Starcraft 2 releasing

Yeah, I haven't been around in a while.  Got real life stuff, blah blah blah.  I'm not gone, and I'll be back, just need a blogging break.

Despite that, it's hard to contain my excitement today.  Starcraft 2 is finally releasing, after more than a decade of waiting.  It was far and away my favorite PC game until WoW came out, and my favorite non-Nintendo video game until the HD era as well.  It introduced me to the RTS genre, which is a perfect fit for my tastes but I had never seen before.  I love Sci-fi and I found the campaign mode revelatory because of how it merged storytelling with the gameplay.  SC so perfectly crystallized what makes a game great for me - and specifically to my personality - that it will always hold a place in my personal pantheon of great video games.  I bonded with lifelong friends over it, even.

So I'm quite relieved that Real ID isn't overstepping and I can play, with a clear conscience, this game I've been waiting for.  My amazon preorder has already shipped, and I'm spending today drooling in jealousy at the countries that, due to the vagaries of time zones, exist in the future and can already play.

My life for Aiur!

Speaking of Shadow's Edge

...I got mine more than a month ago, and have been so busy playing with it that I never got around to posting!



It was a bigger accomplishment for me than it may have been for other raiders because my guild is a 10-man guild. We actually pug ICC 25 weekly now (and clear through the first wing consistently) but I had to call in some favors with friends in one of the top 25-man guilds on my server to get the two quest items off Festergut and Rotface back before the zone-wide buff was implemented.

The endless, mindless, torturous work of my 3 saronite slaves finally paid off after months of stabbing myself with hot pokers (aka using the random LFD tool to get frost emblems EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR MONTHS ON FOUR CHARACTERS-I'M NOT BITTER OR BURNED OUT AT ALL THANKYOUVERYMUCH). That's only - what - 50,000 gold down the drain for an axe?

The quest itself is quite cool, because you . . .

. . .





. . . oh, was I talking? Oh yeah, so in the questline, you get to watch Mograine forge the axe for you, like so:






Now if you'll excuse me, I just got us 2 hours in a room at the local motel. Just me and the axe.

Whiny Post Day

By decree of Klepsacovic, today is International Whiny Post Day! I'll join Larisa, Tobold, Spinks, and others in celebrating this awesome holiday.

But what do I want to whine about? There are so many things.

Keep in mind that these are the criteria:
- Would you be annoyed at reading it?
- Would you want to respond with "cry more"?
- Do I disagree with your complaint?

So my goal here is to annoy you into telling me to "QQ moar" about something that only I even think is a problem.

Oh, here's one thing that irrationally annoys me:

Backseat raidleaders!

You know what? Once I explain a fight strategy, you don't need to add minor details about how using X move at exactly X second can give us a tiny advantage. Yes, it's a neat trick. No, no one will remember it the first time in our lives that we pull the boss and are just trying to remember the basics of the strategy. The more complicated you make the explanation, the faster we'll wipe. That's why I didn't mention that tiny tip. It's not because I didn't know about it - I actually read the same sites as you! It's just that I didn't want to make the strat any more complicated than it had to be until we get a look at it.

You know what else? I know that you need to line your cooldowns up with bloodlust to pwn the meters. But you don't need to be obsessed with BL. Nor do you need to call for it every fight without fail if I'm about to call for it a second later than you liked (because I'm also having to call everything else that someone in the raid forgot to pay attention to).

And another thing: we really don't need to completely change our strategy every attempt just because we wiped. Sometimes, we just need everyone to perform a little better at the strategy we already have. 99% of the time, changing the strategy will only server to confuse someone and make us wipe even faster. I'm all for analyzing and making changes based on what we did wrong, but usually what we did wrong is "stand in the fire", not "had the positioning totally wrong and should have switched targets later and one of us should respec. Oh, and Bloodlust earlier!"

But worst of all is the guy from another guild who has something to prove in our joint raids and needs to step all over my playcalls. I also don't appreciate when that guy waits for me to miss some detail or other so he can jump in and "prove" how I'm a bad raid leader because I forgot to say one thing out of the 100s of things I generally need to remember to tell the group. Tearing someone down is easy when they have a lot of responsibility. Actually shouldering that responsibility yourself? Not so easy.


I fully acknowledge that a lot of this is irrational. I'm far from perfect, and raid leading isn't that hard. Often, these "backseat raidleaders" give useful suggestions that are key to our victory, and they certainly help keep the raid thinking critically.

But sometimes, they just get on my nerves.

/end whine

Gaming Update: It's About Time!

This week, I gained accessed two games that I have been waiting nearly a decade for.

My first year of college, I met two of my best lifelong friends from across the hall, and they introduced me to Starcraft (among other things, such as whiskey, another lifelong friend).

My second year in college, I met my current female lifepartner. In the early days of our relationship, one thing we did together was play through Final Fantasy 10 (her idea, not mine . . . she's awesome!)

This week, Final Fantasy 13 was released. It is the first "real" FF in my opinion since 10. I'm sorry, but 12 flat-out sucked. The graphics were good, and the story as well, but the gameplay systems were a disaster. We bought it with excitement upon release, and gave up in disgust a few weeks later. We spent last night playing FF13, and have loved it so far. If anything, it feels so far like the spiritual successor to FF7 (tied with 6 for my favorite ever), in so many ways.

Also this week, I was reading this interview with Dustin Browder, lead designer on Starcraft 2. He mentioned offhandedly that they had "added a bunch of new keys this week", meaning beta keys. I had been avoiding my email and battle.net account page to save myself the heartbreak of not being in the SC2 beta. Hoping against all hope, trying to keep my excitement in check, I futilely logged into my battle.net account.

Well, not so futilely - the beta was there.

So in conclusion: you know how people tell you "life isn't fair"? Well, guess what: for me it is. There is a god, and I believe in miracles.


So far, I love both games. Have a great whiskey! I mean, weekend!

LFG [of jerks], or: Why I Hate the Dungeon Finder Now

Remember how, only a few days ago, I praised the new LFG system in WoW?

I'm here now to tell you that I was a bit premature. All is not sugarplums, roses, and nude models.

The bottom line is something that we all already knew: people are assholes.

The core problem with the dungeon finder is also its core value proposition: it allows you to spend more time in random groups. Not only that, but it cycles you through those groups much more quickly, and pulls those groups from a larger pool of people. Add in the fact that most of those people are from another server and will never see you again, and you have the perfect recipe for a highly concentrated example of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I'm far from the first person to point out this downside of the system.

