Random Comeback!

So.

I went away for a while.

Yeah, that was relaxing. For a little while, at least.

I got in on MoP's release a little later than I expected but it was ultimately for the best (about a week or two in so that I didn't have to deal with the obvious flood of people who would ruin the experience for those that just wanted to go at their own pace).

There was a ridiculous amount of new content that overwhelmed me with just how much variety there was in how to spend your time (pet battling/collecting...whew, I knew it'd be fun and more involved than I suspected, but man did I have fun with it) and even got my main geared out a good portion but without a consistent raid schedule due to a number of factors I'd rather not go on about here.

Currently, though, I'm sitting without any time on my account (Blizzard's 3-day courtesy reminder email didn't make it to my inbox for some reason, I checked spam/trash/filter settings, nothing is out on my end) but I'm not re-upping until I re-install the game and update to 5.1.

While doing non-WoW stuff, I accidently saved some files into my WoW folder and when I went to delete the intruding files, somehow managed to catch my WoW Launcher, preventing me from running the game repair tool as well as the more obvious aspect of locking myself out from being able to download game updates.

Oops.

Anywhoo, despite all this, I wanted to express my latest distaste since I didn't have enough experience with MoP content to justify making any blog entries for a while.

Now, though, I can definitely say that I am burned out. I tried tackling on too much and paid the price. Golden Lotus rep kicked the everlasting bejeesus out of me and I've done maybe one, two days max, worth of Shado Pan/August Celestial dailies and I know I'm well behind everyone already but it's just not going to happen.

I got exhalted with the dragon trainer faction (sad, I can't even remember their name, despite it being one of the more fun things to work on so far) and the Anglers (but something seriously needs to be done about trying to cast anything if you're on the mount from them, extremely aggravating to be prompted with error messages when I can use any other mount fine and dandy when I decide to cast something) but the Klaxxi story wrap-up will have to wait since revered status is good enough for me, just as Golden Lotus is left to the same fate.

I was led to believe, prior to MoP's release, that we could pick and choose what to work on and not be penalized for it. This was not the case because I wanted to dive straight into Shado Pan content but no, I had to work my rear off for a bunch of random people I had absolutely no incentive to care about (Golden Lotus) just to be given the go-ahead and continue the story arc that just gets thrown to the wind JUST before you hit honored status with them.

Because I had planned to be an early adopter of raiding in MoP, as well, (well, on a *relative* scale), I had to keep up best I could with dungeon runs, dailies, and LFR. Scenarios helped a bit due to their more forgiving nature, but Valor had been a drain on time I could be doing things without feeling pressured to log in every freaking day. Good thing I am not worried about THAT anymore, eh?

Regardless, knowing what awaits me when I come BACK into the game is a bit depressing. Do I jump into the new dailies as someone who hates PvP on a mage? Do I try to polish off previous rep grinds now that a lot of it is now "old content"? Do I just hang back and do previous expansion content with the occasional LFR queue thrown in just to not go crazy?

I'm so mentally sore and tired that the only specific thing I feel I *should* go on a tangent on is all the people complaining about the never-ending grind dailies present.

But then again, I'd feel pretty hypocritical, since I certainly agree with many points raised on the issue but here's the thing: I am not even REMOTELY as invested in complaining about dailies as a lot of people are.

It might be that I make it harder on myself because I've yet to read any truly engaging posts on why they are a good thing and made into the next evolutionary step of "casual endgame" content that isn't necessarily loot-based (yes, it helps lead to an initial boost in gearing people up if they so wish but it's better than logging in just barely long enough to complete one or two things and actively staying away from the game for as long as humanly possible, really, for $15/month, why wouldn't you at least find other things you enjoy or play a different game?). People are focusing on the same negative points to such extremes that I just want everyone to shut up. I am so frakking tired of the lack of *variety* of discussion.

Whenever I see some promise in someone's argument, they fall into the trap of talking about the same thing everyone else has already covered a thousand times already. If that doesn't happen, though, and they DO actually have something new to bring to the idea pool, I am unfortunately met with that person no longer participating in the discussion as they recognize only a marginally slim amount of people will bother to read their input at all because the sheer amount of old ideas and complaints pushing them as far away from view as possible, hidden from most readers since no one honestly likes the idea of having to go through hundreds, if not thousands, of posts to HOPE to find that *one* idea everyone should focus on.

Stupid mob mentality and its ability to crush the creative process through brute force alone.

