When It All Falls Down

Some years are better than others. Sometimes things go really well for you and others they don't. I've been fortunate for the last few years. Things haven't been great but they weren't horrible either. So as the year has gone on I have to admit I am a bit weary from the string of expensive bad luck I've been dealing with.

First my monitor died earlier in the year. Now as irritating as this was it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I got a new monitor and things were moving along swimmingly for a good deal of time. Thinking my luck was looking up and really wanting something new on my baby, I bought a G11 keyboard. This was lovely for 2 weeks until my PSU died a slow death on me.

So I take the money I was saving for various things and buy a new one. Not the best in the world but it seemed to fix the problem. That seemed to be the end of the problems with my own PC for the time being. However my father's fell to a horrible virus over the summer and then my TV died in a power surge a month ago.

Thinking all was fine after I got that replaced my computer finally kicked the bucket 2 weeks ago. That wasn't so bad I guess, that is if I hadn't bought Cata already and had many many things I hadn't had a chance to back up on that computer. Still my Dad's worked and it was good enough for a while. So two days ago I get a new system as an early Christmas present and things seemed to be on the up and up for me. I get it all hooked up and everything restored and pop in the newer PSU I'd bought and my old video card cause its still working very well. All was glorious in those hours. Until last night.

Last night the card started crapping out on games. First in Fallout NV at a certain point in a dialog with a quest giver which really didn't send up many red flags. The game has its own glitches so I exit and try again only to have it lock on the exact same spot, this time locking my system completely. I start to panic but all wasn't lost right? I'd just been in WoW and everything was fine so it should still be right? Well lets just say that since then I haven't been able to log in on my brand new toy for longer than 20 minutes all day. Now I hadn't given up completely so I try my stock graphics in my mother board. I can't even run Cata with that.

So what do I do? I mean so far it could be something with windows 7 but that's not really the issue and I know it. Perhaps this string of events its just telling me to leave electronics alone. Maybe its even a sign that my time in Azeroth should end. I dunno what to do to be honest. I could be something with a win 7 update or it could be my card. Either way the deck is stacked against me.

That said this may be my last blog post ever here. If it is, it been fun. I've enjoyed ranting with the handful of you that have read my work. I apologize for my lack of post in the past months but life is greater than banter sometimes. Keep it fun guys.
-Edy

The Time They Are A Changing

Or rather the times they have a changed already.
The big class changes patch dropped last week and though I haven't taken the full amount of time I probably could have checking out the changes I have to say I am liking what I have seen so far pretty well. But before I get into what I do like I think I should get the bitching out of the way about the things I don't.

To start with I absolutely hate the Blizzard raid frames. Don't get me wrong, it was terribly nice of them to squeeze that in there but the things are more in the way than anything for me. I don't use the Blizzard stock frames for anything and I haven't for a long time. I'm not knocking them for being there but they just don't fit the layout I have for my UI theses days. I think they should have put an option in to turn it completely off rather than just a hide button that still shows a hideously big tab on the side. I haven't seen a way to move it either (not that blizzard's UI options have ever been movable without 3rd party help from what I have seen) but that would also be something nice for them to add in the coming expansion. That's about the only change I haven't liked so far.

The Blizz power auras have turned out to be pretty nice even if I am still getting use to them and what they mean. They provide a good start but it would be nice if they were customizable in some form like the addon they are based on but since they aren't they still work well with the original add-on for me. Overall I like them.

Now the thing I have been spending the most time on is getting use to focus on my hunter. I was one of the hunters that was completely hyped about losing mana and so far I still feel the same way. Its taking some getting use to but focus is working out fairly nicely for me. I am enjoying the more complex BM rotation (yes I went BM did you have any doubt I would) and also the new pet abilities. I cant even begin to express how nice it is to have such a large pet stable now. One thing I am missing I wasn't expecting to is my volley. I mean it was really only useful in WOTLK but as AoE heavy as Wrath has been it kinda sucks not being able to do a nice AoE like all the not as cool as me kids. Two places I came across that it really sucked badly in were the cleansing chamber going to Prof Putput himself and the damned gates in strat when I was farming something. Since our AoE is dependent on range AND explosive trap things that don't trip traps leave us a bit screwed. So I get to stand there and feel completely useless as I watch Snuggles spaz around the screen like a real kitty does and make random comments in vent. I am sure I will get used to things again though. Volley was fairly crappy in BC and so was rarely used and I am sure I will forget all about it once I am out of AoE fest Wrath for good. On the other side of the AoE spectrum, explosive trap and multi-shot proved way more effective than I was expecting in my raid last week. I wasn't as high as I used to be but I wasn't too far behind it either.

As for my other toons, I haven't taken the time to sit down with anything other than my DK at the moment. I've specced my paladin, warrior, and shaman as well but just haven't wanted to get into them just yet so I will give more updates as I do.

What I have been doing a lot of is enjoying how much better things are running for me in game now since the patch dropped. The water and updated graphics in some areas have been a welcome change for me as I often find myself wandering the landscape just to pass the time and get my memories in before they all go away. Sure the looks don't have all that much to do with how I play but you have to admit for a game that's nearly 6 years old, warcraft is covering her gray hairs very well. Still would be nice to get some character model updates but I can't complain too much about that.

All in all this has been a fun patch for me and given me a nice boost in my lagging desire to play these days.

- Eds

Feeling the Age Gap

I've been feeling my age for the past few weeks. No I am not yelling about "those darned kids" yet but I feel close to it. No this isn't exactly a WoW related post but WoW does play a part in why I feel this way. What has me feeling the gap is my views on entertainment and what it should and shouldn't do for me. Now what exactly do I mean by this? Well its simple. I see that my tastes in games, movies, music, and the likes are much more demanding than those younger than me it would seem. I prefer the quality of my entertainment products to the flashy, overly marketed package most things try to pass off as quality these days.