Being exposed to more people at a more rapid clip for longer periods of time means 1) you are spending more time with assholes, 2) you are seeing more different kinds of assholes (and remember, each asshole only has to be an asshole once), and 3) you are increasing the number of terrible pug experiences you can have per hour.

After the first day, people started to learn how to game the system and they started to figure out that they could bring their undergeared alts to everything, and other players wouldn't have much choice but to carry them (because of the penalties for leaving and the vote-kick timer, which I'll get into later). So over the past few days, almost every group I join has two people doing 1.5k or less dps (below the tank). Out of the dozens of groups I ran this weekend, only 3 were reasonably pleasant and competent. I had no idea before just how shitty WoW's community actually is. I'm not sure I want to keep playing a game that includes so many people who are just wastes of breath and Fritos.

Why does this food taste like asshole?

My stand-out bad experiences: a hunter joins heroic OK and proceeds to do 600 dps. When asked why, he says that he started the instance with his crossbow skill at 1, and he didn't bring any other weapons. He says he "could care less" about how rude, inconsiderate, and unfair that is to the group.

Or how about this: I join H Occ on my super-geared main. I see 4 people from the same guild on another server are my group, and they have decent gearscores. So I compliment them, saying "it's nice to see a geared group, so many of my groups lately have had sub 1k dps". We go through the run, and get to a part when we are about to land on a floating platform. Everyone gets into landing position, and the mage actually dismounts, so I think it's OK to land. After the mage dismounts, the tank and healer go off alone, still on their drakes, to kill a random drake nearby. The tank gets killed. On an unnecessary drake that hadn't even seen us. At the same time, the mage runs forward and aggros the pack. I assume we are dead, so I run around in circles waiting for the wipe.

After we wipe, the group starts screaming at me about how I should have gone into frost presence and prevented the wipe (without the healer, mind you), and says I'm a terrible player. I tried to defuse the situation and be classy, but they wouldn't have it. They kept flinging insults, even though they had actually just wiped in a 5 man as a group from the same guild, despite their raid gear. They must have been so embarrassed to fail like that in front of me that they had to blame me. It was pathetic. I just let it go, and just kept running the instance, because I didn't really care about what random internet idiot said. But then we kill the 3rd boss and are flying up to engage the last boss, and they vote to kick me out of nowhere so I can't get my frost emblems. Classy.


But that's not even the worst part of the dungeon finder. The worst is the number of people showing up with quest greens or empty gem slots (not even getting into the lack of enchants). Please, please, please have the consideration to at least put a green gem in there before you queue up for a heroic. Remember that your group is made up of other people whose time is valuable, and you do not have a right to waste their time. You are not entitled to be carried, and they are not "bad people" if they don't want to pick up your slack.


THe LFG system is shaping up to be a way to yoke geared, competent players and pressure them to carry crappy, undergeared, inconsiderate players (presumably so that those baddies continue to pay a monthly fee instead of quitting because they can't get a group that will keep them). More on that later, with a great quote from Comrade Ghostcrawler. Sure, no one is "forcing" you, but if your a good player who doesn't use the system, you are screwed out of a ton of frost emblems that the terribads are getting. You are punished for not putting yourself at the mercy of the system. I can't wait until good players don't need frost emblems anymore and the LFG system becomes a cesspit of bads all expecting each other to carry them to phat epix. Mmm, community!

Pictured: good players (left), morons, slackers, and assholes (top center)

The rapid-fire cycling of assholes would, in itself, probably be bearable if it weren't for the ruleset that comes along with the system. I understand why Blizzard used the rules they did, but I think, in light of live-server conditions, they need to be revised.

As it stands, if you join a group and someone is immediately an asshole, you have two options: 1) continue the run, or 2) leave, incurring a 15-minute wait until you may queue again. You may not vote to kick someone until 15 minutes into the run.

Think about that for a second. If you are a perfectly nice and capable person, you join a run, and someone in that run is immediately an asshole, you are the only one who is punished. You can't kick him, but if you leave, you have to wait 15 minutes before you can even queue again, while the asshole can just let someone else fill your spot. The asshole gets the run he wanted with almost no interruption, but you have to pay 15 minutes of your life (plus queue wait time, if you are a dps) because you weren't willing to let him impose his assholishness on you.

Great thinking, Blizz.

Now let's say the assholishness only emerges later in the run. Now you can vote kick the guy. However, even if you do kick him, he does not incur a deserter debuff. So he can requeue right away and have almost no interruption in his ability to punish others with his presence.

Awesome.


I think Blizzard's current rules could be vastly improved:


1) Allow vote-to-kick from the beginning.

If I join a group, and the first thing out of the rogue's mouth is "lol you fags are gay", I should be able to kick him. I should not have to leave the group and be punished with a 15-minute wait to requeue.

The 15-minute grave period before you can vote-kick is especially onerous to me given Ghostcrawler's rationale for why it is in place (emphasis mine, of course):


"I suspect it's going to take a few tries before we get the vote kick thing feeling right. I hope it's obvious what purpose it serves though. We feared without some kind of grace period that a common behavior would be to automatically kick someone in greens or without certain achievements or perhaps even someone who would roll against you on stuff (in the partial premade situation)."




The reason you can't kick someone immediately is that - dear god, let me clutch my pearls - you might kick someone for being in greens!?!? Screw. You. It is not my obligation to carry slackers, no matter how important it is to you to keep their subscription money coming.

Aside from that outrage, the benefits of being able to immediately kick "Bustanutz" vastly outweigh the risk that we might dare to kick someone who is undergeared for the instance. Get your priorities straight, GC!


2) No deserter debuff if you leave the group in the first 2 minutes.

This way, you aren't stuck with the choice between running the dungeon with assholes or punishing yourself with a 15 minute wait while the assholes get to fill your spot instantly and keep running.


3) Apply a fresh deserter debuff if you are vote-kicked. To prevent griefing, allow a group to only vote-kick one person every 15 minutes.

You should not be able to requeue immediately after being vote-kicked.


4) Do not let a player queue if they have even a single empty gem slot.

The system should give them back an error message explaining why they were not allowed to queue, as well. The system already uses a highly lenient gearscore measurement to prevent someone in full greens from entering your heroic. Simply add this on.


I believe these simple changes will go a long way toward giving the vast majority of us, who are pleasant, competent people, a way to deal with assholes that is more punishing to the assholes than it is to us. They will also greatly encourage good behavior and increase player satisfaction with the LFG experience, while having little to no negative effect.