Ignoring the stupidity, however, only goes so far, both for in-game purposes and general human limitations. You can't simply will yourself into a blatant state of blissful ignorance and continue doing something. Even if I managed it, I'd have to ignore several connecting states of awareness that would take apart my personality, the very core of what makes me...well, ME, and that is completely off the table for obvious reasons. Well, I'd hope they're obvious, or else that'd be pretty scary as to how many zombies may already be among us.

So long story short: discouragement from merely existing within the same environment as this overwhelming amount of discontent people makes an already tiring experience just that much more of a drain.

Not surprising when you take a step back and look at it, really. But does it have to be in my face every single farkin' day I play?

Even just *thinking* about how tired I was getting doing all this and not having any positive reinforcement to push onwards with finishing content in the game is enough of a brain-drain, let alone the actual act of participating in it.

So, with that, I hope I wasn't gone for so long that my thoughts are just 'preaching to the choir' at this point (oh, I suspect some but hopefully not ALL).

But yeah, sleep nodals  ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,aaaaknoijak ,,,,j,,

Queue-Griefing: No, Not the 'Tank is a DPS' Type

***This post contains coarse language and should be considered NSFW.***

There are many thing that while I do appreciate about the automatic random dungeon-finding tool, every once in a while (though growing more apparent each day for some reason beyond me) is that I am getting insta-queues with the healer or tank (usually the latter) literally clicking the rejection button so fast that I can't even move my cursor to just the damn box that pops up, let alone the 'ready' button. Sure, once or twice is annoying but you at least eventually get a *real* queue wait time going.

Ha! Sure, if I'm lucky that'll happen. I can spend anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes repeatedly going through this stupid loop of people just queuing JUST so they can decline. I don't know why the system doesn't ignore these people and move onto the next or maybe I'm just unlucky. I even wait a good 5 to 10 minutes in-between these sessions of griefing the LFG system because I figure either they'll stop their shenanigans or I'll be placed in such a way that I don't deal with that person/people. Hardly ever works.

I don't have all day and when I decide I want to just do a few dungeons, that's it. I don't want to do 'x' and 'y' and 'z' things while waiting for said queue to pop; I just want to frigging do the damn dungeons. I will alt-tab onto YouTube or something else and wait for the blaring announcement noise (I turn my in-game sound WAY up, just to be sure) that my queue is ready but I can't exactly be flipping back every second or two just to realize I've been caught into the same horrid mess.

I would estimate on most days I get this bullshit wasting my time, I average two, TWO, dungeons per 3-hour span. And to think, that's being GENEROUS.

There's no reason for it and I honestly believe that anyone who does this should be hit by a debuff that locks them out of being able to queue for anything (LFG, LFR, BGs, Arenas) for at *least* an hour. I'd prefer two hours, but Blizzard has a tendency to react to most griefings with a slap on the wrist, if even that. Too busy studying botting trends (they all do the same fucking things to teleport here, there, and everywhere; they all have set behaviour patterns when confronted; they are practically all carbon copies of one another so can you just ban them and get it over with?) and answering inane conversation pieces that eventually make their way to the forums so we can all want to strangle people for bumping back legitimate tickets.

The fun doesn't stop there, oh no! No no no no no no no.............then we have the bastards who actually ACCEPT the queue when it pops up and promptly leave. Gee, thanks asshat #34619548, I just spent a half-hour or more (specifically queuing instead of randoms is murder, upwards of an hour and a half) to get here in the first place and now we have to wait 10 to 20 minutes on *top* of that for that slot to fill.

Sometimes it prompts the others to leave, as well, especially if the tank leaves first and then healer (or vice-versa) and then since you're by yourself, you can't look for more since you need at least one other person with you. You have to start an ENTIRELY. NEW. QUEUE.

Fuck you. Fuck your mother. Fuck your dog.

Fuck. My. Life.

Fuck it hard; fuck it long. It's going to be a long *fucking* night!

I cannot fathom what sort of person honestly thinks that causing this is entertaining. I get upset, sure, I understand that an eerily-large portion of the internet is comprised of sadistic torturers who I could imagine flourishing in the criminal sector, given the right push (they already have the motivation, after all) but where does that come from? Were they sheltered all their life? Well-off and got away with treating people in real life, face to face, like complete shit? No conscience to speak of? Complete sociopaths?

I don't know.

