Priest Cure Disease Doesn't Work Here

winterbearer — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:19:40 GMT

If you're a pale, anemic, WoW-playing shut-in of declining health like me, you might be interested in the following information that I've received from my son's high school about the swine flu--mostly transmission prevention (wash your hands, a step-by-step) and where to get more info.

My understanding is that over the last 30 years that swine flu is extremely uncommon (only dozens of U.S. cases in any given year that it appears) but the alarming thing this year is that there are already more than 5 dozen cases confirmed in 5 states.

The concern as I understand it with this type of flu is that it is so much more harsh in symptoms than a regular flu and can kill. The recommendation which is largely common sense I guess is "Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick."

Since most surfaces that I know of are not labeled "contaminated with flu virus" you will have to take a guess and wash your hands more, stop playing WoW so much and get off your ass and improve your real-life stamina and resilience. There's no dispelling this **** and it can take your health to zero.

More info in the form of an FAQ:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm

Thanks,
Winter

What would you do with your free time if you weren't an Achievement junkie?

winterbearer — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:46:15 GMT

Originally posted at http://winterbearer.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-would-you-be-doing-with-your-free.html

The question arises of what outlet you have suppressed by your unending pursuit of World of Warcraft Achievements. Would you date more? Get more exercise? See the world? Perhaps you would craft in real-life--with your hands or your mind. Perhaps your trivial pursuits would lead you to contribute to the mass of public culture and evolve such internet memes as lolcats.

Lolcats? You know them well--there is the internet phenomenon of the pidgin or broken English combined with photos of funny cats which are now commonly captioned and are known as "lolcats". Along with the popular "I can haz Cheezburger?" cat, one of the more common of these photos is nicknamed "Ceiling Cat", http://leeh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/ceiling_cat.jpg who was said to have been watching you doing something immoral (or is more acceptable nowadays?) when the picture was snapped.

A bit of lore has sprung up and Ceiling Cat has been transformed into a sort of God metaphor, since he is after all "watching from above". It's only natural then that the Bible be translated into Lolcats speak, which has produced such unconventional quotes as: So liek teh Ceiling Cat lieks teh ppl lots and he sez 'Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u beleevs in him u wont evr diez no moar, k? - John 3:16 (Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOLCat_Bible_Translation_Project )

It follows then that Basement Cat, allegorically representing the Dark One, is documented as well. More to the point, another site has an abbreviated New Testament told in pictures, along with study notes. (Reference http://amyletinsky.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/friday-funny-the-saga-of-ceiling-cat/ )

All of which begs the question...Does anyone else have this kind of free time? Or would you rather be in WoW achieving more important goals, like killing 15 Fjord Turkeys in an oh-so timely fashion?

I think it's all a glorious waste of time either way.

What do you remember of The Burning Crusade?

winterbearer — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:53:38 GMT

Originally posted at http://winterbearer.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-do-you-remember-of-burning-crusade.html

Achievements are by far the best aspect of the game, and kept me from quitting WoW. And perhaps I should have quit. Damn you, inane goals everywhere and the mania they induce.

What I remember of The Burning Crusade was that by fall, 2008, when my interest in the game was diminishing, the ethereal spring and summer promise of a Wrath expansion pack was not enough to be encouraging. Wrath, even unnamed at the time, was long talked-about and a never-ending wait. But it seemed only to promise more of the same. I was tired of my toons, having only a fledgling alt, and I wanted to dump the main hunter or quit. I was bored to the point of giving away my hunter and focusing on a priest healer instead.

Several things were wrong at the time:

Grinding - My hunter—perhaps the most common first main—had done everything I could think of and everything I could get to: mount grinds, rep grinds, titles, etc. Fast flyer training cost had driven me to repeating dailies to point of mind-numbing repetition. I even paid for my son's paladin's fast flyer training. After giving away the hunter, the priest faced the same challenge.

Prejudice - The only unexplored frontier for me was raiding and arenas, but Hunters in 2.2, 2.3, etc were at a stage where they were of little utility in raids and I was too slow to react in arenas well. In raids, hunters could not hope to match the ranged output of a mage or a warlock. Additionally there were so many bad ones that getting any guild to take you seriously was impossible. So T5+ content was largely out of reach. And Sunwell was a legend only dreamt of. My hunter was doomed, but my priest had promise. I only needed to find a guild.