3.3 Early Impressions, and the LFG tool

As much as I anticipated this patch, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with just how good it has been so far. There were some bad server problems on patch day (I can't believe Blizz didn't anticipate how many people would want to do this new stuff...), and I was all ready to rage about them. But then last night things were fine, so I guess either they splurged on some more servers or the number of people trying to do exactly the same thing simultaneously plummeted.

From the patch notes, I expected to be excited about the lore-rich 5-mans, the raid instance, and a few other tweaks. But I never expected that after only two days, the real stand-out part of this patch - and the part that will change the face of the game forever (and for the better!) - wasn't any of that.

The new LFG tool
If you had told me a week ago how good this thing was, I wouldn't have believed you. In fact, lots of people tried to tell me how good it was, and I was incredulous as a Ret Paladin finding his PvP target still alive after the HoJ stun wore off. I wasn't having none of that.

For five years now, everything Blizzard has tried to do to help people find groups has been sub-par. They've tried to make improvements, but the new additions always showed a lack of forethought and indicated that the developers were at least somewhat out of touch with how players actually find groups. It destroyed my faith that Blizzard couldn't even make a LFG interface that competed with City of Heroes, which is an older game.

But they've more than made up for it now. I'm blown away.

This thing slices, it dices, and it will actually find you a tank in under a minute. It makes instancing and assembling a group a breeze, and it means that when I'm playing, I can spend my time actually playing, rather than spamming Trade channel for a tank or healer.

[unrelated note: people who complain about LFG messages in Trade channel need to shut up. I've accidentally joined many a great group pre-3.3 when I didn't happen to be in the LFG chat channel or system but saw an ad in trade chat. It's not like you were really using Trade for much of anything anyway.]

So far, I've run about 7 heroics using the system, and not had a bad egg in any of them. Once we got a severely undergeared rogue, but he played just fine. If anything, I wish that I could keep in contact with some of the good players I've met from other servers and manually invite them to future pugs.

Sure, maybe it won't be as good once 3.3 fever winds down and the LFG qeue isn't as crowded as it is right now. But nevertheless, I think it's a great system. I'm especially interested to see how this effects what role players choose to play. Tobold thinks it will increase the number of tanks and healers, and I'm inclined to agree.

The main downside is that I will no longer be able to get such a good laugh when I see a group of 3 plate DPS "LFM tank and healz pst"


Icecrown Raid
Awwwwwww, shit. That's the stuff. Mmmmmm. Oh, yes, don't sto-what? You're kidding, right? I have to wait 28 days for the next hit?



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooOo


So far, the ICC raid has lived up to my high expectations for it. My guild was the first to complete it on our server (we finished the 10-man only 20 minutes before the top guild finished it on 25-man), so I've seen the whole thing, and it's reasonably challenging, but not very hard. I'd put most of the bosses roughly on par with Northrend Beasts 10 hard-mode. Given the easier ways to get gear now, I anticipate that most groups will be able to at least make some progress in the place. Without getting too spoiler-y:

The opening trash is a bit brutal and a bit long. I think it's intended to dissuade really casual groups from trying to farm the first boss. Hint: don't charge into the first room and start AoEing. Unlike with the rest of Wrath content, that strategy will feed you your own intestines. Also, watch out for gigantic skeletons and their saber lash.

The first boss looks supremely epic. And really, how can you go wrong with a guy who periodically shouts "BONE STORM!!!"? It's a relatively simple fight, borrowing mechanics from BT and Shattered Halls. He was easy to beat with our 232-geared mains, but was a lot harder to bring down with our lesser-geared alt group - not because of the mechanics, but just because of the raw damage numbers the boss was putting out, especially on the tanks.

The trash for the second boss will evoke Shadow Labs for many of you, and you'll have to actually drag the CC spells back onto your action bars. If you can even remember which spells they are. The boss herself is little more than a skeleton (she must be friends with Kate Moss, whose motto is: "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels") protected by a mana shield. The fight is quite novel, because it has you dealing with a variety of adds in exciting and constantly-changing ways. It's like a more fun and interesting take on Gothik.

The way to the third "boss" is when things start to get really epic, with horde and alliance battling for control of this upper balcony outside of the citadel, all the while fending off the scourge. You'll head to your faction's airship, at which point you get to play with rocket packs! This fight is epic, fun and frenetic, and exactly the type of thing that I was asking for when I designed The Awesoming raid encounter way back in the early days of this blog (in fact, the entire instance so far invokes that to some degree; there are tons of lore and storyline events going on throughout the epic set pieces). It wasn't hard to take out the enemy ship, the only challenge was not letting our offtank get owned by Bronzebeard.

Your ship will drop you off right in front of the final, lore-rich boss of this wing. The fight was straightforward to figure out, but very much a challenge of execution, as each mistake you make heals the boss more and more until the extra damage to you and healing to him becomes insurmountable. But once our tanks got a taunt rotation perfected and the ranged dps worked the kinks out of the kiting, we were able kill this boss so well that we even got an extra acheivement!

Overall, the same flare for both aesthetic and fight design that went into Ulduar is on full display again here, only knocked up a notch and soaked in a thick gravy of delicious lore. Every single battle of this wing trumps everything else in the game in some way, whether it be the emotional storyline resonance of Deathbringer, the epicness of the gunship battle, the horrible beauty of a giant skeletal construct, or the new and interesting fight mechanics of Lady Deathwhisper. Having major warcraft characters directly involved and performing a variety of scripted events throughout the dungeon cements the entire thing together into something greater than its parts. They've turned the raid into a fully fleshed-out piece of entertainment. This is the apex, as it should be.


I don't have time to talk about the 5-mans right now, but suffice it to say I'm impressed with them as well. So far, this is shaping up to be the best patch they've ever done. Bravo, Blizzard!

Is it Christmas, or just Patch Day?

Cold weather? Check.

I'm about to get a lot of really awesome presents? Check.

Sparkly ornaments everywhere (in this case, they are all purple for some reason)? Check.

A large man sneaking about in the night? Check.

Me having insomnia from anticipation? Check.

Hordes of slathering undead? Che-hey waitaminute!





It's not Christmas! It's Patch Day!


But this, my friends, is no ordinary patch. No, this is the end-all be-all of World of Warcraft patches. This is the patch I've been waiting for since I first met Arthas back in July 2002.

For approaching a decade, I've wanted this guy's head on a platter. And now, I finally get to go after him.