I *do* know, though, that they are costing me real time and real money that makes me reconsider the idea of paying Blizzard for what is *supposedly* a game. Y'know, a game? Intended for fun, to relax, to derive some sense of "downtime" from the hustle and bustle of real life?

I didn't sign on to support masochist practices and I'm sure most other people didn't, either.

Min/Max: Stop Harassing the Salvagers!

***Warning: this article contains a large amount of coarse language and should be considered NSFW.***


I don't like that I'm going to touch back on min/max stuff but unfortunately I need to.

I just got out of a Drak'Tharon Keep run on an alt of mine and by the end of it I had literally every other party member on ignore *and* I was shaking like I was having my own personal earthquake. In fact, I'm STILL shaking, making this difficult to type because of a) erratic movements, b) anger clouding mind so I apologize if I should have worded anything differently, and c) I honestly am flabbergasted (oi! look it up) that anyone could be this unreasonable, if not just plain ignorant.

Okay, let me set the scene for you: party members actively talking about min/max stuff and clearly having no subtlety whatsoever. In fact, the thought of racing to max level and getting everything prepared for only max level play is circling around their heads, correcting what people should and should not be doing.

I didn't check gear because I feel it to be rude, invasive, and completely unnecessary since everything is going smoothly. We finally get up to King Drek and the caster staff drops, me rolling 'Need' on it and winning since I rarely upgrade anything and when I do it is ALWAYS a massive boost. The healer complains that I, as a mage (yes, I suppose I forgot to mention that part), shouldn't be using spirit and completely ignores the fact that it's well-over twice the stat value (even without the spirit it has while there is no intellect or stamina on it) of my current staff.

Okay, before you tear into me for being a moron and saying that spirit is worthless to me, let me say: I AGREE WITH YOU.

However, if you completely ignored the part about it being an amazing upgrade for me, then I'll let you think on that for a bit now that I've pointed it out. Here we have someone who is so tunnel-visioned into reaching max level and will work tirelessly to reach that goal that they'd probably replace it in pretty much no time at all, rendoring it essentially vendor trash as opposed to a tool that will be appreciated and used for a long time. I level slowly on purpose AND I make things last far past their normally expected lifetimes.

I still use the goddamn GNOMISH ROCKET BOOTS, for fuck's sake. They're just that good and far, FAR more consistent than the rocket belt tinker. Kinda sad, that, isn't it? Mostly the latter point but the former one, too, I suppose.

I know in a couple more levels, I could do the Ampitheater quests but, y'know what? Probably not going to do it. No one of a higher level would DARE help a lower level without a nice tidy monetary compensation unless they're guildmates and even then only if they just happen to be on at the same time, happen to not be busy when the request is made, and just happen to feel comfortable doing it, the person asking for help having been in the guild an adequate amount of time. A lot of things that just have to line up and not everyone is so fortunate.

So then I'm getting bitched at from every angle up to the point where they start putting words in my mouth, claiming I said it was good for one reason or another. They kept changing their stories, so of course you can probably tell how fed up with this I'm getting. I said that it was good for my personal situation, explaining in simple words (I shit you not, they were posting '?' at the words "take into account that...", HOW do you not understand that if English is your first language?).

Anywhoo, a bit more back and forth resulted in me saying something that was a simple sentence that just *happened* to be longer than 4 fucking words and them doing the tl;dr and "don't need to post a book, bro" and even outright admitting to the fact that they were too lazy to read it.

I blew up. I started in with that being part of the reason I believe people should start beating children to within an inch of their life again: to learn some respect, manners, and actually put effort into something for once in their lives. This was not received by the "u mad, bro?" family, but rather by "philosopher of WoW, all up in this bitch".

What?

I had to take a moment because I really didn't see how that was relevant at all. However, I regained my composure and unparalled, seething anger/hatred.

I even went so far as to say, ahem:

"I'm angry because the stupid and lazy are breeding, only making me wish more George Carlins were alive, making people feel like they need to kill themselves because they are wastes of skin, space, and oxygen. No one is perfect but you people set the bar pretty damn low."

I got so flustered and wanting to cause levels of bodily harm (preferably through mutilation) that I was brought down to that level.

You happy, you fucking pieces of shit? Are you happy that you've made the world a little more dark and disturbing? Are you proud that what you've done is make yet another person wish they had the ability to wipe out the entire human race and pray that this fucking failure of a fluke mutation never repeats itself? Are you? ARE YOU?!

You make me sick.