Now its not like I just starting thinking about this for no reason. A podcast I was listening was the trigger for me when they brought up teenage relatives and how they want more gore and in your face graphics in their horror movies. Now at first I just ingested this statement and thought about it quickly and found I agreed with it for the most part. I didn't really dwell on it though, so that podcast came and went and I didn't think about it again for a while. But its like that statement flipped a switching that was partly on to completely on and I started to actually pay attention to comments on various media I was using. For example, I was in Dalaran watching trade as I chatted with some guildies and somebody popped up and asked if anybody remembered Q-bert. I was surprised by not because of the normal trade banter on my server but rather because Q-bert wasn't the kind of game someone after a certain age would know about at all unless they were some sort of collector or game historian. Keeping this short, I whispered the guy and we had a little chat and he was indeed older than me and though neither of us really got into the old "new verses old" game debate the feeling still presented itself.

Next up is looking at my love for horror movies. I was watching a Cronenburg movie that was from like '79 and out of curiosity I started reading viewer comments as I waited for the movie to load. One of the first things my eyes landed on was a post by somebody that said they couldn't get into these sorts of old movies. First thing that clicked in my mind about this was even though I am a child of the 80's, I never really thought of a movie that isn't from the early 70's and back to be "old". Next I felt sad for the person that wrote that since that was closing yourself off to a lot of really good movies that blow anything made in the last 10 even 20 years out of the water. But that is a matter of tastes and conditioning. American horror movies are a shell of their former greatness with constant hashing of poorly made remake after remake of classic movies that in no way needed remakes and recent Asian horror that has no business being Americanized because the cultural details that made it work in the first place are lost in translation, as well as gore porn movies that have no purpose other than to shock and gross the audience out but cant even do that well anymore because there are 10 other movies on the market at the same time with the same gimmick. Now while I have a personal dislike for those shorts of movies I wouldn't hold it against the people that happen to enjoy them. It's more I just find it interesting that I would feel that way towards a comment like that when I am probably not very much older than the guy that posted that. (note: i have no idea how old the guy was exactly)

As for games, these have made me feel the gap more than any other form of entertainment. Maybe its because the technology has progressed so far in games or it could simply be the fact I was blessed enough to be born around the time that games looked like colored blobs vaguely resembling people and object so they had to be fun in other ways to keep people buying them. Story and game play were the selling points rather than how pretty something was. Now I am not just rambling about the hay-day for no reason. Last night I was looking at the sales email from Gamestop and saw the link for Cata on it so I decided to check it out since I haven't made up my mind how I wish to purchase the game yet. First comment on the page was somebody saying they couldn't understand how Blizzard could still have so many fans using outdated engines and what not. So wait. As long as a game is pretty and requires you to pay out the ass for a system that came play it, its worth spending the money on because it has to be good? I understand WoW isn't the most up to date game in looks but it must be doing something right to keep millions of people playing it for all these years when its competition can't. I'm not trying to say it couldn't look better but to be as widely playable as it is the game is damn pretty. Also why should you care it doesn't look like Age of Conan or the newer mmos that are coming out or have come out? As long as my game can pull me into its world, keep me there, and keep me entertained, I don't really care its not the best looking thing on the market. I would take Final Fantasy VI over any FF after 9 gladly because the story isn't utter crap. The original Silent Hill still makes my pulse race even thought the graphics look horrible. The first Fatal Frame still scares the crap out of me after all these years and it certainly isn't as pretty a game as things that came out just a few years after. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is one of the best games I ever had the pleasure of picking up but its still ugly by today's standards. I would take any one of those over 80% of the games out today. Still I know that I most likely couldn't sit any of my teenage cousins down and expect them to have a good time with those same games. Its not their fault, its the fault of marketing and sellers. Still if I could sit one down and get them to play Streets of Rage and admit it was fun I would find it a moral victory.

The age gap isn't a bad thing, its just a weird feeling. Its the feeling that I am the odd one out. Its the feeling of a wall being built and its one I am not sure if I like or dislike. All I know is I hope one day I can come across someone younger and we can have a nice talk about some classics so I know that there are still people that respect quality being born.

My Logic, It's Strange Logic But Still My Own

So as we linger in the last days (well months but that doesn't sound as good) I haven't had a lot of things to write about. Now its not like I haven't been keeping read up on blogging topics and beta news its just everybody else seems to have a hell of a lot more things to say on those matters and better than I could at the time. That said, tonight I was given a topic from a guildy of mine and I figured Ed needed to take a deeper look at what he brought up.

The Discussion

Now, if you are unaware I happen to call a PVP server by the name of Daggerspine my main home. Its where I was hazed into Azeroth, where my friends are, and where my lovely if not dis-functional guild family are. There are many "special" people there that make me want to strangle them as well but D-spine is my home, and I love it greatly.

So where am I going with this? Well you see, gentle reader, I logged on for Elune knows what reason tonight and as I went through my usual lag hell of porting into Dalaran, one of our more "interesting" people jumps me in guild chat with his usual begging for a duel. I said no. Now you would think that he would let it go that this point but since he is like a little puppy you have to shoo away numerous times before he is satisfied with your rejection and he proceeds to ask me why. My response is a simple one.

I don't duel.

So of course the puppy isn't ready to stop nipping my ankle. "Well why don't you like dueling?" Why don't I like dueling? I didn't know I needed a specific reason to dislike a certain aspect of the game but whatever.

Cause I don't like PVP.

Now I am not sure why but this seems to have blown his mind. "So wait...you play on a PVP server and you don't like PVP?"

Now lets look at this for a moment. Perhaps I am the odd one out but I wasn't aware that it was a rule that I had to like PVP to play on a PVP server. If that was the case then why can you instance, quest, and do the other 90% of the things you can do in the game with out having to kill members of the opposing faction if you don't want to. Now as I had to explain to this guildy, "don't like" does not equal "hate". I by no means hate PVP in any manner other than getting ganked on low level toons. Hell, I don't even hate that in all honesty. Its more a right of passage to BE on a PVP server than anything else in my eyes. I do find myself in PVP situations once in a while as I have even posted here. What I don't like about PVP is battlegrounds, arena, and dueling, and before you ask YES I have done all of them to a fair amount which is how I came to understand they weren't things for me. World PVP I find more enjoyable even though its not like when I came in the game in BC or the epicness I hear other members of the guild talk about from time to time.