I had played a great deal of Warcraft 2 multiplayer, but never really got into the campaign. Beyond reading wowwiki, I'm not familiar with the old stories of villains like Deathwing or the old Horde (Gul'dan, etc.). Sure, Deathwing may be bigger and bad-assier than Arthas, but there is really no way for a warcraft villain to top the Lich King for me. Not after the adoration I had (and still have) for the storytelling, gameplay, and art in the Warcraft 3 campaign. Not after how long I've been waiting for this.

And by all indications, Blizzard is pulling out all of the stops. The last patch was a one-room stalling device assembled, as far as I can tell, by a single unpaid intern. All so they could keep us sated while they worked on this patch.

I give Blizzard a lot of crap. And I don't take any of that back. But as far as I can tell, this patch is one of those times they've come through for the playerbase. Despite being understaffed and still making plenty of decisions I actively disagree with (many of them in this patch), the bottom line is that, with this patch, they are earning their gold-plated yachts.

I am unabashedly fanboi excited about this patch. I'm more excited than a teenage boy in a porn theater packed to capacity with naked nymphomaniac cheerleaders.

OK, well, it's not possible to be more excited than that. But you get what I mean.

See you in Icecrown!

Back to the Land of the Living - Sort Of

Geez! Over 52,000 words. I'm quite proud of this mangled little First Draft That Could.

Unfortunately, it's not back to normal life for me just yet. My promotion at work means that I'll have a lot less time to game and blog - but perversely, a lot more money to buy games with. As they say, youth is wasted on the young . . .

In my mad sprint for the finish, I fell behind at work, so I'll be spending the next week or two catching back up. Posting will be slow for the rest of the month, but I'm looking forward to a fresh start in the New Year.

Special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for bringing this program to my attention. It ended up meaning a lot to me.


PS: Ixo, I'll get on Wave [OF THE FUTURE!] this weekend.

Meme-ing it up as DPS

Joining in on this meme:

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?

[name redacted], Death Knight, Unholy



What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

10-man raids, focusing on hard-mode progression.



What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?

Overall, I'd have to say Death Coil. As a melee class, being able to fire off ranged balls of death is quite nice.

Wandering Plague is a close second for the insane numbers it can put up in aoe situations.



What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?

Blood Boil, because I usually need that blood rune for something else, even in aoe situations (ie pest and D&D). It doesn't seem to have a strong niche, although sometimes it is certainly useful.



What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?

Flexibility. All three dps specs are viable and play differently, bringing different strengths to the table. Often raid spots are decided, especially in 10-mans, by which buffs you bring, and DKs offer the widest variety of them, depending on what you need. They have strong single-target and aoe dps, some ranged attacks, and strong defensive capabilities as well. They require the least babysitting of all the plate dps classes.



What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?

Diseases. The mechanic is a good idea in general, but sometimes it can definitely be a disadvantage to have to apply your diseases in order to do max dps, especially in short-term burst situations. Diseases also have their strengths, but I'd say that being dependent on them is our biggest weakness as well.



In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?

That's easy: let me focus on the boss while aoe-ing adds that are positioned near him. Being able to hit multiple targets makes my DPS soar, but the disease limitations also require me to have a long-term main target in order to really push my DPS. Clustering adds around a boss I am focusing is the best of both worlds for me.



What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?

DK. I have the most options, can help keep myself alive, and have the option to tank if my group needs it. DKs also have one of the more "fun" rotations because they use many different abilities. On my rogue, I just spammed Sinister Strike and rotated 3 finishers. My mage fires ABx4 then Mbarr. The interest and interactivity can't compare.


But most importantly, I get to run around in awesome-looking plate gear and hit things really hard with a giant axe!



What class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?

Of the ones I have tried in a raid, I'd say Mutilate rogue. I hear they've fixed it since I retired my rogue, but babysitting Hunger for Blood while trying to keep up with when to use Envenom back in early Wrath was NOT FUN.



What is your worst habit as a dps?

Popping my cooldowns at the wrong time. Note to self: don't hit dps cooldowns just before a fear/big aoe/burrow phase.



What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?

#1 pet peeve when interacting with people on the internet in general is the abuse of the words "gay" and "fag", and any kind of gay-bashing. I'm straight myself, but equating homosexuality with badness chafes me anyway.

If it has to be an in-game thing, I'd say that in pugs it's people who stand in bad shit, and in guild groups it's people who tune out the fight explanation, then after the wipe say "Oh, so I wasn't supposed to stand in the fire/dps the adds/go afk during phase 2?"



Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?

Yes. DKs are in a good place right now. We're on the upper end of the curve when gear and skill are held constant. Arcane Mages are insane right now, and maybe hunters are a little strong. But overall, we can compete with anyone else on the meters, and we bring some of the best utility and survivability to boot.



What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a dps?

I always have recount open, to make sure I'm performing well and the decisions I make are panning out. Beyond that, I want to know if the boss died without too much trouble and I compare my experiences with those of EJ posters.


What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

That everyone who plays a DK sucks. Death Knights start at high level and have "cool" and "new" factor going for them. So EVERYONE has an alt DK. Very few people play one as their mains. So what you end up with is an unprecedented number of people playing a class who don't know what they are doing, don't have experience, and are poorly geared. So no wonder people get the impression that DKs are noobs. Everyone plays them, and most of those people play them casually as alts, and play them badly. Another factor is that it takes a certain type of player to excel as a melee dps, but when everyone is leveling a DK, you end up with ranged and healer type players rolling them as well. And they are almost always playing their DK as DPS, which really makes it seem like the devs failed in adding a 4th tanking class.



What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?

Two things are tied:

1) Appropriate gearing: which stats do you want?
2) Appropriate rotation and priority of dps moves.


What dps class do you feel you understand least?

Warlocks. I've never gotten one to max level, and their mechanics seem to change so often now that I can't keep up. Their three trees seem to play so differently from each other that I have a hard time making sense of it all.



What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?

I MUST HAVE RUNEWATCH. Otherwise I can't play my DK.

Satrina Buff Frames are also key.

As for macros, you need one that puts your Dancing Rune Weapon behind your target if you are Blood, and if Unholy you need to macro Blood Tap to Bone Shield.



Strength over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?

STRENGTH. This shouldn't be a question. If you aren't favoring strength, then you are one of those terrible DKs that should stop giving us a bad reputation. The only exception is Blood stacking armor pen, though arpen has never been conclusively proven to beat strength.

