Reasons To Date A Raider
- You’ll almost always know where we are, if we’re not with you.
- We’re good at communicating, and more importantly, listening!
- We always do our homework.
- There’s 10, or even 25 of us to choose from. You’re bound to find something to suit.
- You might get to work with an epic two-handed staff, or a legendary one-handed mace.
- We’re willing to put in long hours a few nights a week to do the job right.
- We always come prepared with food, drinks, potions, and armor.
- Some of us don’t bat an eye at spending a few hundred in a night.
- Whether you’re looking for a one-time encounter or on a recurring schedule, we’re often fine with both.
- If at first we don’t succeed, we’re willing to keep trying, and don’t give up no matter how many times you finish us off.
and finally: - Two words: video strategies.
Alas, here’s a (fairly compelling) reason not to:
- ‘World firsts’ are almost always bragged about online, with photo evidence to back it up. Sometimes there’s even an unspoken race involved.
In: Meta · Tagged with: Humor, NSFW
“Evercrack” versus Blizzard’s behemoth, part 1
Warning: As I gather my thoughts for writing the bulk of this post series, I can assure you that it will probably be quite long-winded. If you don’t care about my thoughts on games that aren’t WoW, feel free to skip them and I shall take no offense.
In: Meta · Tagged with: everquest 2, final fantasy xiii, heavy rain, ps3, video games
February Monthly Goals Update
Goals For February
WoW Goals
Find a new 25-man raiding guild FFS– Of all things, my first serious raiding guild of Wrath, Celestial Being, has been resurrected and is currently kicking ass and taking names! We’re 9/12 in ICC-25 and have one 10-man group doing LK attempts and another hitting second or third wing each week.
- Nothing. Not a one, didn’t accomplish anything I set out to do on Tyliman. He got put on the back burner with my renewed raiding on Ithato and my recent move.
Ding 58 and head to Outlands– Tharae’s currently languishing at 64.Train Riding and get a flying mount- Heal through 5-10 distinct Outland 5-mans in LFD as I level – only got about 3, didn’t level as often as I planned to
Caffeine
Maintain current trend, avoid all energy drinks altogether and keep caffeinated pop to a minimum.
Went out the window when I started raiding again and gaming a lot more outside of WoW with my new roommate.
Reading
Read at least two e-books that are over 7500 Kindle locations long and at least one more that’s over 5000.
Nope.
iPhone Development
Produce what I consider to be a feature-complete iPhone app or game and begin beta testing amongst my friends who own iPhone/iPod Touches. Will likely be ugly as sin unless @_erica helps me out big-time.
Nope.
Curse you, Icecrown Citadel, for ruining what should’ve been a perfectly productive month.
In: Death Knight, Druid, Guild, Icecrown Citadel, Meta, Raiding, Resto · Tagged with: ithato, Monthly Goals, tharae, Tyliman
February Monthly Goals
So, the final completion of my goals for last month was as follows:
WoW Goals
- Nothing :<
Ding 80(1-7-2010)Maxed out MiningMaxed out JewelcraftingSuperior achievement2500-3000 DPS in heroics: I’m starting to see 4000+ on some bosses in Heroics
Reading
Re-read Neuromancer
Caffeine
Reduce caffeine intake as close to 0 as possible– 0 energy drinks, 3 bottles of Mountain Dew since January 18th, 2010
New Goals For February
WoW Goals
- Find a new 25-man raiding guild FFS
- 5000 DPS on a raid/heroic boss
- Epic achievement, which includes getting rid of my last two blues
- Complete at least one full 10- or 25-man raid as DPS without failing at melee strategies
- Tank a heroic
- Ding 58 and head to Outlands
- Train Riding and get a flying mount
- Heal through 5-10 distinct Outland 5-mans in LFD as I level
- (This one is stretching it, but) ding 68 and head to Northrend
Caffeine
Maintain current trend, avoid all energy drinks altogether and keep caffeinated pop to a minimum.
Reading
Read at least two e-books that are over 7500 Kindle locations long and at least one more that’s over 5000.
iPhone Development
Produce what I consider to be a feature-complete iPhone app or game and begin beta testing amongst my friends who own iPhone/iPod Touches. Will likely be ugly as sin unless @_erica helps me out big-time.
Reading back over all of this it looks like a lot to bite off at once, especially with my potential move to a new apartment in the next few weeks. I hope I’m not setting myself up to fail.
In: Death Knight, Druid, Gear, Guild, Meta, Paladin, Raiding, Resto · Tagged with: iPhone Development, ithato, Monthly Goals, Reading, tharae, Tyliman
January Progress Update
WoW Goals
- Clear second ICC-10 wing and possibly third depending on the date it drops
- Get as much ICC-25 experience as I’m able to as a “free agent” healer
- Replace the Forethought Talisman and Egg of Mortal Essence I use variously as my second trinket, preferably with Solace of the Fallen
- Try and replace any other items with level under 232
No such luck on any of these. I’ve been raiding very infrequently on Ithato, and mostly use him as the breadwinner these days along with doing my daily random. Tyliman and my two baby toons (Tharae and Manterfel) take up almost all of my WoW time.