Ed-Logic

So what I find myself wondering about this is am I the one that's wrong in my logic? Just because I don't enjoy most forms of PVP does that mean that I shouldn't be on a PVP server? It is not as if battlegrounds and arena are exclusive to PVP servers, though I will admit I might enjoy them a bit more if they were to return battlegroups to like PVP servers together and PVE servers together but its not gonna happens so I wont dwell on it. The fact of the matter is that Blizzard itself took out the PVE shouldnt PVP with PVP servers thing itself so why would it be so odd that a person like myself would like calling a PVP server her home but gets more enjoyment out of PVE content. Does it also make me weird that I have a second home on a RP PVE server but I don't actively RP there? Suppose I take this a step further and tell you that I randomly role play my toons on my main server when we are just messing around? So should I pack up all my good and head to that other server? I'm gonna go with a no.

For one, I rather enjoy the thrill of being on a PVP server when out and about doing my farming or questing. I rarely actively look for fights but I am more than happy to take on a challenger from time to time. It keeps things lively. When I am on the PVE server I can only play for so long while questing. Things get a little dull to me when you don't feel the need to look up once in a while to see if anybody sporting a red name plate decided you looked at them funny. I feel a little odd when somebody from the other faction rides up next to me at a neutral quest giver and doesn't eyeball me just like I am them wondering if either of us will pull the trigger. Worst of all seeing a lower zone under attack in a contested area and not having to worry if the people doing it are going to get bored and scout you out. I cut my teeth as I was camped from level 20 to level cap and fought many a battle since then. Forgive me if I find it more exciting to do my PVEing as bodies pile up around me on my PVP server.

Do what ya like

If you wish to take the purpose of a server literally by all means call me an idiot and poke me with pointy sticks till I go away. I don't believe I am now nor have I ever been wrong about believing one should play on the server they feel best suits them. As long as what you do doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of those around you too much I say do it. And to my "confused" guildy, remember the hour I went toe to toe with you in Undercity before you decided the alliance wasn't for you. You got me once then and I know you want a little revenge. So keep this in mind. I might not duel but if you really want a fight you can always go back. *Smile*

Finally It Happened To ME!

Now after that musical interlude I have an announcement.

Thats right boys and girls. Edy kicked that stupid troll in the teeth so hard that his tiger finally came out last night. We were so in shock that my pocket tank Scrawny didn't even think to eat the bastard as per custom. Hell I am still in shock it finally dropped after a year and a half of trying. Many thanks to Scrawny for sticking with me till the end.

Well as you can guess my glee was extremely high so in a very rare moment that I reserve only for the highest of personal achievements I hop back in guild chat after dancing around my room like a woman possessed and said "I must shoot something to spread the love". Four other guildies thought this was a fine idea and off they set to STV so we could ride into Stormwind to show them my new toy. So I parked myself in the Grom inn and tend to something irl real quick only to come back and find a corehound chewing on my rear. The hunter did manage to get me to a forth of my life before I un-AFKed but Eds just rolled up a news paper and smote the hunter he belonged to and his DK buddy with extreme prejudice.

After the others showed we picked up shop and rode to SW to say hello for a while and though they put up a bit of a fight it wasn't enough to keep us interested. One tram ride later we decided to see how the killing was in Ironforge.

The Commons were pleasant so we decided to have a piggy until somebody showed up to fight. They never did. After locking down IF for who knows how long we go back to SW and I found this.

If ever there was a reason kill humans this is it. The damn things are POSSESSED by some sort of Azerothian demons. THEY FLOAT.

Anyway we stirred up a real fight and one last hurrah before we split and called it an evening. All in all a good night.

In other news M.A.S. has moved from 7/12 to 10/12 in ICC with a great run last week. All that remains in our path is Sindy and the king Lich himself. Gotta admit its been a good week for ya gurl.

Don't Tread On Other's Fun

Instancing in WoW has always been a bit of a love hate relationship with me ever since I started running them back in BC. Sometimes its incredibly enjoyable, others you want to just log out for a month and see you feel after. For the past week or so while dealing with some personal issues IRL I have been working on my alliance guised hunter to keep my mind of things and over all its been a blast running instances I never did on Edy herself since I didn't have a need to bother with grouping until I hit Outland. Most of the groups I have gotten have been fairly efficient when we ran, not a lot of tanking over pulls or dps doing stupid things that killed us all, just calm easy runs with a few chats here and there. Even with the bad groups it wasn't anything that ruined the mood for me. If the group broke I just re-queued and hoped for better the next time. Today seemed to be the build up of all the bad groups I've missed so I could have back to back irritation as I made my rounds.

Now its not like any one thing is worth complaining about with most runs. Some were just groups that didn't have a shot to begin with but I will say that running heroic Halls of Reflection twice and not getting the first boss down on either go of it was not a good way to start out. The next run on Eddey (night elf hunter) was kinda like salt on the wound. Normally I can deal with bad groups and it was very obvious from the start this was a bad group as when I got in the healer promptly decided his was to go was better than the tank's so the tank and another party member who followed the priest died and the tank left soon after with the healer running ahead of him the whole time. That was, ok. That kind of thing is relatively normal these days though I am a firm believer in "follow the tank" as he is the one that gets beat on so that we may kill the baddies but what do I know? So the shammy and dps warrior who seemed to know each other talk it out and the warrior begins to tank as we wait for one in queue. Now I am not a tank nor do I profess to know how to tank other than the "oh shit" tanking I do as a hunter when things get bad or the aggro gets a little loose but I would assume if you are tanking multiple mobs as a warrior you would need to thunderstomp and the likes to get aggro so they don't go all over the place like marbles that have pointy things. I, as I have learned will be part of my job in the lower level dungeons, had to hunter-tank (not my favorite past time) nearly all but two of any given mob no matter what I did. Again this didn't bother me. What bothered me was in the middle of this chaos the damn shaman decided to inform me I was supposed to be survival and then went on to explain how he was right and I was wrong because he had an 80 hunter and that made him king genius.