Leave the salvagers alone. Not just in WoW. But in life, period. We don't brag. We don't feel entitled. We don't go out of our way to prey upon the emotions of others and their appreciation of having a bit of dignity, intelligence (be it logistics, observational skills, etc. the list goes on and on), and the idea that they don't need to rush through every goddamn fucking thing. Did I really need to be harassed about a single copy of potentially infinite amounts more of a digital item that would serve almost no purpose for most others but would be a great boon to myself, despite it not being the best of the best of choices?

There is no legitimate reason for why anyone should treat anyone else to the point where one is just outright ashamed to be a part of the human race. After all, if this is how we treat others in an online gaming experience, then what does that say about how we *really* want to treat our friends, family, co-workers, random people on the street?

Think about it. I have, and frankly, I can't get over how much I hate people as a whole.

As someone once said, "A person is intelligent; people are idiots."

Mist of Pandaria: Yet Another Continent

I'm excited for MoP; really, I am. I'm just finding it difficult to expect a whole new style of gameplay incorporated into yet another land mass on Azeroth. From what I've seen of videos and screenshots, I have no doubt that I'll enjoy myself.

However, the actual feeling of being somewhere I've not been before will likely not be there.

In the Outlands, you actually had to think about your surroundings. Admittedly, some of that had to do with the fact that flying was introduced and meant funny occurences in the Blade's Edge Mountains along with Netherstorm were quite prevalent. Many a time did I hear of someone flying from Hellfire Peninsula to Netherstorm and suddenly dropping out of the sky to their untimely doom simply because they ventured too far into the Twisting Nether.

I'm sure people have their own little stories with flight and being able to do crazy stuff, but the point is that there were possibilities opened. Now, we just take flight for granted and just go wherever we want and we'll have to deal with withdrawal symptoms come MoP because we'll be locked down again until about max level, if I recall correctly.

There's never anything *truly* new about being forced to land for a few levels. All it is would be seeing things up-close and personal again. Okay, maybe that's the point. But really, we've never had to actually think about what we were doing, regardless of quests, mobs, towns, whatever. Blade's Edge made me dizzy and questioning if I was going the right way because there were SO. MANY. SPIKES. that looked pretty much exactly the same, scattered literally *everywhere* in the zone. I have never had to check my map so many times in my playtime.

Some would say that is a bad thing Blizzard needs to move away from. What? WHAT? Actually having to think about things and not just go "la dee la dee lada la dee la la la..." is not what makes a new experience. It doesn't matter if Blizzard wants to allow less...err...seasoned, I guess, players more enjoyment. They still have that, no matter what argument you can pose. There are so many options open in the world that we're not forcing people to take part in what we should otherwise learn to adapt to, or at least take into account to some degree.

Why not have areas where you can choose to fly around up top and risk getting taken down by some sort of flying creature(s) if you can't judge your distance well enough or fly into certain protective auras that dissipate after a short while? Or, if you want, play it safe and fly under tree cover, but you have to avoid hitting obstacles like branches and whatnot? Lower to the ground there could be almost nothing in your way but you'd at least still be going faster than riding on the ground. Mind you, my mind is thinking in HUGE proportions, so don't take it to mean that you'd be flying a mere handful of feet off the ground. Besides, I'm just tossing out ideas here as I type, nothing being pre-planned here.

I could go on with more ideas but I'm a bit tuckered out. However, at least you have some idea where I want things to go.

Hopefully, though, such kinds of ideas will be expanded on in future releases. The next place I want to go to is the Nathrezim homeworld so if that were ever a possibility kicking around in the think-tanks of Blizzard employees, that'd be the perfect settings to adjust difficulty in not only combat, but even basic things like travel. Flight paths would obviously be exempt. No one wants to go afk and back to find themselves on a prompt for taking down an enemy that has boarded your wyvern or whatever animal it is *this* time to stop it from dragging you down to a crash-landing.

I'm not THAT cruel. Unusual, yes, but cruel?

..........................................................................................................................................

Anywhoo, on a separate note, I know hardly anyone looks at this blog but I'm more than willing to take suggestions and see if I am annoyed about aspects of various things others have a bone to pick with. Just leave a comment and I'll likely make a post all about it.

Signs WoW is Going Downhill: What a Crock!

I've been looking at the official forums and miscellaneous fan/discussion sites and so many people still are hell-bent on claiming WoW is dying.

