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March 29, 2007
It Never Fails
Drama always surrounds a guild, no matter how friendly the environment might be, or how well tuned it seems.
The guild we're all in is preparing to head into Karazhan, but due to the shortage of tanks, they have created two teams of people--20 out of 58 Level 70s--as their core Karazhan group. Now, they've tried their best at saying, "People will be rotated out," but we find that hard to believe.
As such, we're trying to find our own way into Kara. Obviously, the big opposition at the moment is the lack of tank.
Of those 58 we have 8 warriors, 6 druids and 3 paladins. Now, I know that one of those paladins is resto specced (that being Joe), and that another is one of the chosen tanks for Kara. The druids I don't know well beyond one, and he too is a Kara tank.
Well, when all is said and done, people were a touch annoyed by the listing of specific teams, and especially since it was very much seeming like, 'If you aren't here, you're screwed.' So we've been working on a way to get ourselves into Kara.
Step #1 - Powerlevel my warrior! (And by this, I mean so in the legitimate way, of instance runs and the like.)
Step #2 - Try and get Bri to learn to tank, and feel comfortable with it (in addition to getting him up to 70).
Step #3 - ???
Step #4 - Profit!
(Sorry, couldn't help it.) Seriously though, Joe is an excellent healer and if need be, I will bribe Liz into coming over to our server. Doing so would bring a holy priest and a rogue. That would lift our group to 7, needing three more: tank, tank, healadin, holy priest, rogue, rogue, marks hunter. We'd need (IMO) a warlock, a mage and perferably a druid. Druids are always nice to have around. (Common concensus is: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 melee with one being a possible off-tank, three ranged and finally a back-up healer who can focus on offensive when not needed healing.)
We've already accept that dying will indeed happen. To me, that's part of the learning experience. BWL was death, death, death. It was frustrating, it was costly. But it was necessary. When we got into phase two of the first fight, we were so ecstatic that we basically killed ourselves, but that one moment of 'YES!' was fabulous to me.
Right now we're tossing around the idea of making our alt-guild into an actual guild. It's in the air, and will really come down to how things go with the guild's Kara groups. Joe caused some ripples by posting looking for people interested in forming a 3rd group, but the responses show that there are people who are interested and that perhaps the teams idea wasn't the best for guild cohesion.
Time will tell.
Posted by Coyote at 7:28 PM
March 27, 2007
FX and Dirt
It's been long and well established that Mike and I love FX's original programming. We've been watching the Shield since it very first aired, and eagerly await each season.
Two of their latest shows have me nicely enthralled. Well, as enthralled as I can be when it's only me watching, and I sometimes can't even remember what day it is! The first was Dirt, which aired it's season finale tonight; the second being The Riches.
I've missed an episode of each, which while a touch disappointing , isn't a terribly big deal to me. Specially I missed the episode of Dirt where Don cuts off his finger; and for The Riches it was last night's episode.
Season finale's always get me. FX is amazing at packing in so much into a regular episode time slot, where you feel like you just watched two episodes.
I'm not entirely surprised by parts of Dirt tonight. Last week when they were running another of the "Guess who put the photos in Lucy Spiller's car!" commercials and running the 'mugshots' of major characters, I finally decided that if I was to put money on anyone, it would be her brother. Holt was a close second, but he seems a touch too weak to do that.
I never suspected Don. Even with his quirks (if you could call schizophrenia a quirk), he was too bonded with Lucy. Just look at how far he ran in an attempt to stay away from Lucy and run from the "voices" telling him to kill her. I'd like to know who the one was, that was played by the same actor as Don. Everyone else we know: Kiera, Holt, etc. But the Don-lookalike is a hanging question. If he spoke in his own voice, I could understand, but the slight different look and the way different voice makes me wonder if its something left for next season.
Oh, and the scene where he walks into Lucy's office and she's so glad to see him? The moment the light shifted reddish, you could tell that it was a vision. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it wasn't a visually--and mentally--fabulous scene; just that it was easy to decipher.
I did not expect the very end, with Julia. Apparently with her brother discovered, Lucy grew immediately lax with her security. Not wise, oh no. Especially since she'd been chased earlier by photographers? (Looking back on that, I have to wonder about the trucks--aren't they similiar to the Mexican photographers? Revenge, perhaps?)