[P] Shammy: You should be SV
[P] Eddey: I happen to like BM
[P] Shammy: but you get more dps as sv
[P] Shammy: i got a 80 hunter i would know
[P] Eddey: thats nice, I have an 80 hunter as well and have played all the trees. I find SV irritating and MM boring.
[P] Shammy: but sv is better
[P] Eddey: you play your way I play mine how about that?
[P] Shammy: geez guy no need to be mad

"No need to be mad," he said. Considering he was the lowest dps and I was at about 40+% of the damage done, was tanking, and doing what I was supposed to be doing in general I'd say I was pretty ripe to get mad. Don't get me wrong I have had plenty of people try and "tell" me how to do my hunter thing. Most I just let roll on by but this guy had to have picked the worst time to say something so stupid. I also might want to clarify that we were in Sunken Temple and in our damn 40s. There is very little difference in specs at those levels to be honest and God help me if I ran with tanking like that in a spec other than Beast Mastery.

I don't nor have I ever believed that somebody should be forced to play in a manner that they do not enjoy no matter how well or sub par something preforms. I have been blessed enough to run with people that are not obsessed with Elitest Jerks and crunching number, or just do whatever people say they should cause its the it thing. In general we play to have fun and perform where we should. When I switched to SV it was to help cause I didn't feel like feel like I was pulling my own weight at the time. I hated SV so I gave MM a shot and liked it better. When Cata hits I will most likely be raiding BM again depending on how I like it. Why? 'Cause I have a genuine love of the spec and how it works. Would I bitch at somebody in an instance because I think all hunters should be BM? Hell no. I even have guildies that raid BM right now and I am completely cool with that. Why? 'Cause its fun for them and when you play a game, damn it, that's what supposed to happen. We wouldn't have choices if we were supposed to do it one way.

As for the end of my run with that group, well things were pretty much ruined for me once that idiot started. We got a new tank but he was just as bad as the warrior and couldn't hold aggro. I snapped at him but apologized and left. It probably could have been a fun run too but I just couldn't get into it anymore. So next time you feel the need to give advice on spec and what not in a 5 man and you weren't asked to just stop, think about what you are about to say, then don't say it. Its a damn 5 man instance. Its not life or death. Its not 10 - 25 people running around in circles for hours. If its a random, these aren't people that logged on to the game to have you berate them for doing something in a manner that you wouldn't. Just shut up and play. Its more fun for us all that way.

Glad I Got Beer For This

I was going to use this song with another topic but hell with all this Blizzard bombshells this week I figured why not, does kinda go with things. *cough* Anywho, unless you have been living under a rock for the last few days I am sure by now you have at least heard of Blizzard's brilliant idea to make our Real IDs the way we use the forum. So fairly soon there will no longer be the privacy of having a fake name to post under but instead your first and last names displayed for the whole internet to see. They say its for trolls, I think its more somebody hasn't really thought about just how violating this really is.

Now I don't wanna go worst case scenario, so I will just look at it from a common stand point. I simply don't want everybody to know my real name. If I did I would have made a damn toon with my damn name on it. My name isn't all that common I don't think it would be taken. I have been on the internet for years and managed to keep my name to the damn facebook account my friends talked me into getting as we were leaving college. And on the subject of Facebook (who blizzard seems to be copying) You dont even have to use your real name there if you don't want to. As little privacy as it seems Facebook does still have options to limit what about yourself people can see. Most importantly when you get a Facebook account you know you will have to give this information. That's what the site is there for. WoW is a damn game, when I signed up it was to play a game not give somebody another way to stalk me.

Next problem I have is the rumor Blizzard employees will not have to show their names. If that BS happens I smell boycotts. "They cant afford to have their privacy compromised". What the hell? So they are more important than everybody else that's being violated because they work for you?? So if some freaky dude gets cheezed off because I disagreed with him on the forums decides to look me up and track me down and does something to me its not a problem? The players have to deal with the same idiots and asstards (yeah I know I was trying to keep the profanity down but this word is needed) so why should you get any better treatment than we do? If they are going to punish the fan base like this we should ALL suffer, employees included.

*Deep breath* Whew I feel a little better now. Look its not like I am completely against every change Blizzard comes up with. I wasn't keen on battle.net but after a bumpy start thats worked out pretty good. I am even all for the Real ID system for cross game interaction. What I am not ok with is when you tell me something that goes against everything I have ever learned about internet safety. You NEVER use your personal information where others can see. A name is personal and you can find out a ton of things about people with only their name. I get they wanna stop trolls but there is a simple action they could use that would work the same way with none of the drama. How about they make us pick, oh I dunno, a user name. Lets see...ooo and that user name could be how we post. Wait a minute I have seen this in action before...oh I know, ITS HOW EVERY OTHER FORUM WORKS DAMN IT! God forbid they use something thats been around for years and works just fine and doesn't violate privacy. Until they pull their heads out their asses I won't be posting on the forums any more (not that I did often) which also means I won't be buying anything else from them as they have a less than stellar online shop that has a tendency to break down and *gasp* require you to post on the forums to have something done. If I get hacked again...well thats just that. If they tell me I have to post for help there then by God my account and Edy and the game just end there. Their isn't much they could do that could make me just walk away from WoW as I still quite enjoy the game but this very well could be the kill shot if this becomes the in game standard as well.

My name is Edyion in wow and here. My RL avatar has nothing to do with Azeroth as it is not her reality. She would like it if things remained that way.

Oh and yes I saw the new changes to the talent trees but after this kind of thing that doesn't matter. Game play changes do not effect my everyday life.