Well...that's not what this is about.  It is about simply those who claim there is a rapid descent in how the community *as a whole* (this is important, people!) is dragging the game down into an uninspired mess of easy modes and lacklustre, forgettable content.

...
...
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What?!

Yes, unfortunately, in addition to the usual batch of 'WoW death', I've seen many people say these sorts of things because it doesn't appeal to the fraction of people who are in the best situations (perfect internet stability, top-of-the-line computers, all the free time in the world, so on and so forth) who want challenges that would make the rest us frustrated to no end (but still grit our teeth and try to salvage the situation best we could and get as far as possible, even if we barely made a dent in the content).

Okay, so basically design content around elite groups who actively want to flaunt fictional achievements in a game, having us kiss their sweaty, blistered rumps.

Yeah, the latter part of that is only for the jerkwads but I've yet to *personally* meet skilled individuals in any facet of life that didn't have some sort of ego.

I'm horrendous at...eh, pretty much everything I do.  I attempt to better myself, and when I achieve something I feel good about it.  Am I going to start smack-talking because I know I can get away with it because it's the internet and it's the "cool" thing to do?  No, and everyone who *does* needs a smack upside the head.

The overwhelming majority of Blizzard's playerbase pay for a product to enjoy.  Okay, not everyone wants to do certain things and they're fine with that.  Dungeons and, more notably, raids have been the major draw for most players so clearly there's an expectation that money talks and the money wants to get its worth.  Designing and tweaking content every once in a while so it is more accessible doesn't do jack all except cause a blow to the egos of people who you see ranting and raving over the idea of "Blizz, don't help these newbs and casuals, force them to be better".

Okay...so, to a very, very, very, VERY minor degree, I would have otherwise agreed with that last statement.  But here it is baseless.  If 80% or whatever percentage of paying customers don't get to do what they expected to be able to do to at least *some* decent extent, they would become dissatisfied and begin talking with their wallets.

Kinda hard for Blizzard to produce content if there aren't enough resources.  If everyone was like these complainers, we'd never hear these sorts of concerns non-stop EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. because Blizzard would never have to re-visit content to alter for the players.

Well...except if Blizzard isn't hearing complaints, they may very well not even try being innovative.  Why bother?  Everyone's content with how things are now so there's a sudden halt in the evolution of gaming.  Other companies might bring things up for Blizzard to make their own adaptation on but that runs the risk of messing with their supposedly "perfect formula" which is really just having players all be like-minded zombies that are all on the same bandwagon of thought.

Frankly, I'd say that we need people to point out not everyone has the perfect setup of personal factors, be it hardware, where they live, how much (or rather, little) goes on in their life to learn the finer details to a 't', and if they have the mental capacity to understand and adapt to the kind of thinking the loudmouthed jerks that, I guess, belong to some sort of hive mind.

So...yeah.  Everything, be it from me or the complainers, is just a bunch of theories with no actual proof to back up either side.  However, makes you think, doesn't it?

Cap on Daily Quests Removed!

I...I have nothing to say negatively about this so I'm very pleased to finally have a good thing to talk about.

The good people over at Blizzard clearly were able to listen to the concerns of players very well and have finally brought upon us one of the ideas most requested as far as questing is concerned.  No longer are we going to have to pick and choose what we have to miss out on just because we are interested in more than what the current 25 cap allows us.  As it stands for me, I'm a Tol Barad, Molten Front, Argent Tournament, and Ogri'la rep fan but I'd be taking Molten Front every time and I suppose I could have done Ogri'la to fill in some of what was left but the limit gave me the feeling (even though it's somewhat nonsensical) that if you do one thing, why *bother* doing anything else?  Again, doesn't really make sense, since getting something out of a secondary grind is better than nothing but it's just the way I felt.

With this change, I can finally just go crazy on everything I want.  I already have all I want from the Netherwing and Sha'tari Skyguard so fortunately I'm not going to overexert myself on quests (read: that aren't MoP quests, at least).  I'm actually almost done Molten Front and Tol Barad is only going to continue until I have the wolf mount (have had the drake forever and recently got the gull before I went into Molten Front stuff again).  Heck, Ogri'la and the Argent Tournament are really the only long-term dailies to really bother with based solely on that they are so slow to do anything with (and I hate playing Simon because my memory isn't that good), though the latter I only need a few more mounts from (the ones that cost 100 marks each), the pony bridle for my squire (what? I thought that's what my Argent Gruntling *was*!).  Also, pets to sell are certainly something I'll finally get into though many others have already been doing so.