NaNoWriMo

Blogging will be a little sparse this month, since I am participating in National Novel Writing Month throughout November. The goal is to complete a work of fiction totalling at least 50,000 words, which means about 1,700 a day (if you don't skip any days). It's a daunting task, and I embark on it with a mixture of excitement and EXTREME FEAR. But so far it's going OK. I'm finally fleshing out an idea I've had knocking around in my head for about two years, but never took the time to get started. I don't really have high expectations for my work, but hopefully it won't suck too royally. I'm hoping this will be a transformative trial for me, kind of like what I hear training for a marathon is like, or what the last few weeks leading up to my black belt test was like, or what finishing my master's thesis under a tight deadline was like. I'm psyched.

Thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for bringing this event to my attention!

You can follow my progress here, if you are so inclined. Right now, I'm ahead of the basic wordcount requirement, but I seriously doubt I'll be able to keep a lead.

Glory of the Ulduar Raider

Until last night, my butt was incomplete. Because it didn't have a Rusted Proto-Drake permanently attached to it.




After much struggle with scheduling (including a death in a key guildie's family!), we managed to get two nights in a row on Yogg hard mode, and finally downed it, completing the Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievement. Me and my butt are very, very happy.

For those interested, here's the story of how we did Yogg Hard mode (One Light in the Darkness) with just Thorim helping us.

Originally, our group makeup was:

Tank:
Warrior

Healers:
Disc. Priest
Resto Shaman
Resto Druid

DPS:
DK
Paladin
Warrior
2 Mages
Hunter

We struggled with Phase 2, needing things to go very well with the RNG to down the brain in two portal phases, which I would consider necessary for victory here, as the raid begins to run low on sanity if Phase 2 goes on too long. We would send myself (the DK), the dps warrior, the ret paladin, and the resto shaman down into the brain room, which gave us full coverage on debuffs.

We made it to Phase 3 a few times this way, but always lost people due to poor positioning, loose adds, or failure to look away during the lunatic gaze that reduces your sanity. Basically, we would always be behind on tentacles and run ragged, often with a few people dead, by the time we made it to Phase 3.

The turnaround for us was a night where the dps warrior couldn't make it. We could bring a second ret paladin in his place, but that paladin didn't have the gear or experience on this fight that the warrior brought, making us doubt the chances of getting the brain down in 2 portals. Then our Guildmaster, the resto shaman, hit on an idea: she would do the fight as Enhancement and the priest and druid would 2-heal it! The healing requirements are not all that intense compared to, say, Firefighter, and having an extra dps in the brain room had the potential to be a huge buff to our ability to clear the phase quickly. And best of all, any dispels needed on the portal team could be covered by the shaman/pally combo!

It took about an hour and a half of attempts with this new setup to win. Most of the attempts were wiped not by user error, but by terrible luck with all of the randomized aspects of the fight, such as tentacle placements, targets of Yogg's abilities, and placement of the floating skulls in the portal rooms. One particularly bad attempt found me constricted just as the portals spawned. I was quickly broken out, and ran toward the portal, thinking I would make it. Instead, I was feared by Yogg just long enough to miss the portal. The next attempt, we zoned into the portal room and found that both sets of floating skulls were positioned such that there was no way to dps the targets without losing sanity non-stop the entire time. Randomized screw-overs like that were the most frustrating and disheartening part of the experience. We could play perfectly, and still be wiped by the random number generator, which is clearly > all. I'm not a big fan of that. Yeah, hard modes are supposed to be hard. But they should challenge your ability to play more than they challenge your ability to have good luck. And I think Yogg Hard goes a little too far in the luck direction.

But we did it! We are now in the top 40 US guilds that only do 10-man raiding according to Guildox, and join a group of only about 50 of such guilds to have earned drakes. And we managed this rank despite constant difficulties getting together our hard mode groups due to a string of RL events that made the attendance of many of our roster of only 12 raiders sporadic. Though it took us a month between downing Firefighter and One Light, we actually only spent a grand total of about 7 hours spread over 4-5 nights working on it. That's only 3 normal-length nights of attempts. I'm pretty proud of us.


I know my guildies don't even know about this blog, but I still want to thank them for their friendship, skill, perseverence, patience, and class throughout this entire journey to our drakes. They are an incredible group of people and players that make this game worth playing for me, and I would never have enhanced my butt dragonally without them. I can't wait to fly around REALLY FAST alongside them again!

I'm super-psyched for Icecrown!

I played a lot of WC3 story mode. I had found Starcraft such a revelation that it was impossible for me to not want to submerge myself in the combination of epic narrative and fun art and gameplay when WC3 came out. I had been largely a console gamer before this, so WC3's story mode was one of my formative PC gaming experiences, and also one of my first forays into hardcore fantasy fiction (aside from my dad reading the Hobbit to me before bed as a child).

So to finally see the end of that story play out, and experience in a more personal way so many nostalgic and sentimentally symbolic touchpoints, is very exciting to me.

Yes, many aspects of the story are cliched or predictable. Arthas is a reverse King Arthur, and the Lich King might as well be named Darth Sauron, complete with black outfit, flowing cloak, and spiky spires with magic eyes at the top. At least Arthas's motivation for his fall makes some semblance of sense, unlike Anakin's hubris and puppy love (if you even consider "Episode 3" to be canon).

I'm more interested in the epic feel around the whole thing, and the reactions of the world and the other characters to him. I'm expecting to see something awesome, and that's what's got me excited.

Jaina and Sylvanas will be able to finally resolve their long-standing Arthas issues. We'll see where the Ashbringer's story goes, what happens to the Mograines and the Saurfangs, and the fate of Bolvar Fordragon.

And Shadowmourne, which a small part of me is just too afraid to hope might be available, at least in some partial, gimped way, to 10-man raid groups. That story is something I'd really like to be able to take part in, rather than be completely shut out of solely because of raid size. I've made my piece with the other 10 v 25 crap (mostly), but man would I be excited to have a shot at that thing.

Icecrown Lore Predictions: We Will Have a Lich Queen [updated]

UPDATE 2 (10/8/09): It would seem that Jaina is here to stay in her current form, given that the latest PTR patch gave her an updated, hi-res character model. We all know that Blizz wouldn't bother if she was just going to die in the 5-man or require a remodel. C'est la vie.