Rhumba Rhumba Rhumba

What's this? Edy is making an entry?? Has Blackrock frozen over??? No gentle reader, Edy has returned for the time being and she is bring random music with her! Ok so there is no real reason for the video other than I like the song and it was incentive for me to do a blog entry for the first time in ages. Did have the word rumba in it which, of course, is pretty much the name of a new hunter talent in the coming expansion. Fabulous as that spell is I don't actually intend on talking about the news given after the NDA was lifted this week. Why you ask? Well its simple, I can't get worked up every time we get new news. Don't get me wrong I am as giddy as a school girl about hunter changes as well as terrified (a good terrified though) its just between now and the time the expansion actually does hit the shelves and our hard drives, things will have changed, people will pout, the masses will scream "it's the end!" just like the do anytime something happens. That's tiring and I decided to sit this round out and just look at things that wont spoil too much for me. That said I will give you a little fun thing that happened when I noticed the NDA was gone. First thing I did was popped over to MMO-champion and looked to see just what all was up on there and I skimmed the hunter changes really quickly. About half way through my reading I decided to look at the talent calculator and see what was what first hand. Once I past how different things look I start popping in points then it dawned on me I had no idea how to spec. Now it wasn't like that was earth shattering in itself but it was the fact it's bean almost 2 years since I was that clueless about a spec (meaning BM, though MM and SV didn't take me too long to figure out how to spec). As I looked at the tool-tips there was just so much going on, focus regen out the ass, names of effects on spells we don't even have yet, and wondering various other things about what would be good to have from the other trees now. It wasn't a bad feeling to be so lost like that but it really sent it home that I really am gonna have to learn everything all over again. That feeling also made me realize I needed to back off the info surge and just wait it out, sit back and enjoy skimming things from time to time.

In WOTLK news M.A.S. has been semi-busy raiding for the past month or so. I say semi because we still don't have a completely stable core 10 (or core 6 for that matter) so its still a lot of switching and adjusting but even saying that we have been trucking along nicely with ICC. In general the runs have been fun, even with the starting like an hour late from the posted time. There are still a few rough spots but all in all the improvement has been great and we are presently at 7/12 bosses. We have also been trying to do Ulduar hard modes but those have been lack luster sadly. Its not all that great trying to P.U.G. people to fill runs that need coordination but the trying has been fun. I can't say that the consensus that Edy must be sacrificed to Flame Lev has me all that thrilled but once we get that one out the way I will be happy.

Still trying for my tiger from ZG (starting to think they have somebody monitoring me and laughing every time I go in there to try for it) and I am hoping against hope it will drop before Cata gets here. My warrior is up to level 80 and I must admit Fury is a blast to play. *taps forehead* Hmmm...well I guess that's about it for whats been up with Edy. Not really much to talk about but I think that's gonna change soon.

Oh yeah and if you haven't checked em out you need to hear the goblin and worgen jokes at http://www.wow.com. Most of them are over the top but they are funny and worth hearing anyway. Until next time, happy hunting.

Happy Mother's Day

A happy Mother's Day to all your mothers and mother type people around the globe. Enjoy your day and I hope its a pleasant one. Now if you will excuse me I am off to enjoy my child free time from children that might as well belong to me.

Info Days and Nerd Rage

Title may be a bit misleading but you know what? I don't care. Both will be part of this post its just the nerd rage is not my own. As we all know and have seen (well those of us that keep up with WoW news like a broke crack-head stalks his dealer when he says he's out) probable class changes have been announced for all classes but Paladins. And while Ty is pacing outside waiting for her turn to see what knew shines she gets the Ed has a few things she wants to comment on. That's right kids, its time for Ed drools over hunter goodness.

Lets start with the new buttons that will be filling up more bar space I don't have. At 81 us hunters will be getting Cobra shot, which is a nature based shot and shares a cool down with steady shot. At 83 they will toss Trap Launcher at us (see what I did there?) that will take the place of the current frost arrow and work with all traps. Finally at the cap we will get a tasty skill called Camouflage that will make us unable to be attacked by ranged attack and give us an attack bonus when we attack from it.

Now starting with Cobra shot this shot is making your dear Edy drool on herself a bit. From what I've read this shot is the shot they are aiming to make the Beast Mastery signature shot though all specs will have it. Beast Mastery will have something in tree to make the shot more appealing to us to the point it completely replaces steady shot. Kinda like how Explosive shot and arcane shot work for Survival hunters. Whats this mean to me? Well for one it makes me a happy Edy. Not because its going to be a huge DPS increase or something of the sort but simply because its something new and fresh to add flavor to a spec I already love. Beast Mastery has always been about the pet but all specs have pets so it will be nice to have a hunter shot tailored to the hunter rather than the pet in a spec that was beginning to suffer a handicap from so many pet buffs, nerfs, and scaling problems as it was.

As for Trap Launcher I have one thing to say. Flying snakes. I have needed a reason to randomly yell "eat snakes beeotch" again and well Blizzard seems to have heard my cry. Now if they would just make the damn snakes worth something again...

Camouflage. Well I am a little up in the air about this one. The words that describe it sound good and all but I wont know how I feel about the skill until I see just how useful it is. I mean I can't get super excited by every spell they give us.

With the spells out the way lets get to the meat of things, the over all class mechanic changes:

Mana goes byebye.
I am BEYOND happy to see this is getting closer to the live servers. Mana is a pain for hunters even with our in class regeneration skills. We burn it in seconds and are stuck with juggling aspect of the viper to regain enough to burn again many times over in a fight (though I will be fair and say its more a problem in raiding situations and leveling than any other time) unless we have mana regen in the party buffs or are specced for the mana regen in Survival. We aren't really set up to benefit from mp5. Though to be honest my biggest gripe with mana is the fact that it really doesn't fit the class itself. Hunters are weird. Our attacks are physical. If I were to get silenced you know what it would do? Stop me from rezzing or healing my pet. That's it. I can still shoot you with all my shots and stings. I can still do my defensive stuff. I think I still drop traps (not something I do a lot of in silenced situations so don't string me up for not being certain on this one at 1AM). So other than things I may or may not need to do to my pet what exactly is it that makes me as a hunter a magic user? Yes I know I am a blood elf in game but their are rogues and soon to be warriors in my race. Magic is not a must so I wont advocate for keeping it just because of that. Focus might seem scary now to most hunters but I'm totally ready to try it out. True it will take some getting use to but what changes don't? Ty was worried about the ret pally's loss of intellect on dps plate but those mechanics worked out just fine. So I figure why fret over it until I see something about how its working on the test realms.

