Paradise Seekers

We are the lost ones, the forgotten ones

The children who sought the secret paths;

We looked for something beyond this world,

This land that could never satisfy

We are the cold ones, the quiet ones

Who searched and did indeed find;

We came upon a truth, to others surprising,

But we had known all along.

We are the blinded ones

Whose eyes percieved the truths;

But having once seen, we turned away

And rejected, denied, ignored.

We saw the truth, the hideous truth

The truth of the hearts of humans,

The constant conflicts among mankind

Untamable by our hands.

We realized our own ineffectiveness.

That though we are, the others are so many more

Knowing this, we closed our eyes,

And built our worlds of dreams.

Who Defines American Culture?

Well, who does?

This occurred to me as I was sitting in a course on culture the other day. Everywhere the terms “people think <this>”, “people do <that>”, “people” blah blah blah. When I asked why? “Because that’s what our culture does.”

Yet for every “American culture” thing that was named in the class, I could think of someone I knew who was a counterexample. Now, of course, there are always “counterculture” people – human beings are not, despite the occasional evidence to the contrary, hive minds. But the deeper point is… we all consider certain things to be culture, but why? Because everyone likes them? But when you ask why everyone likes them, it’s “because they’re part of American culture”. Color me confused.

Is the Test for Blizzard or the Players?

So apparently all of the recent Beta invites were so Blizzard can stress test the beta servers, and/or see a facsimile of how the live servers will perform when WotLK launches. It’s a good idea, without a doubt, but the user-side resulting experience?

[1. General] OMG LAAAAAAAAAAG

[1. General] Server crashing in 3…2…

[1.General] Omg im going to go play a good game that doesn’t lag so much

<several comments later>

[1. General] [Kiriy] GUYS ITS A STRESS TEST FLAWRKJDKLJGDF

[1. General] wut?

[1. General] LAAAAAAAAAG

World server is down.

World server is UP! …just kidding, it’s still down. Roflmao.

Connecting…

Connecting…

Connected!

What, you wanted me to do something now?

<Recommend a realm>

You have been assigned to the Murmur realm.

<Do not want>

<Northrend>

Loading character list

Loading character list

Loading character list

Choose Realm?

<Asfjkdfl>

So yeah, they’ve definitely shown that something needs some work before the servers can handle WotLK day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go bash my head into the desk some more.

Thinking About Beta Rogues.

Now, this has been done before, and by people much more intelligent than me. That said, I’m still working on getting the Beta client and therefore have nothing better to do.

51/15/5 – A lot of my reading has pointed to Assassination becoming a particularly powerful tree. In BC, Assassination has been the ‘gimp’ tree; you put points into it to beef up your PvP or PvE spec, but hardly anyone goes all the way down the tree. (Yes, I know there are PvP Mutilate rogues out there. From what I can tell, however, they appear to be a rare breed, and the current positional requirement (more on this in a second) seems like it would be painful, especially in a PvP environment).

This spec seems like a possible strong DPS contender, albeit with no Blood Poisoning. The removal of Mutilate’s positional requirement is HUGE; if the number of BC raid bosses who like to do that “spin around to cast” deal is any representation of a trend, this will be a fantastic change. Adding that to the buffing of poisons makes Assassination begin to look very viable.

20/51/0 – The “Blood Poisoning bitch” spec. It loses Relentless Strikes in exchange for Improved Poisons. Now, this change may not be necessary; if the poison hit cap is lower than the melee hit cap, then it might be possible to hit cap poisons and move those 5 points to Relentless Strikes. The weapon specialization is also open to change; I chose Sword Specialization because, frankly, I have no data on the strengths/weaknesses of the new and improved weapon specs. One thing is sure, though; they’ll have to do something DAMN nice to get me to spec combat daggers again. Positional requirements are the devil.

Now, keep in mind this is by no means a comprehensive list of all possible specs. I’m still considering some sort of Hemo/Blood Poisoning penultimate raid debuff spec; the problem with Hemo in BC was the increase in personal DPS from speccing Combat/Assassination was greater than the raid DPS increase given by taking any sort of Hemo spec, once you hit a certain level of (easily obtainable) gear. A comparison (not perfect, but close) showed that, in T5-equivalent gear or so, my rogue dealt 200-300 DPS less, while Hemo, than she did while Combat. So to make up for it, the Hemo debuff would have had to provide 200-300 more raidDPS. Now I don’t have the brain for math, but I don’t think that’s right… and I shall close this post on that digressive note. If my thoughts are wrong, please, feel free to let me know.

Now, c’mere, little Beta… I promise I don’t bite…

And There Was A Shriek Heard Around the World.

The following is my thought process starting at 10:01 last night.

OMGBETA

Wait, maybe it’s a scam.

NOWAITHEADDRESSMATCHESUPANDOMGIMINTHEBETA!

…what’dya mean I can’t copy my rogue?

<0 copies left>

GIVE. COPY.