There is one thing, though, that worries some people about this.  They feel that it will be a case of quantity over quality for their questing experience as far as the new dailies are concerned for when MoP is released.  I can see where they come from and don't want to mindlessly repeat the same tasks with a Pandaren look slapped on.

Though I am not in the MoP beta, because Blizzard implemented this daily cap change I am confident that the level 90 content for dailies (maybe a few 86 to 89 ones, as well?) will also actually make our dailies more interesting so it is just not more of the same things we are used to: kill x creatures, collect x items, turn in x progression marks.  Sure, I outright *expect* a fair number of them to be these tried and true processes, but nothing BUT them?  Not a chance.

In an MMO there are certainly limits to what can be done for objectives but I find that there are more creative people than what we really give the human race credit for.  Heck, a mere *small* example of what could be done is mimic a quest like the one in the Molten Front where you must go around the rune-filled cave and disrupt the summoning ritual for the elemental reinforcements.  Running around getting chased by mobs which then disappear as long as you click a rune when said mobs are close enough to you?  It's a nice take on quests involving mobs without killing them in the traditional fashion.

I understand not all share my perspective in this matter and are fairly jaded to any potential for hope in this regard but keeping an open mind, even if not continuing one's subscription, it wouldn't hurt to at least occasionally read about the MoP experience.  If you find that you are bored and WoW is actually making a few changes in the direction you feel is to be expected of such a massively popular game, then you can judge it to be a game worth coming back to.

If not, feel free to join the naysayers who predict WoW's demise whenever so much as a free-to-play browser game comes out.  I won't judge you on that.  I'll be annoyed, yes, but judge?  No, I'd rather just play my awesome unlimited daily quest game.

Auction House Annoyances

Been a while since my last post and I don't believe anyone but myself is reading this (and I'm only re-reading it when posted to more easily find mistakes I've made whilst typing) but here I go again with a new post (finally).

The auction house is a very tiresome and, as far as I'm concerned, outdated.

You have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of players trying to sell what is essentially the same crap to each other.  Some use the Auction House Key (or whatever that stupid tool is), to addons, to just making educated guesses and simple math to determine prices.

I fit into that last category.  I hate most addons.  In fact, I run not even DBM right now (why bother? when others have it, it tells even those who don't have it what is going on, so only timer bars would be extra for me and I never look at those ANYWAY due to trying to pay attention what is happening to my characters).

Why?  Why would I hate things that make players' experiences easier and less stressful?  Well, I don't give a rat's ass about if other people use them (except anything that tells you about rare spawns active in an area as well as telling you what the opposite team in PvP consists of, that's blatant cheating since otherwise you would have to, oh, I don't know...actually *look* for said spawns and see for yourself whether or not they were active as well as keep track of each individual player opposite of you in PvP to determine classes and how many of them there are).

Sorry, getting back to addons here, it's just that I, personally, don't like automation to such extents.  I think for myself and, besides, I hate all this one copper/silver/gold/percent undercutting crap.  I list things super high if I want to see if anyone rich will bite when I list something really rare and unique, moderate/average when I just want to sell things that are commonly used and is not unusual to ask a given price for, and low when the listings have few uses, easier than most things to get, awkward because its something not usually considered worth putting up for auction, etc.  It's simple.

Like I mentioned earlier, I feel the auction house is outdated.  It has been suggested countless times before I ever looked into it but it is certainly worth repeating: give people the tools to just make public listings of what items they want and how much they are willing to pay for them.  If someone feels it is worth their time, they will answer their ad and sell the desired items.  Both parties leave happy and there is no competition with other players other than the simple "who can do it first?"

By all means, keep the standard auction house as it is but just add the above to it, is all.  Or make a separate NPC for that, I don't care.  Just do it.

Another thing that could be added is merely a play on the recently discussed Black Market Auction House on the MoP beta.  Currently, it is filled with rare and/or outright removed items from the game.

Want Ashes of Al'ar?  Okay, just be willing to compete with the insanely rich who won't give it a second thought about buying it.  I am, but I am pretty dependent on investments paying off in MoP that I've saved up for literally several years to sell at a higher price.  That's right.  YEARS.

Well, anywhoo, for expanding on this idea is to create a relatively small (read: high but not so high as for it to truly rival the current system) population of fictional sellers of whom you can buy your basic bread & butter items from (herbs, ore, cloth, etc.) with a dash of more out-of-the-way items if farming to get that nice but annoyingly-costed profession item done.  Stuff like that.