Ammo is no more.
I may need new pants the day I see my quiver filled with formerly useful arrows just waiting to be sold to the vendor and a quiver that at that point will turn into a 28 slot bag than only hunters can use. I can hear the QQ now from engineers on their lost gold income and everybody else about the bag but you know what? Edy don't give a damn. I don't see how paying 3 to 10 gold per 1000 arrows that I absolutely have to have to function in my class is fair. Does having a pet mean I have to pay more than the rest of my raiding group just to do my job? Yes other classes need things like poisons and seal of kings to do part of their job in a raid but does that cost them as much as it does a hunter? Can a rogue still not attack a target if they forget to buy poison? Why yes they can. A hunter cant. Best we can do is be a warm body to fill a spot until you find somebody that can attack and actually DO real damage. Can a paladin still buff without seal of kings? Of course they can. Just would take an hour to do one by one but it can still be done. Not like you have to have the blessing to function as a class. Now even take into account hunters use two different types of ammunition in arrows and bullets. You cant fire a gun with bullets and vice versa. That's a lot of extra cash from a class just to be able to function. Now am I saying I am completely thrilled to see ammo go? Well yes and no. While they can't take the cost out of the game fast enough I am a bit sad they are just taking it away all together instead of giving us some sort of ammo item that worked like a regular piece of gear (I was never fond of the elemental arrow items idea myself but it was an interesting one) and could have done cool things. But once I sat down and actually thought about it the removal seems the most logical way to deal with the problem of ammo. Also hunters wont be the only ones to benefit from not having to carry ammo around. Sucks the other classes that can use bows and guns wont be able to keep the a quiver or ammo pouch as a bag. That last thing sounded sincere yes?

Gotta catch em all.
More pet storage makes me beyond happy. The current five slots are nice (I remember three and cant imagine what hell it was to have less than that) but with all the cool pets they keep adding you just don't want to have to give up something you really like just to get and try something new. So as it stands hunters will be able to have 3 active pets with them in call stable at all times and several more in reserve that can be switched with the active ones at a stable keeper. I am a collector by nature so the thought of getting pets based on looks and tossing them in the reserves CAUSE I CAN is like putting me on cloud nine. Some pets are also getting their debuffs/buffs reworked so hunters can bring more utility when taking pets into party situations. This is something I also can't wait to see how it works for myself. I have snuggles and as far as I am concerned he is all I need. Still the possibilities....

Pet from level 1.
Now this is an interesting change for the class. I feel a little mixed about this. Not so much because its making the game easier but more because I wish they had this when Edy first picked up her bow. Getting to level 10 as a fresh wower is a bit overwhelming to get used to. You also play for 10 levels in a manner that really doesn't fit the way Blizzard wants the class to work. Now purest (A.K.A. old grumpy bastards that cant let anybody else have fun) say those levels teach us how to kite. Lets be honest here. I cant speak for everybody but I know I did my share of melee when I first got my account and thought nothing of it. Hunters have ranged AND melee weapons. Why would somebody in the game know that they shouldn't stand there and whack away at the thing they shot to get its attention. I did pick up on kiting fairly quickly after getting tired of getting chewed on but I am a gamer and have been for years. Problem solving is one of the things I enjoy when I game. That in no way means the person that doesn't think "I need to kite" when they are getting chewed on is stupid. It just means they play differently. A pet from level one isn't going to dramatically change the number of hunters that don't know how to kite. When you pull aggro off your pet you learn real quick to run away and shoot it to let your pet get aggro back. All level one pets are going to do is help people have more fun when they role a new toon and start seeing what the game is about. Also will stop a lot of bitching (myself included) from hunter addicts that like to roll a new one from time to time then remember how bad it sucked getting to level 10 without a pet.

Emphasis on ranged.
Yeah hunters are ranged. Blizzard says we dont want you whacking on things all willy nilly since some of us don't seem to understand we don't really hurt things like that. So mongoose bite is going bye bye for sure and who knows what they will do about our dead zone or if we will be able to still whack on things at all. Unless they say we cant use melee weapons for stats I really won waste my time thinking about this one.

Everything else you can read on your own since they are just stat things that I don't have to wait my breath on.

Now as you can see I am far from the "we are doomed" camp about changes and I tend to be pretty open to whatever Blizzard wants to try as long as its fun and keeps the feel of the class/spec. In fact crying over something that's months away kinda irritates me. If you don't like a change don't nerd rage about it and don't just assume its going to kill your class. Blizzard may get things wrong but you have to think about information like this as a chance to make yourself heard to the company in an open forum to say "have you thought about maybe not doing this or X doesn't sound like something that's a great idea". They have proven they do listen when we speak sometimes and are probably more likely to listen when peoples aren't yelling how they suck without explaining why. Things will change between now and the time I get to get my hands on the expansion or the patch with the class changes. You won't see me flip out about the changes and rage away (my rage is special and can not be used without good reason). I want to see the game I love get better and become more fun. If a change is coming I will wait and see what it does. If I don't like it...well maybe its time I find something else to do with my free time.

Edy has spoke.

This Is A New One On Me

Ok so it's not often I feel the need to step in and take the place of my sister on this blog but by the light this is just something that I can not get an understanding of.