[UPDATE]
Well that was quick! Here's the beginning of the quest line to help Mograine create Shadowmourne! It appears that he reforges the base axe by combining Arthas's old paladin hammer, Light's Vengeance, with some super-saronite. Then, it seems clear that parts of Frostmourne are used to complete the weapon. This points pretty strongly to Frostmourne being broken; perhaps we discover in the Halls of Reflection that this is the key to defeating the Lich King. My theory was fun while it lasted, but clearly things are going in another direction. Sadly, sources are pointing to some seriously bad stuff going down in the HoR. Doesn't look good for poor Jaina or Sylvanas. Do they really have to kill (or reduce to "damsel in distress" status) the only famous women in Azeroth? Please be more original than that.
[/end update]


As we all know, I love making predictions. Even though I'm wrong more often than right, I find speculation about the future to be a great joy. Trying to predict it is a riveting puzzle to me. I'm the kind of person who nerds out hardcore for shows like Lost.

So naturally I locked onto yesterday's information about the upcoming Icecrown 5-man dungeons like a Democratic Senator locks onto failure. That is to say, hard.

You can read the dungeon reveal in full here. The part I'm most interest in is:

Halls of Reflection
With Jaina and Sylvanas leading the way, adventurers who make it as far as these frigid halls will quickly recognize the weapon that lies ahead: Frostmourne, the corruptive, legendary device of the Lich King himself. The Lich King's private chambers are within reach, although they may be the death of anyone who ventures there.

Boss: The Lich King: Sylvanas, thirsty for vengeance against the corrupted prince who sentenced her to an existence as an undead monstrosity, and Jaina, eager to find a flicker of Arthas's soul locked somewhere within the Lich King, have brought their hand-picked allies to this final confrontation. Arthas's true power may only now be discovered. Is there any hope in this mission, or does only death await?

So we'll be following Jaina and Sylvanas into the room where Frostmourne is. Before I get into that, let me remind you of a few other things we know from Blizzcon:

1. Arthas will not drop Frostmourne in the Icecrown raid. He instead drops an Axe, heretofore unknown, called Shadowmourne.
2. Blizzard has "very special plans for Frostmourne".
3. Jaina Proudmoore was not mentioned at all in the lore spoilers revealed for Cataclysm.
4. Sylvanas is mentioned in Cataclysm as leading a Forsaken assault on Gilneas, which serves as the basis for the new Battleground.

And as the final part of my setup, consider the following facts about the Lich King:

1. He never goes anywhere without Frostmourne. It's one of the key fonts of his power.
2. He keeps letting us live because he's got "plans for us".
3. He needs a "win". He hasn't done any major damage to us since the Wrath Gate, and he needs something to establish him as a more threatening enemy, and not some comedically mustache-twisting cartoon villain.
4. Arthas used to love Jaina. The original Arthas is mostly or completely gone, and even his heart has been destroyed. But perhaps the Lich King still has some remnants of feelings for her.

All of the above, taken together, leads me to believe that, at the end of the Halls of Reflection dungeon, Jaina takes up Frostmourne (for noble reasons, of course). She most likely presumes to use it as a weapon against him in a desperate moment, but it is in fact all part of his plan to corrupt her over to his side. I think it's the Blizzard writers' intent to continue the legacy of the Lich King after Arthas is killed at the end of this expansion, and I think the way to do that is to start Jaina on a path of being corrupted by Frostmourne (where Ner'zhul's spirit desperately survives), and eventually to becoming the Lich Queen, even after the King is dead. His plan is to bring her to stand at his side, but in the end she actually becomes his successor.

C'mon, you know the sexist Blizzard artists wouldn't be able to resist giving her a skull-bra.

But what of Arthas in Icecrown? If Frostmourne is so powerful, how could he risk giving it up when his enemies crowd his doorstep? Simple: he's forged a mothertrucking UPGRADE.

The first two wings of the dungeon are the Forge of Souls, which gathers and forges souls for some unknown purpose, and the Halls of Saron, which is the core of Arthas's saronite mining operation.

Now why would they have us go through a forge and then a mine before assaulting the very location where Frostmourne is stored?

To give us some context for Shadowmourne. The soulforge was already used to empower a rune axe constructed from the mined saronite.


So that's my prediction: that we'll see Jaina take up Frostmourne while Arthas wields Shadowmourne. After we kill Arthas, Jaina will continue to be subtly corrupted by Frostmourne before emerging as the Lich Queen.

I can't wait to see just how completely off the mark I am! But at least I had fun speculating.

Posting Slowdown

For a long time there, I kept up a 3 days a week posting schedule. As you may have noticed, I've fallen off the rails in that respect. This is not a post about quitting blogging or anything like that. But I can't fit in constant blogging with my current RL situation. So I'll be posting when I have both the time and (hopefully) something interesting to say. I'm still around, even if it's sporadic.

FIREFOUGHT!

Oh hello! I didn't notice you there, I was distracted by my pipe and wonderful smoking jacket. Are you here to congratulate me on how I


TOTALLY BEAT MIMIRON HARD MODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






/end bragging

Aion: character selection for head-start is today

If you pre-ordered Aion like I did, then you've had access to the open beta for a while, and will be able to use the head start coming soon. Another bonus to pre-ordering is early character selection to reserve your name and server before the masses appear (though judging by the pre-order numbers, the masses are already there).

Pre-selection is today. A few hours from now, I'll be able to reserve two characters. I've been trying to get on the same server as Ixobelle, but recent developments in how the servers are differentiated has made his "last pvp server in the alphabet" policy seem a bit ill-fitting for this situation. Let me explain.

Out of nowhere, NCSoft has announced that half the servers are "west" and half the servers are "east", denoting which time zone they sync up to. This is important mainly because certain raids and pvp areas are only available at certain times, and it's expected, but not confirmed, that it will be related to the server times. Though I'm on the east coast, I expect to be playing Aion later in the evening, so I'll probably pick a West server, and I assume Ixo would want a west server as well, given his residence in California.

Beyond that, I've done a bunch of research on Aionsource.com, which is basically the MMO-Champion of Aion, to try to learn more about the West servers. Here's what I've come up with:

Yustiel is looking to become the west RP server, just as Lumiel is the East RP server.

Nezekan is actually an official Oceanic server now even though it's designated as US-west. This was announced rather suddenly, sending US guilds on that server scrambling to find a new home.

Vaizel is the self-proclaimed "roaming PvP server", and is looking to be that new home for the harder-core refugees from Nezekan.

Siel is one of the original beta realms, and has a chip on it's shoulder about it. The returning testers expect the server to be highly populated with knowledgeable, long-time players. Even though I've been in the beta for a long time, the implication that they are somehow special for it naueseates me a little.

Kaisinel is quiet, and is looking like it will be a lower-pop server. The early adopters expect this to make it more mature and family-oriented than the "ZOMG PVPZ" servers.