Buying them would maybe be a bit awkward because it would need some way of scanning the current auction house for what is reasonable prices and posting around that average, if not a smidge lower.  The best part of that end of it is because it's not open to manipulation as much as you would think.  No one in their right mind is going to "trick" the NPC auction house into posting low enough prices that they could just score some great deals on the same items because everyone *else* would just buy up the far greater amount of cheaper items from the person doing the manipulating.  It's far too risky unless you're on some sickenly dead server in which case it would likely be pointless to do this manipulation in the first place.

So, essentially, it would be the ultimate gold dump.  Sure, big-ticket items are a good draw to drain humongous portions of gold all at once but they would likely not sell often.  What is needed is to use this idea and make auctions that will be *consistently* bought out at a reasonably fast pace.

It wouldn't really hurt those who farm out items for a decent living, as well, since they would always have far more materials than offered in the alternate auction house.

So, in conclusion, I feel that with the described actions above, the basic idea of buying and selling would make the game a lot healthier and impact the economy in such a way as to balance around the general level of wealth Blizzard wishes was "normal".

Then again...they *did* keep raising the gold cap.  Those buggers!  They're just toying with us now.  March on Blizzard's headquarters and give them all a good, swift kick in the rear!

Okay, but in all seriousness, have a good one, all!

Starting Off: I Hate Min/Max

Hello, again!

I'd like to start small and express my distaste for the specific group of people whose class/spec choices aren't what they're playing because they *want* to but rather because they will jump on the bandwagon of whatever seems like it's the best of the best at a given time and —this is the best part—they decide to put everyone else down for not doing the same, bragging and holding whatever arbitrary standard they've come up with at the time over everyone.

Okay, I understand that it's their money, their time, their choice.  However, when they cross the line into harassing others for playing what they wanted instead of just blindly going with the "xclass/xspec does xdamage/healing/mitigation more than xclasses/specs", they can go jump in a lake.

On my mage, not my first class but certainly my favourite, I have always been fire.  What's that?  Arcane is the leader in these specific scenarios for this current tier?  Don't give a flying [insert expletive of choice here].  I won't go into PvP because I'm sure many people have many situations they can go and do something other than the standard obvious choice for their own characters.  Besides, I really don't like PvP on my mage.  My blood death knight (different server), sure, since I don't have to change from my tanking spec.  Otherwise...eh, shaky ground, at best.

Anywhoo, it's my attitude towards this that makes me feel exceptionally lucky to be in the guild that I am.  After all, we sure as heck don't run with a min/max setup.  Why would we?  We play what we like and base our raid group around that.  It's not like we're going for any world/server firsts or anything so, really, what is the gosh darn problem?  We just simply make it work.

If everyone played as though you didn't have any choice whatsoever, filling whatever role in whatever manner that was most efficient, then why would there be any different specs at all?  Why not have Blizzard just make everyone one class with the exact same spells/abilities, the same rotation priority, etc?  It goes on and on forever.

We all know *why* that doesn't happen: because most (read: not all) people like choice.  If not for choice, the gaming industry wouldn't be compelled to improve their products because we'd be content with what we have and never bother thinking about ways to improve one's experience.  Forcing the industry to be creative, to push the boundaries of what it capable of being implemented is what drives production quality up.

Admittedly, though, there's a flip side to that.  As things become more and more innovative, the industry is going to lose steam at some point and probably has a few times already before gaining their second wind.  With all these new things that are introduced, we eventually take some things for granted.  Also, we begin to set our standards higher and higher, to the point where we get outraged that some thing or another couldn't live up to our ever-growing demands.

Now, how many times can you recall in, say, the last 5 years that the industry, as described above, lost steam and couldn't make a successful product because all they could make was simply "more of the same".  How many people got so ticked off at those points and made the most ridiculous fuss you've ever heard (at the time, that is)?  Yeah...those weren't pretty.

I mean, heck, you can see it even recently with the whole Mass Effect 3 ending nonsense.

Brace yourself, I'm going to go on a rant here that's pretty off from the rest of what I'm talking about, so please bear through it or skip to the end.



SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!  DO NOT READ PAST IF YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETED MASS EFFECT 3!  CONTINUE READING AT YOUR OWN RISK!  DO NOT GET ANGRY WITH ME BECAUSE YOU HAD FAIR WARNING!