Whats that? I cant understand what? Oh sorry I suppose I should at least pose the issue that has this little Paladin so confused. Well as Edy was off doing smelly hunter things I chose to find a group of like minded random souls to descend in the fiery undead depths of Forge of Souls I noticed a fellow light bringer looking for services in the trade channel.


Ok in case I need to be clear about what light bringer confused me I will give you a hint. It wasn't the soul asking for a healer for Naxx even if he was insistent about needing the help and since I wouldn't know what 6.9 or baja have to do with anything there aren't many options.

So I know I'm merely a Retadin of the Blood Knights that occasionally dabbles with the holier side of my calling, ranged heals is a new one on me. At first I thought this Krage person was merely running their words together. It happens to the best of us when we are in dire need of assistance (lord knows Edy is bad about it) so I was about to leave it at that and go about my day, but this person just kept asking for ranged heals. The tank was later dropped from the request (I would assume that somebody understood 1 tank just fine but when one gets hit in the head for a living you cant be too sure) but the ranged heals request remained constant. Even after I returned from my romp through the Forge laying holy waste to everything in sight this poor person was still asking for ranged heals. So it as this point I begin to question myself. I don't go prancing around healing people all that much (I prefer sticking the pointy ends of my axe in things with glowy hammers of divine justice surrounding me) so perhaps somebody slipped one past old Tytanya when she wasn't looking. Wouldn't be the first time. Still as far as I know there is no such thing as a melee healer...though I suppose it could be made to work. See from what I was taught unless there are specific circumstances involves those of us flinging life energy around don't like being up close and personal all that much. Also it would be rather inconvenient to only be able to heal the person standing right next to you. Yes I am aware I do it all the time what with being a ret and all but that's different. I'm not trying to heal anybody. Its just hard to keep that much holy might to yourself.

Now I brought this to the attention of a druid friend of mine to see if he could clarify things for me. He seemed as confused/surprised as me that someone would request ranged heals. "I thought they were all ranged" was his answer to me. And honestly I agree with him. I thought of asking this person myself what they meant by "ranged" heals but their request changed to simply heals (after almost an hour mind you) and I lost all desire to know what ranged heals were when my hunger pains began. This question may nag at me for some time but I am sure some greater matter will arise and I will push past my curiosity and find something new to ponder like how to remove the smell of death knight and ghoul drool from plate. Although if any of you have any information about ranged heals please by all means share.

I Feel So Bad Now

I must say the plight of the young kobold has truly touched me. Where I won't say *cough* but anywho as one of the few races of small angry npcs I run across in my long adventure in Azeroth I have seen the light and this will hopefully show you how wrong this kobold genocide is. I think I might have to kill a human to make myself feel better...or find some sort of plan to convert all kobold quests into ones where murloc and gnolls die...particularly gnolls. There isn't enough time in my day to spill all their blood I think needs to be spilled.

Knowing What I Know Now

Ok though I would have loved to have only the exact song for my blog this is the closest thing I can get to what I wanted so if you would be go kind the song starts at 2:11 on the vid.

*cough*

That said the reason I've posted such a song is simple, I have a lowbie hunter and for some reason this song comes to mind whenever I play her. I look back at my leveling Edy back when I knew nothing of the ways of the hunter and think to myself how horrible and not so bright I was about what I should and shouldn't do. For example:

I know now that you shouldn't fight in melee
shooting and running is fine
I know now that a pet is over powered
at least 'til you're past the 70 line
Just think of it gee,
how great it would be
if I could go back some how
and have my hunter to level oooooover
knowing what I know now

Ok I got more but putting them in song just isn't something my brain can do right now so lets just list.

I know now that as bad as mana management sucks at level 12 it never gets any better
I know now that its a good idea to always keep your pet on passive in a dungeon, in particular ones where you don't know certain things (tank, the instance itself, other dps, etc.)
I know now that strength is not a hunter stat as we don't get ranged attack power
I know now that 80% of other hunters that have played longer than me still don't know these things
I know now that 90% of people you party with in WoW will assume you are that hunter in the 80%
I know now that feign death is the best hunter skill ever
I know now that some pets are smarter than others (I think I wrote a post about this in the past)

So what would you do different if you could do it over again?

Min/Max Makes Edy Wanna Choke A Gnome

It's been a while since I've just been irritated by min/maxing to the point I wanted to post about it but today happens to have just pushed me over my limit. I just don't understand why people are so insistent on wanting EVERYBODY to do the same thing to their characters just 'cause some guy with a calculator said doing X instead of Y would make you some number you wont even notice better and more uber than all the other uber peoples that you see. Then you can just prance around those people, e-peen flappin' in the breeze, making fun of them cause they aren't a carbon copy of you and the people you copied cause it's the "it" thing to do until the next patch or item drop says you must switch to this spec and spend thousands of gold on regemming, chants, and Advil for the headache you just gave yourself.

Breath.

Now that's off my chest I need to be clear I in no way shape or form have a problem with min/max-ers or their spreadsheets (even if they DO make my eyes glaze over). What I don't like about min/max is the pressure it tends to put on the rest of the player base. So you aren't doing what elitist jerks says is the flavor of the patch for your class, does that mean you aren't doing it right? If your numbers look good then I say do what feels good. For example I know that the wolf is supposed to be the it pet for the raiding hunter. I like my cat. Snuggles and me been doing our thing since I been playing and personally I don't want another pet with me as it makes me feel off when I play. Does that mean I am doing something wrong? So I am losing around 120 dps on paper but for me my computer isn't top of the line so I am prone to lag spikes. My cat does more dps himself than a wolf on a target so maybe for me my kitty is a better choice for the way I play. I caved and got a raid spec I think I conformed enough to get by. My spec isn't perfect but I like it, I don't worry about armor pen or stuff like that (I value what little sanity I have left) , and though I might like to be on the top of the charts in my raids as long as I am showing numbers where they are supposed to be I see no reason to give up little things I do in my class that make it more fun for me just to see numbers on a chart.