Ariel's community is looking pretty solid, and it's also the home of a large LGBT guild. Not to get political, but I'm a straight guy who strongly supports the LGBT community and enjoys hanging out with the LGBT people I've met, so I find that aspect kind of appealing, if only for the fact that they are less likely to use "that's gay" when they mean "that sucks", which is a pet peeve of mine.


So right now I'm leaning toward Ariel. Granted, the community on Aionsource is a limited sampling of only the most devout Aion fans, but hopefully it will at least give me some insight to help pick a server.

If I don't hear back from Ixo about a server soon, then I'll likely make on character on Ariel and another on the last pvp server on the list alphabetically, which means Zikel [East]. [edit: looks like Yustiel may be a better bet because it's west, so I'll probably be rolling Elyos there as my main server] For now, I'll be rolling Elyos on both unless I'm unable to make an Elyos with vaguely blue skin. So if you happen to want to come play Aion with me, just check if you can make a blue-skinned Elyos.

Oh shit, Zikel is going to be the home of the Goons! Can't decide if that makes me more or less likely to roll there. Certainly seems like it's going to be attracting some unsavory "competition" to that server.

I'll be naming them both Hatch, but the only question is, which class should I roll? I know for sure that my main will be a Gladiator, and my alt a Summoner. So should I roll two Gladiators because I don't know which server will become my "main"? Or should I roll one of each, and then roll a new Gladiator if it turns out I guessed wrong? I've got a few more hours to figure it out before I get off of work.

Happy weekend! *

*I don't live there anymore, but that's one of my favorite bars from back home

League of Legends is stealing my life.

Thanks a lot, Ixobelle.

There are a lot of WoW-related, and Champions-related topics that I'd like to write about, such as my Cataclysm impressions (still haven't gotten to that...short answer is I think Cataclysm is exactly what's needed, but I am still leery that they will half-ass the execution) or the recent shenanigans I've experienced from Champions Online (sudden nerfs, accounts arbitrarily unlinked from their product keys, and various other annoyances, all answered by kind and efficient customer service and a large patch of fixes, leaving me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth).

But I can't bring myself to write at length about any of that, because I'd much rather spend my downtime thinking about League of Legends. Dammit.

It's OK to use images from Gamespy as long as I link and credit them...right?

LoL is an RTS-style "Massively Online Battle Arena (MOBA)" game based on an insanely popular Warcraft 3 mod knowns as Defense of the Ancients. In both games, you control only a single hero unit from a list of about 40. Throughout the 30-60 minute battle, you and a team of 5 heroes will vie for control of the map against an opposing team of players, assisted by waves of footsoldiers who mindlessly throw themselves down a trio of turret-lined "lanes" that lead to the enemy base. Over the course of the match, you gather xp and gold (to buy items) to upgrade your Champion's stats, 3 special abilities, and "Ultimate" spell. All heroes in each match start as unequipped level 1's, so the game becomes a tug-of-war to outlevel and outgear the other team while killing their champs and avoiding death yourself, all the while trying to assist your foot soldiers at tearing down the opponent's towers and eventually their base on the opposite corner of the map.


DotA
The original Defense of the Ancients (DotA) map for WC3 is extremely complex, offering 95 characters, dozens of items, and a nice steaming pile of lingo and strategic standards and rules that are not apparent to a new user. And since dying keeps you from gathering XP while "feeding" gold and xp to the other team for killing you, new players can be a devastating albatross to their team. This has led to an insular community that will drive away all but the most determined and competitive prospective players. In fact, DotA's community has a reputation as one of the most repulsively belligerent and trolling groups of people in the entire internet. I experienced it myself when I tried the DotA map a few years ago, but soon gave up on it because of it's impenetrability and reliance on "advanced" strategies such as killing your own troops to deny your opponent xp and gold (fittingly known as "denying").


Enter LoL
The guy who refined the original DotA idea into the "All-stars" map that is in favor today, and was it's caretaker for many years, goes by the handle "Guinsoo". A few years back, he handed over care of the mod and disappeared from the scene, only to reemerge recently as one of the founders of Riot games, a game development company creating a stand-alone spiritual successor to DotA. Free from the restrictions of the WC3 engine, a lot about the game was changed in its LoL incarnation.

And for someone like me who was very interested in a game in the style of DotA, but found the mod too impenetrable, LoL hits all the right notes. I've played it literally every day since Ixo gave me a beta key a little over a week ago.

The beta NDA allows me to talk about the game as much as I want, but I can't post any of my own screenshots or videos. So all screenshots in this post are stolen from Gamespy's coverage of the game, written by the excellent Ryan Scott of the legendary, but sadly now-defunct, Computer Gaming World/Games for Windows magazine and GFW Radio (aka 97.5 The Brodeo).

What LoL does right:
1) Accessibility: Compared to DotA, matches are shorter and faster-paced, there are fewer champions to learn and they are easier to tell apart, stats are simplified, and effort is made throughout the game and the interface to help you along, including suggesting items for you and (promised but not yet implemented) robust matchmaking to prevent a noobie from being dropped into their first game with a group of angry veterans. Some of the less intuitive tactics, particularly creep denying, have been removed. Overall, it's just easy to pick up and play and to learn, but still very challenging. Expect to fail really hard for your first 10 matches or so, especially if you are learning on your own.

2) Atmosphere: The art direction is great, and well-executed. The maps are vibrant and colorful, while the Champions are distinctive and full of personality and humor. How could I not fall in love with a game where an eskimo boy riding a Yeti battles a crying baby mummy and a guy wielding a lamppost faces off with a little girl and her giant, flaming teddy bear named "Mr. Tibbers"? The game definitely takes after the "Blizzard touch" of personality and color, while making it all its own.

3) Playability: the game is quite responsive, the UI is good, the hotkeys are laid out intelligently, and there are a lot of Quality of Life improvements such as stat tracking and the ability to rejoin a game if you get disconnected.

4) Fun: the game is fast-paced and exciting, pretty to look at, and enjoyably competitive.