Speaking of the chase scene, loved it. Very quick, tight cameras and Holt wigging out. See, too weak. And it showed off the Sunfire wonderfully (such a cute car!).
Finally, the inclusion of Jennifer Anniston.... loved it!! I cannot say I was 'the biggest' Friends fan, but I could certainly sit down and lose myself to hours of the show. And having them in such a drastically different genre of show couldn't have made it any better. Brent's reaction to the kiss was atypical male, but Brent is pretty much Hollywood-perv from the start.
So... when's next season start?
( Speaking of new seasons ... The Shield next Tuesday! Woot! )
Posted by Coyote at 11:11 PM
March 25, 2007
Another Day
So I've a full server of characters on TN now, one of each class. The lowest is a druid, who is largely going to be my bank alt, but I gotta at least get him to 10. From there is slowly scales upward: 14 mage, 14 warrior, 23 paladin, 26 warlock, 31 rogue, 35 priest, 63 shaman and my level 70 hunter.
I love alts, plain and simple. While I don't progress as far as I could if I stuck to one character, having a variety of alts assures me of almost constant full rested experience, on any number of characters, and the abilty to be like, "I want to work on something different." Yes, I may be stuck with the drudgery of the Barrens, Thousand Needles and the like, but once I hit Desolace or Arathi Highlands, I'm usually fine.
I've been completely into my rogue since transferring him over. I hadn't played him since prior to the expansion, when the major free respec hit. In fact, I still had his points unspent--so that was a good 3 months? I know Sharon's rogue is amazing, so I borrowed her spec. Right now I'm 21 into Assassination with Cold Blood and starting in Subtley. I gotta get at least 10 into Subtley before switching back to Assassination. Her spec is 43/0/18, but I may top it out at 41, and top out Camouflage (she's 4/5) and add in Ghostly Strike, which she skipped over for 2/2 Elusiveness.
I've also used the pickpocketting macro she posted, so that you can pickpocket and open up in one click. Largely I've been opening with Cheap Shot. The build is very solid for keeping up both energy (Relentless Strikes, finsihing moves have a 20%/combo pt. change to restore 25% energy) and combo points (Ruthlessness, 60% chance on finishing moves to add a combo pt).
Only things I had problems in pickpocketing were the ogres in Arathi. They were 2-3 levels higher than me, and would seemingly break my stealth, though I wasn't having problems with other mobs upward of 4 levels higher than me. *shrug*
Aside from my rogue, I saw that I had to start working on my Argent Dawn reputation, as our GM is planning out trips into Naxx. Even to buy my way into Naxx through AD, I need to at least be Honored. I was barely at Friendly when I started today (305 Friendly). When I finally stopped, I was at almost 3000 Friendly. I also have a ton of items building up for the cauldrons and then all the Scourge stones to turn in later.
Brian's warrior is 54/55 and we went into Western Plaguelands together. Did about 5 quests or so, which worked on both our AD rep and hopefully some decent XP for him.
I was switching through the cauldron fields as I would get bored with one, or as more people showed up to them. At the second field, I swept up 5 or 6 skeletons and was taking them out, when I noticed a 50-something dwarf hunter nearby. As I finished up all the skeletons, he knelt, waited a moment and then turned and left the field to me. I wouldn't have bothered him anyway due to his lower level (unless he decided to attack me, which would have been stupid) but it was rather nice to see the respect. (Oh yeah, Biggle was his name, level 54.)
When I started getting really bored of farming, I saw that Sharon had asked Tom if anyone was bothering him down in Hillsbrad. She went to patrol, and I joined them maybe 15 minutes later. Patrolling is a nice change of pace, and the low levels seem to enjoy seeing higher levels out protecting them. I had a number of whispers from people, either asking for help against Alliance, or just asking if we were out standing guard. The first one who asked if I was out to stand guard thanked me when I said that yes, another 70 and I were patrolling.
Sharon left to go to Black Morass, and then someone whispered me about a paladin. That paladin then attacked me about a minute later. Level 68, and the first fight was fairly good. He did have to bubble and heal, but he got me rather low. Mostly because I'm a twit when it comes to PVP, and often forget the one important thing for a hunter: Wing Clip! But once he was Clipped, he was screwed.
Of course, he was screwed when he rezzed up and decided to come back for more.