<0 copies left>

I dislike you.

<3 premade copies left>

Oh hey, premades. That’s… that’s okay.

<Male orc rogue or male gnome rogue?>

WHY DO YOU HATE ME I can’t stand playing male characters, and I can’t stand playing gnomes. Gnomes are just too silly (look at them!), and all the non-gnome male models are ridiculously over-muscled. Well, I suppose trolls are acceptable, and undead… well, undead look kind of silly, but they have that awesome dance

YOUR DIGRESSION DISPLEASES THE GODS OF SQUEE gods of squee? LOOK AT THE LEVEL 80 ROGUES

…wait, this is for the PvP testDAMMIT

…well, at least I’ll get to play with all the new shinies. Wish I could copy my rogue though…

Time passes.

NO COMPUTER I DO NOT WISH TO REBOOT

More time passes.

Oh hey, it’s done downloading.

License Agree-yes whatever take my firstborn I’m not reproducing anyway I hate kids

Instal-YES PLZ

Time continues passing.

<Downloading “WoW-3.0.1-enUS-patch.exe”>

What

<9.5 MB of 1.15 GB>

Didn’t I just

<About 9 hours>

WHAT.

So yeah, apparently I’m downloading the 3.0 patch or something… or the patch to the Beta or something… and I have to go to class at 9:30 and my computer wants to reboot itself which means I’ll have to do this all again.

:shrieks:

A Voice for the Voiceless: Prologue

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction, yadda yadda yadda.

Ten years ago, the apocalypse happened.

It was called the apocalypse because it shattered the world as people knew it, but it was neither the apocalypse of Revelations nor the one the anti-war factions had been predicting. No fire came from the sky; no bombs exploded on the ground or in the air.

All that happened afterwards.

When the apocalypse came, it came quietly, in the whispered truths of a white-haired girl.

They later called her the Herald of the Apocalypse, but at the time no one knew who or what she was. She appeared, inescapable, in each and every living human mind, from newborn to deathbed, and told them the truths of their lives.

Mass chaos ensued, and the world’s population polarized.

Those who came to accept their truths found themselves with enhanced forms, the passions of their lives displayed on their bodies. A gun enthusiast discovered his left arm had become one of the weapons he so loved; one who was at peace with herself found that she had gained the ability to make others feel that peace.

Those who refused their truths took on the forms of the sins they would not face. One who refused to acknowledge his blood son became a small child himself; another who refused to acknowledge her husband’s adultery, despite overwhelming evidence, became truly blind.

This is the story of those four, and one more.

It’s up.

And you know you want to see it.

The Tank Shortage

At this exact moment in time I am attempting to put together a heroic Magister’s Terrace group. We have:

*a combat rogue (yours truly)

*a retribution paladin

*a moonkin druid

*a holy priest.

Note what’s missing from this makeup? An actual tank. Now, I make jokes about being able to tank, as does the druid, but levity aside neither of us can actually tank something like heroic Magister’s.

So here I am, with a group with two members who could theoretically tank but aren’t, and it reminds me of how this is the problem I always run into when no guild tanks are online: it seems like no one wants to tank.

Now why might that be?
Let’s take a look at the three potential tanks.

*Protection warrior: I’ve tried to level a warrior twice, and hated it. They seem to have all the disadvantages (close-range) of a rogue, with none of the tricks we have. Not to mention all the whining I hear from 70 protection warriors not being able to solo very effectively, as well as the face-smashing allure of arms.

*Protection paladin: Paladins are the poster children of slow levelling. Seal, judge, seal, wait for the judgement cooldown. Judge, seal, wait. Judge, seal, loot, heal, drink… They also suffer from the soloing problems at 70. Once again, they also have the allure of face-smashing with Retribution, or… well, for some reason, most of the holy paladins I know have some martyr complex about being holy. “We spam two buttons and we love it!” (Don’t hate me. You know it’s true.)

*Feral druid: This is the one I don’t understand. Druids seem to be the easiest of the three to level, and equivalently the easiest of the three to solo with. The thing is, most of the druids I have met seem to be very staunch advocates of their particular tree. Moonkin power, hug a tree, go feral!

All that taken into consideration, the other concern that pops up is one I’ve frequently heard uttered by tanks: “I won’t tank for a PuG. It’s not worth my durability/time/gold.” And to be honest, I completely understand that concern. My gear may be cheaper to repair than a warrior’s or paladin’s, but I hate having my time wasted by the priest that AFKs for 20 minutes to walk the dog or having my durability wasted by the paladin who can’t hang on to one mob, let alone a whole pull. Not to mention all the people who try to tank/DPS/heal instances they are undergeared for, or who forgot to buy their Heroic key and have to go back for it/don’t know where to get it, or don’t know where the instance is, or…

How do we fix that? I wish I knew. If only there was a way to prove to a potential groupmate that you actually knew your stuff. Sometimes guild/friendly tanks/healers/DPS just aren’t online…