Yeah, so … no updates or something for a while. “IRL.” It happens. Lots of things to discuss, not a lot of time. That, too, happens.
I canceled my World of Warcraft account a couple months ago – more on that later. I have a standing copy of Aion, which has been quite fun so far. More on that later as well.
Are we sensing a pattern?
I’ve been reading a couple books of late, both I find fascinating. One is a collection of “Aesop’s Fables” and the other is a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species (6th edition). Both have been genuinely illuminating. Many of the colorful aphorisms we drown in every day date back far, far earlier than I realized. It’s interesting that many of these sayings I’ve heard attributed to biblical passages when the true origins dated back to the oral storytellers a millennium or so before quill was ever put to papyrus. As for Origin? Wow. Let’s just say I’ve never met anyone who articulated what he was actually saying. Most people, in fact, get it wrong. Exposure to this material would have been handy 15 years ago. Thanks again, public education.
In other news, I’m car shopping. What a nightmare. I think I have it whittled down to a couple solid choices. I’m past considering the wishlist vehicles and focusing in on solid price/performance comparisons. A couple more test-drives and I should be able to pull the trigger. Knowing myself as I do that may take months.
After much anticipation Blizzard has opened the StarCraft II Beta opt-in. In the beta test you will get an opportunity to provide your feedback on the overall experience, including units, maps, aesthetics, and more. We would also appreciate reports on any bugs you may encounter during your game-play experience.
We will be selecting account holders of Battle.net and World of Warcraft accounts who opted-in at random to participate in the much anticipated StarCraft II Beta. To opt-in for the beta test go to the opt-in page found here. Please be prepared to enter the current retail World of Warcraft or Battle.net account name and password you use. To be eligible to participate in the beta tests, you must have a valid retail World of Warcraft or Battle.net account active and in good standing as of July 17, 2009.
Needles to say my in was opted post-haste. Ever since WoW I’ve been keeping my eyes off most beta stuffs. Preferring to see completed (or laughably launched) products before I deign to open the purse-strings. I’ve stayed as far away from Old Republic to avoid clouding my judgment. The most I’ve visited so far is to check on beta status and nab a few swanky wallpapers.
After 2 days of battling the 1st Ulduar boss (the instance server) we finally managed to get IN the damned zone with 20-some. Flame Leviathan was a blast and, like most guilds, dropped it on our first run.
For the last couple hours of the day today the leadership and I had been discussing what to do about the legendary du jour if and when our first fragment dropped. Some things were discussed, not really things I liked, but it was a good discussion to have. My parting shot before I left work was “think about it over the weekend, we’ll vote on Monday”. I guess my assumption was that we’d get, at most, 2 bosses down tonight and that there’s no possible way we’d see this rare item.
“Ooops?”
So we had a quick meeting and voted on the course of action we thought best for the time being. not really something I was looking for, but such is life in a republic… or reasonable facsimile thereof.
Regardless, a big G-rats to my homeskillet Liandroa on his first fragment. Only 29 more to go!
I keep guild drama off the front page most days, but sometimes it’s cathartic to just vent. I’m pretty sure no one from my guild actually reads these pages so the risk is pretty minimal.
The core players in my guild have been around a long time, some going back years into EQ raiding on Prexus. In that type of mix of old/new players and grudges YEARS in the making, it’s a wonder we don’t have more angsty bullshit than we do… *knock on wood*
A few months a back we gained a couple players who were with us in the beginning on Stormrage. They left to join the #1 and #2 power guilds on the server and did the whole hardcore thing for a couple years. Their departure caused a few ruffled feathers. These guys are pretty caustic individuals. I don’t mean that in a bad way – I find their demeanor to be absolutely hilarious. But I’m not a 6-year-old-girl, either. I can take a hit and give it right back when the need arises.
What gets them in trouble is that they have no issues telling people the plain truth no matter how ugly it might be. Again, I’m a big fan of honesty. If you don’t say what you mean how can anyone take you seriously? So combine old grudges with their no-holds-barred truth-telling and you have the pack of dogs with bees in their mouths that I’ve got now. Tank A told tank B that he was frustrated with the quality of tank B’s tanking. Tank B threw a hissy and bailed on the raid all the while going batshit crazy in private about how he won’t put up with that shit and why weren’t we supporting him. It was a fun night, lemee tells ya. Tank B still isn’t raiding after two weeks, but he’s apparently found time to pug 25s and run some sort of clandestine 10-man operation. What can you do, really? My initial solution of throwing them both in a burlap bag and chucking it off the side of a boat was a non-starter.
Getting pissed off at other people for inexplicable reasons just bugs the shit out of me. Seriously. What the fuck is the point? Anywho, here’s a helpful life lesson from me to you – don’t be that guy. Just don’t.
I know, I know – impossible, right? I don’t recall mentioning it here, but the achievement system in WoW 3.0+ left me largely unimpressed. It never really registered on my radar for that reason, but tonight I feel the need to brag just a little.
We’re happily clearing heroic Naxx every week now so we’ve started peppering in more difficult Sartharion and Malygos attempts. Malygos is a beast in heroic and frankly pretty soul-crushing when shit takes a turn. If you give the thumbnail a whack and load up the hi-rez you can see the skeletons left over from the 2 or 3 previous wipes.
My team’s normally on top of things but these days the attention span is rather thin. Not so thin as to preclude our first Sartharion+1 kill tonight though, so hoorah for our side!
I don’t recall what the loot was but I’m sure the winners were pleased. I’m camped out at #1 on our suicide kings list patiently waiting my spot at the trough.
First full clear of heroic Naxxramas is under our belts. Not nearly as hard as I expected, but still far easier than I’d have liked. Sapphiron was tough, especially since a great number of our players haven’t seen him in Naxx-10 yet either. No Calamity dropped; maybe next week
I’ll throw some pics up tomorrow after my early appointments. The new dropbox sync I’ve got rolling on the various folders has been working slick!
No major news – hit 80 on the rogue on Friday morning. After Thanksgiving I just busted a marathon and 14 hours later my last 2 levels were toasty. Still haven’t run half the instances, so I’m picking up the heroics now for various achievements and gear. My T5/badges held up remarkably well. It’s only now that I’ve started to replace things, with about half my crap being new blues. I have about 9 weapons available right now, not happy with my choices. I won a 143dps MH dagger in a heroic the other night, but I dinged the factions for Ebon Blade and Wyrmrest to get the 130dps MH/OH sword combo. I’m in the process of building rage with Mutilate to just say “fuck it, DPS ain’t worth crying myself to sleep every night” so we’ll how it goes.
The highlights of my run? Almost entirely solo’d, picked up the epic flying mount (and a purple nether ray from the Skyguard) and am still flush with cash… or as flush as I need to be to support raiding and my normal day-to-day funzies. Leatherworking is coming along with leather farming bein the only issue.
All-in-all a fun beginning to the expansion. I’m looking forward to getting back into real raiding this week with a great semi-PuG Archavon run last night. I’m torn on the timing issues present in Lich King. On one hand it’s lovely to be able to get a lot of varied stuff done in any given evening, but on the other I think it’s weakening the playerbase. I’ve seen it in my own play and it’s readily apparenty in the play of others. All 5-man content I’ve done so far has beeen AE trash for 5-10 minutes, 90 seconds to kill a boss, rinse and repeat. That’s great for the mindless instant-gratification twats running around cryfacing because they couldn’t manage to put in the teeeeeniest bit of effort to do T5+ content, but what about those of us who like a little skill with our peanut butter?
Roll with it, I guess. I’ll throw some pics up when I get home. I loathe the daggers, but I’ve got a pretty striking silouhette.
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