Play style - With only a few Horde raiding guilds on the server, I could not find one that matched my play style and schedule. While committed, I was not hardcore and could not see getting bawled out over vent for the occasional mistakes and, conversely, I was too old to be interested in the boyish guyfests of a too-casual guild. My schedule, more often than not, left me tooling around outside the instance on standby—in three months I acquired only 2 pieces from anywhere in t5, t6 raids. While Karazhan became a habit, since we could muster the 10 needed, the regularity of finding the 25 required to do Mag's or Gruul's often enough to get all the possible gear never happened either. Both toons fiddled around for months limited in what gear could be found.

Professions & Auctioning - The tools in these areas were crude. Professions involved a lot of hawking and first-hand interaction with other players. This was not my favorite thing to do and my profession of tailoring on my hunter was just idiotic since the BOP items were useless. The BOE items were not profitable and only the cloth cool-downs were profitable. The other professions were useful but it was difficult to sell remotely (e.g. no scrolls for enchantment existed) and it was an unending hassle to explain to another player what recipes and designs you had (no professions links existed). Running auctions was a pain in the ass, but necessary still to participate in the economy at large. In the end, generating gold for your toon through crafting was just frustrating and time-consuming.

Inflexibility - I did not appreciate enough the value of multiple gear sets or respeccing. As I learned about the hunter class and acquired new pieces I had thrown away alternate pieces that were marginally useful, not realizing that balancing the spare gear to the fight at hand would have been useful. Respeccing was a costly annoyance I had not adapted to, except for the purpose of PVP, which I only enjoyed in large groups. Both toons suffered from my lack of flexibility in gear and specs.

In the face of these issues I was at a loss as to what to do next in the game, even with two level capped toons and their supposed variety. The hunter, my first serious toon, had originated in February, 2007 at the emergence of The Burning Crusade, although it would take a while for me to take advantage of it. With my flagging interest in the game within the year, I was only buoyed a little by the utility of my healer alt which I had rolled over Christmas, 2007. It did fast become my second toon, equal in interest and progress. I leveled capped it quickly enough and put it through all the paces that the hunter had gone through. But what to do with my time other than the gold grinds was a mystery.

What followed however was the realization that the exhaustive work of "doing everything" including professions, on two active toons was even a bigger drag. My hunter was done—I had hit the ceiling in every aspect and saw no future for it. In summer 2008, I gave my hunter away to my son, five months before Wrath was released. Worse, my sense of futility of the game was only delayed by this change of mains. Again, having run out of things to do on my holy priest, I considered leaving the game. I was after all spending too much time on the game, whether I kept the hunter or not.

However, as patches preparing for Wrath became reality, there were new things to do. Achievements arrived but were largely ignored by most players, where instead I took delight in them. Raids and dungeons were nerfed, in order to allow more players to have a chance to see content one more time before moving on to the expansion. It was possible to run almost all heroics in one day and to clear a raid in one night. Suddenly there were a million things to do.

The game fundamentally changed with these Wrath-prep patches. All the inane completist itches I had over reputation, events, and “obscure things to do" came to life in Achievements in particular and all at once I was filled with a great mania for the game. This was the stuff of addiction for sure. I re-ran all the content I did not have credit for, I topped off any reputation that counted for something, and I did all the goofy general things to do and of course explored and I completed zone quests. The nerfed dungeons made everything go faster. And the deadline of an impending expansion release of new zones, new dungeons, new raids made the urgency of finishing the standing content and "old" achievements all the more urgent. No would want to fiddle around in old content or obscure BC achievements when there was a new level cap. Once Wrath hit, I was level capped again in only 15 days and then I resumed the pursuit of the Achievements. I found a great guild and was never left out of opportunities for going anywhere because I was a healer and a fair one at that.

Thus was occupied my first 21 months in the game. Having done everything I could, mostly without reward or fanfare—even reaching level 80 within the first two weeks of Wrath—I was at the turning point of a new approach to the game. The pursuit of new raid gear would be first up, since I was for the first time in a guild that was at the forefront of the leading game content. Along with this would come the unending chase for all aspects of Achievements—those questionable markers of progress—many of which promised a pleasantly long and varied pursuit. I was restored to the game, despite its triviality, and had found new aspirations. The old level 70 bosses were a shadow of what they had been and like their level 60 predecessors, only offered novelty now. The Burning Crusade was over.

Thanks
Winter

The Artisan Achiever

Priest Cure Disease Doesn't Work Here

What would you do with your free time if you weren't an Achievement junkie?

What do you remember of The Burning Crusade?