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May 2012 M T W T F S S « Apr 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Meta
Lols
What you find on Google streetview!
You could read the number-plate too!
quietly
Content free post as usual.
It’s been quiet, my workload has stepped up and te WoW stuff is a bit same-old-same-old. But a few thinkgs of note are:
The munquis have downed the Litch King, good on them! I wasn’t present for small reasons, but then again, perhaps that has something to do with it :p
My palatank just dinged 75 making him my second equal highest level character. He got the last level through questing alone, which somehow makes me feel guilty. I have a memory that leveling gets faster the closer you get to 80, but that might have been something to do getting a the flying mount, so I’m not sure I’ll see the same thing on Fflow. I’d like to get to 80 before cataclysm, but it’s not looking likely at the moment. 5 levels at roughly 4 hours per level is 20 hours, so it might just about be doable in under 18 days, but it smacks of a commitment level that I don’t have for WoW.
Cactaclysm has taken a small setback for me, I had a few days of extra holiday stacking up for the end of the year, and I’d originally planned to burn them up on Cata, but I’m on a training course the very day it comes out. Sad Rummy.
I am debating renaming Fflow to Rummy, but, as is the way of things, I’ve gotten quite used to the name over the last few months. Maybe Rummy can wait for a worgen.
And finally, on the maps front I’ve scanned in another 6 maps ready for processing.
My favourite bit of the Litch King encounter?
Call me sad, but there are two bits of the Litch King encounter in Wrath that always make me smile a little. Both are in the scripted part at the beginning. The first is when Tirion and Arthas are busy waving their swords about and basically hosing the floor down with testosterone.
The second bit is when Tirion says “Champions attack!” and we all stand there, just about as far away as we can possibly be and politely say ”No, after you.”
wot!
Found this in my inbox this morning
Dear *******,Your account has been migrated to the new **** *****. A new password
was created on your behalf.
Here are your new credentials:
Username: ************
Password: aeb2f35e728e54d1b90262469e8c92dc
You will be asked to change your password when you login for the first time.
Oh yeah! A 32 character password! Are they trying to tell me something about security?
P.S. A password so complicated you have to write it down is worse than using your cat’s maiden name.
Paladin tanking tips.
Here’s what I’ve learnt
a) Make sure you don’t have crusader aura turned on – it’s nice for riding the pone, but not so good for tanking.
b) Make sure you are wearing a chestpiece. Tanking Bare-chested is certainly manly, especially with Fflow’s huge Draenei chest. But it doesn’t really help the healers or your aggro generation. I was wondering why the DPS was continually pulling aggro off me and why we wiped twice in The Nexus. -58 stamina and Strength is about a 10% debuff.
Books
The Fuller memorandum
A new author for me – Charles Stross. This book is like many I read, contemporary fantasy, though edging into the cyber-punk. Charles tries quite successfully to merge magic, specifically demonology with the technical world, to produce a secret world that is familiar, yet different.
A pretty decent read, and an author with a back catalog!
Fire – Kirsten Bashore
I was looking forward to this, having enjoyed her previous book. But I’m afraid I just had enough of the heroine being a slave to circumstances beyond her control, and gave up at the third section. It was starting to develop into a love story, but that wan’t enough to keep me reading. Shame really.
Spindle – Robin McKinley
Back on firmer ground here. Robin has become a very consistently high quality writer over the last few years, and this book doesn’t disappoint. It’s a full fantasy/magic world populated with everyday and fantastic creatures. Of course there’s romance as well, as you would expect of a rewrite of the sleeping beauty tale. The book draws you into a comfortable tale of fairy godmothers, evil witches and enchantments.
I’ll probably be rereading this one.
Highly recommended.
Kinda strange
Imagine my surprise when I heard myself comparing 3D films and tv to erotica and porn!
But it’s true, 3D can be done sensibly and subtly, like Avatar, or it can be done like the all of the ”AINT 3D TV GREAT” demos – the ones where the axe comes out of the screen, sits uncomfortably close to your face until your eyes start to ache.
Like erotica and porn, same subject matter, different delivery.
Palatank project update
Fflow is back to tanking. In fact he’s almost exclusively leveling through tanking instances and currently hovering at 67 ¾. I can’t wait to get to the Northrend dungeons.
Sometimes Fflow gets a good group, and rarely a bad one, what with overgearing instances and all.
Usually the worst are the overconfident, the “bigger pulls plox”, most of the wipes I’ve had are with these groups.
That said, we do all seem to overpower the instances.
Last night I made the mistake of accepting a “next dungeon” invite, these always come from the healer or the healer’s friends. I don’t know if that means they’re happy with my tanking, or it’s just such a pain finding a tank that they’ll stick with anyone who’s barely competant. Anyway, I accepted and all of us queued up for Shattered Halls.
A smidges of background – I’ve actually done very few dungeons, even though I had a level capped healer back in the Burning Crusade days I still missed out on several of the dungeons. So I’d no idea that Shattered Halls was an old ”endgame” instance.
There we were between level 67 and 69 looking at the first “trash-mobs” who were level 70. Three levels above me makes them not unlike a “raid boss”, bringing to mind things like hit caps and all of that “elitist jerks” (the forum) type of thinking. Still we went on, and despite several hiary pulls got to the first boss. A level 72 – thats 5 levels above me! I won’t deny I cried in Party Chat. But we downed him anyway! Onwards. The second boss was more difficult, apparently he is untauntable and has an aggro wipe resulting in the mage dying early. Giving him time to tell me that I wasn’t taunting enough. So kind of him.
After this boss one of the party disconnected (and presumably went to bed) and we then continued 4 manning it.
Yup a group of 67-69, managed to 4 man an old ”endgame” instance at well below appropriate level with no wipes and only a few mage deaths.
Four Yorkshiremen seems appropriate here, especially since one of us 4 was indeed in Yorkshire.
Bonus rest XP is a lie!
OK, I need to do some checking up, but several times I’ve seen comments about how rest XP is to help players who only play once or twice a week, or possibly to encourage players not to play quite so long.
I tihnk I’ve seen it suggested as a “benefit” to players who only play at the weekend allowing them to gain levels faster so they can keep their levels up with their more obsessive mates.
And that’s is totally not true! A player who plays 3 hours a day every day gets 88% as much rest XP as one who only plays 3 hours a week. So the difference is a mere 12% extra rest XP for the very casual player.
Not much of a bonus really.
The flip side of the coin is to maybe discourage over playing. It does have more effect here, once you’ve burnt through your rest-bonus you are back to the 1:1 ratio. Which considering that about half XP is earned through quest turn-ins means it’s not really a huge penalty, certainly not enough to stop people playing too much.
I think that maybe this “bonus” is a hangover from the olden days… I remember reading in some leveling guides that you should kill everything in your sights, and more! There were even suggestions about going to certain areas and just getting through a level by grinding away on mobs. I guess in those days the bonus XP looked pretty enticing, that and anything to reduce the grind must have been considered worthwhile.