Now that I've blown off my steam for the "best hunter pet" article I just read and have begun to lose my train of thought again I will call an end to my rant. Happy fun hunting!

What Edy Would Like To See

As the next expansion looms in the near future all the new changes have people a titter with thoughts of what could and will be (no more hunter mana HUZZAH), I've found myself thinking that while those things are awesome I would like more. Now its not game mechanics I am really all that concerned with as I will have my hands full learning the ends and outs of my beloved hunter tree, but more "simple" wish I find myself resting on. I have spoken about my prior MMO experience with City of Heroes and I have dabbled in a few other free titles for giggles and I find WoW the more enjoyable but even so that doesn't mean there aren't things I would like to see improved upon.

I like pretty things. That said I do love the look of WoW considering that Blizzard has managed to keep the game playable on underpowered systems (much like my own though I can still see the majority of the perdy stuff) and even though the graphics are a bit dated I don't have a problem with them. Hell sometimes I even find myself just watching the surrounds as I fly around Azeroth just because of how beautiful it all is. My wish isn't so much that we have realistic trees or the likes. What I would like see changed is character customization.

In CoH my greatest fun wasn't beating the crap out of badly dressed villains crawling in back alleys, no sir, it was the sheer amount of customization that you could do to your avatar in just the basic character building that made me the happiest. Now you couldn't make them look exactly like what you wanted but you could come pretty close and all in all that make the toon feel more like it was YOURS than just a carbon copy of everybody else running around in game. That said I know all the things you could do in character design in that game couldn't really work in WoW. It's not like expect them to fire the guy that makes the super large shoulders on the tier or the people that insist on making the horrid looking hunter and paladin gear in the game. Its the naked toon options I really wanna see more done with. I want tattoos. I want scars. I want more than 5 hair styles and colors. I want to walk out into dalaran and not see 15 people that look exactly like me. I don't roll play in WoW but if I did maybe I would want a toon that was missing an eye or something of the sort. Hell at least give me the ability to change Tauren hair color and fur color separately or let me chose more than 3 faces for my troll. I might even let the fact I never got my dance studio I was promised go if I could give Edy tattoos.

Yes my desire is pure vanity but so what? I am sure many people feel like myself and would like to have their toons be a bit more personalized to their tastes. Its bad enough everybody wears the same armor but I think if you let players choose whats under the armor with more freedom. I wouldn't even ask for body type changes (though they would be nice). I know we have little chance of seeing these things but its something I would love to see happen one day.

You can P.U.G. with this or you can P.U.G. with that

So after a lot of trying to write a blog I figure "what the heck lets ramble and see what happens". So here's to the rambling.

Now dear follower (all two of you still around) I have been far from inactive in game its just be more of a "what the heck do I have to write about?" kinda thing for me. There are new instances, big whoop. As fun as they are they aren't earth shattering enough to me to have my say about them. Its just something fresher to do. Then there is a new raid. That would be great to write about if I hadn't only been in there like 2 times (once pre-lord morwhatshisface nerf and one clear to Sarufang last week) and as such nothing really note worthy happened.

Edy has finally somewhat got back into her pvp action (if Wintergrasp can count as such) and upgraded some gear here and there. Ty has been somewhat placed on the shelf. Not so much out of a lack of wanting to place its just I don't do so well at focusing on more than one or two toons at a time. When I dedicate my time to something I tend to stick with it until I get what and where I wish to be. That said little Bell isn't so little anymore and as of the time I am typing this sitting at 78 and will hopefully be 80 relatively soonish.

Now this fact brings up something I actually DO wish to talk about. Random P.U.G.s. I detest them though not as much as I did when I simply had to rely on trade for my P.U.G.ing needs. People are just as quirky no matter what server you are on its just a matter of luck if you get the good ones, the interesting/entertaining ones, or the down right assholes. If I was a sociologist I would have some very interesting insight on the human nature when one is paired with folks they personally don't know as well as the I/me belief most P.U.G.gers seem to adapt as they run there groups. I have witnessed a trend in low (and I mean depressingly low) dps declaring that they know the only correct way to run something they are all but useless at in the first place. I have seen some of the worst tanking I have ever had the privilege to suffer through. I have also seen players go above and beyond the calls of gear and skill to do things as well. For example I ran with the holy grail of Death Knight tanks once and it turned into one of the most amazing speed runs I have ever been in. This also makes me realize just how little gear does to improve ones performance if one does not have the skills to use it. I have seen people come in with full tier 9 gear and put out dps lower than that of a fresh 80 still in greens and blues. Come on people there is just no way you should be lower than 2k dps on a boss if you have that crap on if you are even pressing buttons to attack. It boggles the mind how bad some of these people are. This also cemented my personal belief that gear score needs to go away period in the game since it is by no means a reflection of what a player is capable of yet it is sadly common to see somebody request some simple and easy heroic dungeon as that of heroic Utguard Keep and post a gear score of 2800+. That is just shear e-peen fluffage when you cant possibly have that kind of rating when you are doing that instance when you are able to get anything of any remote use out of it.

Now with that said I have also been guilty of looking at peoples gear and dps in randoms and comparing it to my own and I forget that people have to start out somewhere. Not too long ago a good friend of mine was voted out of a party for low dps in blues in something like Halls of Stone or regular Trial of the Champion where she could have gotten some gear and badges to improve on what she was doing (like the damn thing is set up to do). She was obviously hurt by this and understandably so. We as geared players tend to forget what it was like when we were getting our starter gear and learning the ropes all those months ago and are much more harsh than we should be on these players. That said, she was doing the correct amount of dps for her gear and spec unlike mister DK that was pulling 700 dps in 245 gear.

That said it will be interesting to see how the grouping system really effects the over all play of players in WoW. Yes it is relatively easy to get carried to awesome casual gear now but at the same time you get the full range of personalities and problems along the way that might make the moderately intelligent player better. Until that time though remember your manners and know your limits. Make your run as good as possible. Most of all have fun.


Lil' K.T. commands it.