Ding 80 – just over a level left!(1-7-2010)Level Mining to Master (300+)Level Jewelcrafting to Artisan (225+)Superior achievement2500-3000 DPS in heroics: I’ve gotten over 3k on a few boss fights here and there in the last week, mostly thanks to my shiny new Tyrannical Beheader
Reading
- Finish Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden
- Finish
re-reading Neuromancerand read Count Zero, both by William Gibson
New Goal
I’ve started this one late in the game (Monday, January 18th, to be precise) but anyway:
- Reduce caffeine intake as close to 0 as possible
I’ve done this in the past for a few months at a time. Like most younger gamers, I mostly live off of Mountain Dew and energy drinks. (Bawls, Monster Import, and red Sobe No Fear are my current favorites.) It’s getting to an unhealthy level, it would seem, as I’m starting to wake up with headaches and I’ve been sleeping very poorly. So, I’m giving caffeine the boot…again.
Most caffeine-free pop sucks. I’m a pretty big fan of Squirt and Faygo Rock & Rye though, but I understand the latter is almost exclusive to Michigan.
In: Death Knight, Druid, Icecrown Citadel, Meta, Raiding, Resto
Monthly Goals: January 2010
In lieu of the tried-and-true New Year’s Resolutions post, I’m going to aim a little lower and set some monthly goals for myself instead. I plan to keep it up for all of 2010, however, so wish me luck!
WoW Goals
- Clear second ICC-10 wing and possibly third depending on the date it drops
- Get as much ICC-25 experience as I’m able to as a “free agent” healer
- Replace the Forethought Talisman and Egg of Mortal Essence I use variously as my second trinket, preferably with Solace of the Fallen
- Try and replace any other items with level under 232
- Ding 80 – just over a level left!
- Level Mining to Master (300+)
- Level Jewelcrafting to Artisan (225+)
- Superior achievement; hell, maybe even Epic with the way they hand out purpz in heroics these days
- 2500-3000 DPS in heroics; I’m doing ~1800-2000 in normals in quest greens/blues already, and I’m a baddy DK!
Reading
- Finish Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden
- Finish re-reading Neuromancer and read Count Zero, both by William Gibson
Should be a busy month, eh?
In: Death Knight, Druid, Gear, Icecrown Citadel, Meta, Raiding, Resto, Tradeskills · Tagged with: ithato, Monthly Goals, Reading, Tyliman
WTB Reader Feedback: Google Wave
By now, many of you have gained access to the Google Wave preview, including some of you via my slapdash little side project, WoW on Wave. I’ve had access since the tail-end of October, and I’ve put it to good use here and there, but it still feels like I mostly use it for the sake of using it, instead of something else.
It fills a strange niche for me, the weird overlapping area between e-mail, IM, IRC and traditional forums. I’ve had some lively conversations on Wave about topics like the Wheel of Time book series, book recommendations, website development and updates, and WoW addons. It lends itself fairly well to realtime conversations, but still keeps things in a tree hierarchy of replies. As an added bonus, you’re able to review the whole thing later if you so desire. It still bogs down when the wave is particularly active or has many current viewers, but it has some pretty serious potential. I think by far the biggest missing functionality is that of moderation, followed by contact groups. Oh, and if it would let me actually keep @_erica on my contact list, that’d be nice too.
Back to the other two complaints, there is no simple way (that I’ve found) to add a certain sub-set of your contacts to a wave in one go; you’ll have to add them one-by-one. More importantly to me, there is also no way at all right now to restrict things like:
- Who can create new “blips”, or posts
- Who can edit blips and whose blips they may edit, besides their own
- Who can be added to (and thus able to view/reply to) the wave
- Whether wave/blip content can be copied to new waves
This limits my usage of it here and there, but I’m sure these features are all coming later.
A colleague of mine mentioned that he’d love to see one well-integrated interface to Google Wave, GMail and Google Chat all in one (probably cluttered ^_^) window. That does sound like a decent idea.
How about you folks? Do you use Google Wave frequently? How does your usage compare with when you first gained access to the preview? Have you found any really cool or handy ways of using Wave? Is there anything you think is really missing, or preventing you from using it thus far?
In: Meta · Tagged with: Comment Fishing, Google Wave
Re-thinking My Druid Specs for a New Patch and a New Guild
Last night, after several weeks of frustration at the hands of piss-poor attendance, most of our dedicated raiding core in my 10-man semi-casual guild flew the coop. We (as this includes myself) were welcomed with open arms into the guild of a good friend of our GL. Their population seems high without being out of control.
It’s been almost two months now since I was part of a guild regularly doing 25-man content, so I’ve been able to get away with using a bastardized catch-all Resto spec, leaving my other spec slot free for whatever tomfoolery I wished. (Lately, this has been bear tanking.) So, I’m returning to my old ways, of optimizing top-to-bottom for a given role, with regards to my talents. I’ll be using two somewhat distinct, and highly focused builds to fill either the role of raid healing or tank healing as need arises.
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In: Druid, Feral, Gear, Guild, Meta, Raiding, Resto, Trial of the Crusader, Ulduar · Tagged with: 25-man, Druid, Feral, glyphs, Guild, Raiding, Resto, tanking, via posterous
Rise From Your Grave
That’s a Sega Genesis reference, folks. I miss playing Altered Beast so much!
WARNING: WALL OF TEXT INC
In: Gear, Guild, Meta, Raiding, Ulduar · Tagged with: Gear, general vezax, Guild, hiatus, ithato, new guild, primordial fate, Raiding, tharae, ulduar, vent
What A Long, Strange Road It’s Been
Wow, three weeks since my last update. I need to stop neglecting this thing. Anywho, life has been crazy and exciting lately.
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In: Gear, Meta, Ulduar · Tagged with: achievements, Gear, Guild, loot, officers, programming, progression, project, ulduar, website