We're clear?  Okay, read on.

I watched a friend play through and choose the ending with the destroyal (deactivation? I honestly forget) of all AI, with the inclusion of destroying the mass effect relays in the process.  I wanted to see the ending with controlling the Reapers but y'know, I can just suck it up, now can't I?  =P

Anywhoo, so Shepard sacrifices him/herself to do that.  The Reapers, Geth, and all other such things are no longer a threat.  Additionally, Joker is, for some reason, going through a relay at the time (not participating in the battle or did EDI detect the pulse? never explained) and the EMP burst catches up with the Normandy.  The ship is struck down and an emergency crash landing must be made on the nearest planet.  It's presumed all of the crew happens to be on it at the time but upon opening the door, only Joker, Tali and Garrus step out onto a lush planet and...boom.  Credits.  After said credits, an older man (Joker? we have absolutely no freaking idea) is talking to his granddaughter and basically it's implied he told her the story of basically the whole plotline.  Something about her wondering about the rest of the vastness of space and being told that there are countless other planets, blah blah blah and she wants to hear another story about Shepard.

How is that a bad ending?  Yes, you don't know what happens to everyone ELSE but frankly, if this was a novel, it'd be a brilliant ending.  Apparently, in a video game it's crap that never deserved to see the light of day and whoever collaberated to agree on it as an ending to the entire series deserve nothing more than a slow, painful death.

Where do these people come from?  My goodness gracious, how are *those* people not committed to some sort of asylum?  How does any rational human being get so wound up over the ending of a video game that death threats or wishes to that effect are being spewed from every corner of the internet?

Yeesh.




OKAY, SPOILER ALERT HAS PASSED!  YOU MAY CONTINUE ON NOT BEING TOLD ANYTHING YOU MAY NOT HAVE EXPERIENCED!






So, as you may have concluded, I truly hate to be judged on personal preferences nor do I respect any sort of oppression of the same fashion upon others.  I don't go to Dairy Queen and berate people who choose not to get their cones dipped just because I think the chocolate dipping is better in addition to the fact that you TECHNICALLY get a little more product for the same cost.  I don't go harassing others based on what colour of clothing they wear because it isn't as drawing to the eye as a different colour that I might be wearing to allow a more obvious impact on being noticed, etc.  I could go on and on but hopefully you get the point.

The class/spec choice issue is JUST as ridiculous as the examples described above.

I don't really know how to end this with a clean wrap-up so I'll just leave it here.

Thank you for your time and hopefully my first *real* post wasn't absolutely horrible.

Introduction: Welcome!

Hello!

I am your host, The Annoyed Mage.

I am an avid World of Warcraft player and ideas keep striking me in as to what I would love writing about in regards to the game but, sadly, always come up with topics based off of annoyances.  I really am striving to look at good things and comment on them, as well, but after 7 years of playing World of Warcraft, much of (read: not all) of my sense of innocent wonder and amazement of this massively popular game has descended into many complaints about some of the people who play it, with much sighing involved.

I apologize in advance for my less-than-fabulous attitude; I just notice far too many things because I am so analytical.  Do I claim that I'd be able to give unbiased arguments with a fully rounded out discussion of exactly why I think the way I do?  You haven't known me very long, have you?  Oh, wait...yeah, you've known me for about 2 minutes, so fair enough.

In all seriousness, I'd like to get back to what my objective is for this blog.  I want to be able to post my thoughts in an atmosphere that is not toxic and demeaning such as the official WoW forums.  If I happen to give off any vibe that makes you feel as though I came straight from there, please let me know.  I may be pretty annoyed, angry, confused, and believing there is no hope for a large amount of people to have any sense of decency in the slightest but I dare not let any of THAT nonsense become prevalent in the way I do things right here.

Seriously, let me know, okay?

So, to wrap up my little introduction: I'm not as positive as I'd like to be, I'll be commenting on things that annoy me more than anything, I will *try* to put in the occasional thing that's on a more positive note, I'm doing this to release my thoughts that won't be so horrendously pounced upon by the jackals of the official WoW forums, and if you feel as uncomfortable here as you do the forums (even though I'm only posting intial topics and not arguing things back and forth) please let me know so I can correct myself for future posts.

Yeah, yeah, I don't really do short-versions of many things but OH WELL.

Anywhoo, with that, welcome to 'The Annoyed Mage'.