What LoL does wrong:
1) "Summoner" levelling: Unlike DotA and other spiritual successors, LoL adds a dash of MMO to the RTS mix in the form of the Summoner, which is a meta-avatar for the player which levels up from match to match, unlocking talent points and glyphs-oh, I'm sorry, I meant "masteries" and "runes". These give minor in-game benefits to your champion's stats and unlock Summoner Spells, which are abilities on long cooldowns that you can use regardless of which champion you picked. There are over a dozen summoner spells, but you can only pick 2 per match. On it's face, this seems like a nice idea. In practice, it means that you have to grind through about 40 practice games to power-level you summoner in order to be competitive in actual games. If you boot up the game and jump into a public match, the champions played by maxed-out level 30 summoners will wipe the floor with you. The bonuses for each level are small and far from game-breaking, but they add up. In such a skill-based game, it really sucks to lose to a worse player because they have bonus stats. Hopefully matchmaking in the live game will keep you facing off against those of similar summoner levels while you level up, which will help a lot with my unhappiness with the system. My solution in beta was just to grind up to 30 as quickly as possible.

2) Still not enough training: I really have to rely on the forums to train myself in the game. There's no tutorial (yet) and there no way for me to see the exact specs of powers and items without entering a game, so planning ahead of time is a challenge.

3) Retains some of my least favorite design choices from DotA. For instance, the death penalty is too high, since it not only takes you out of the fight for a while, but it also keeps you from gathering xp or money during that time while also giving a hefty reward to whoever killed you. This encourages over-cautious play and is extremely unfriendly to noobies, and leads to the notoriously goofy and counter-intuitive "run in, ok run out, now run back in-omg run out again" gameplay that DotA is known for, which tends to turn a lot of people off (though that fades in mid- and late-game, it's just the first few minutes that are like that really). I'm also not a big fan of "last-hitting": the mechanic where you get extra gold if you happen to be the player who got the killing blow to a creep or player. This mechanic encourages teammates to play against each other, rather than cooperate, as they compete for killing blows. Damage done overall becomes undervalued, because all that really matters is that last hit.

4) Lacking features: the most glaring of these is replays.

The game is clearly torn as it tries to strike a balance between the skill-based (and highly skill-differentiated) play of DotA and greater accessibility. It's true that denying, last-hitting, and the death penalty all add an element of skill and strategy to the game, and thus aren't categorically "bad". They just aren't to my taste. That doesn't keep the game from being, as a whole, a joy to play, but it does sully the experience for me, personally.

I don't make any money from this blog, so you can't sue me! PS: Send money!

Come LoL with me!
Hahahahaah c wut i did thar?!1

No seriously. LoL is a team-based game. I am teamless. Public games ("pub" games have exactly the same reputation as WoW "pugs" - dumb as a brick and twice as hard to swallow) are just not going to cut it forever.

You can get beta keys in seemingly a million ways:
-daily LoL forum beta key giveaway
-outside contests
-find a friend with invites to give out
-just beg for one on their forums (I can't believe this works...and what you get is an entire general forum where every single thread is "can I please have a beta key?")
-the game is free-to-play, but you can get quick unlocks, extra perks, and a beta key by pre-ordering the special edition package


Hope to see you there! I got the name Hatch in the beta, so add me as a friend if you aren't creepy or gross!

Nasty Explody Guild Drama of Doom

I'm preoccupied with some massive guild drama (yes, it only takes 10 to Dramatize, apparently), so I don't think I'll be able to write anything about games that doesn't end up being an angry, un-fun rant. So posting will be a bit sparse here until it clears up. If you don't like it, feel free to take it up with the National Association of Girls Who Can't Play But Whine To Be Carried, and their sibling association, the White Knighting Alliance of Guys with Terrible Judgement.

My Server is Down - Rediscovering WoW

Yesterday, in the midst of the summer slowdown, the 4-year itch, raid burnout, and daily quest fatigue ad infinitum, we looked at WoW with fresh wonder and joy once again.

And all it took was the End of the World (of warcraft).

In the "real world" something went very, very wrong at Blizzard's server farms. Perhaps they were trying a new system of powering the servers with Mountain Dew Game Fuel instead of the hamster wheel they had been using. Regardless, the upshot was that the virtual world of Azeroth ceased to be for nearly an entire day yesterday. At least for the most part.

Small fragments of the universe still existed, in the form of parallel versions of the world. With the vast majority of the servers down, my guild's main tank found solace by rolling a level 1 gnome warrior on one of the few remaining servers. He posted his location and new name on the guild forums, and as we all returned from school and work, one by one we joined his merry band of under-equipped, height-challenged adventurers through the snows of Dun Morough, both in-game and in-Vent.

It started as a simple goof, but quickly escalated into a bigger and grander goof. Our enthusiasm reflected off of each other and amplified. Soon, our dwarf hunter was pulling everything in sight so his four "pets" could more easily kill them. We were all working together to help our warlock learn to summon a simple imp, and facing down level 10 rare spawns with delirious determination. We were trading our meager findings - tattered rags, bits of leather and chain mail, old, rusted hammers - to try to put together some rudimentary kits to protect us from the elements and the vicious Winnebagos. I mean, Wendigos.

A white (much better than grey!) cape dropped from a treasure chest, sporting an as-yet-unheard-of armor value of 8! What a sense of adventure there was, exploring a new cave and discovering a treasure hidden deep within! The warrior asked if anyone wanted it, and our hunter ruined the moment by asking us to hold on while he "checked his spreadsheet to see if it's an upgrade".

We formed a guild called My Server Is Down(not very original, I know, not my idea), and wiled away the evening cracking jokes and killing ice trolls and gathering bear spleens. I refused to equip a mail chestpiece, exclaiming that "Paladins don't deserve to wear pants!" while keeping on my grey tattered cloth robe. I learned Hammer of Justice, challenged my guildies to duels, and then danced in front of them while they were stunned saying "ha ha I just stunned you from ranged and I wear plate" and then when it wore off, I would bubble and start dancing again.

I had forgotten how much more you appreciate a beautiful vista and an artfully-positioned reveal of a new area when you have to hike to it rather than flying past it at 280 miles per hour. I had forgotten how fun it was to wear whatever you found in a pig's belly, and just shoot the shit with your friends while you quested together and goofed off. No epics or strats or hard modes or calendar invites to AH or enchants to worry about. It made the game fresh for me, and reminded me why we started playing in the first place.

When our server came back up, we all promised to come back here between raids, to our tranquil little pool of fun. But I know from experience it's unlikely. Those epics and raids and dailies attracted us in the first place for a reason. But I hope we don't let go of the sense of wonder, joy and (OK cheesiness overload here) friendship that we got from it.

Maybe temporary armageddons aren't so bad after all.

Still around...

...missed my post today because we spent the entire day in work appointments. Will try to make it up tomorrow.

Oh, btw...

Yogg down!!!!

Me make bigga happy in mah pants