monkey” may be my favorite new phrase! LOL I usually refer to myself as a “bubble bot”.
I have looked at the down ranked bubble and I did not like it at all. What I did this last time was to maximize my regen and only bubble the melee group and people in the range group that were taking damage for Infest. I noticed that it just bounces off people at full health. I was sitting at around 1230-odd mp5 out of casting and changed my meta to the Insightful Earthseige Diamond, put on Tears of the Vanquished and did my tailoring cloak enchant to restore mana. Once I did all of that, I rarely got under 25K mana. (Fully raid buffed I sit at around 41K.)