Second fight, he didn't stand a chance. He didn't even get to bubble/heal--he was Silenced as he tried healing--and barely marked me at all.
I waited awhile to see if he'd come back. I don't know if he ran back and simply sat nearby, waiting to see if I would leave--I wasn't camping, he had a great deal of distance in which he could rezz up--or if he logged off, but he didn't come back while I was there. After a while, someone whispered from Tarren Mill, asking if I'd come help, that they were having Alliance problems.
Now, Sharon always complains about paladins. I personally don't find them that difficult. However, this level 70 warlock, with his imp kicked my ass. Doesn't help that he got a fear off, because my global cooldown was circulating as I went for Silence Shot. But he kicked my ass, and of course, being a gracious member of the Alliance, he /laughed as I released.
He died twice next time I saw him. The second time was when he decided to use his soulstone. Not smart when you have two hunters within shooting range!
He died another time or two, along with a mage. By the time I called it a night, I had 7 kills and hadn't gone looking for a single one. :) And yes, this is impressive for me, considering I don't PVP often. Yeah, I know the point of a PVP server is PVP, but really... a non-PVP server would be lame for RP. And, the game isn't the same when you aren't looking over your shoulder! I like stealthing around 80% of the time on my rogue, watching my back. It's a sick pleasure, but hell, the game has to be fun somehow!
Mind you, last night when 'Biba and I were being repeatedly ganked by a level 70 hunter on our shaman (64 and 63 respectively), it wasn't fun. Death from the sky isn't enjoyable... four times in a row.
I realize that part of it comes with our guild tag, but goddamn. We almost switched to our mains to hunt him down.
I wonder if there's anything I can buy with 2000 honor points...... :D
Nope, nothing! /sigh
Posted by Coyote at 11:31 PM
March 22, 2007
Grumpy Computer
Sigh!
Okay, so Mozilla won't load my default profile. Which means... no links to anything. Huge annoyance right there. Recently it's been crashing, and I have a feeling that those issues are related.
To make matters worse, the computer's overheating alarm goes off constantly now. I actually had to hook up my deskfan and set it at the side of the computer (case open, of course) to get some cool air in there. It's freaking March... which means this summer is going to be awful in terms of keeping my computer happy.
I can't even play WoW right now. I'm bouncing from project to project as programs crash, or the computer claims to be overheating.
iTunes to work on my library; here to putz around with a few sites; AOL just to have IMs available; Word as I try and work on what has the potential of being a kick ass story.
So, now I'm frustrated.
Hmm, gonna try WoW again... the deskfan has been running for a good 20 mins now.
Posted by Coyote at 5:45 PM
Insane Reading Spree
Okay, to start off with... this is the second time I'm attempting to write this. That makes me very sad, because I'm not going to put the same amount of time into a second attempt, as I had in the original. :( I was updating iTunes, and it decided to reboot my computer when I was done. How kind!
So. What I had been trying to say is that I've been doing a ton of reading lately. I'm going to attempt to compile a list here.
Michael Connelly - The Black Ice
Michael Connelly - Concrete Blonde
Anne Bishop - Sebastian
Leroy "Nicky" Barnes - Mr. Untouchable
Joe Hill - Heart Shaped Box
Patricia Briggs - Blood Bound
Jacqueline Carey - the entire Kushiel's series
Stephen King - The Cell
Stephen King - Lisey's Story
Thomas Harris - Hannibal Rising
Susan Wright - To Serve
Susan Wright - A Pound of Flesh
Christopher Moore - Love Sucks
Janine Cross - Touched by Venom
Janine Cross - Shadowed by Wings
Keri Arthur - Full Moon Rising
Keri Arthur - Kissing Sin
Keri Arthur - Tempting Evil
I'm also currently reading the following:
Kelley Armstrong - No Humans Involved (ARC, 5/1/07 release)
Rob Thurman - Nightlife
Lined up for reading...
Stephen King - Song of Susannah
Stephen King - The Dark Tower
Rob Thurman - Moonshine
Christopher Buckley - Boomsday
Lt. Gen. Jay Kopelman - From Baghdad, With Love
Posted by Coyote at 5:04 PM
March 21, 2007
A Minor Test
Check, check ... microphone check!
Well, not too long ago, I did a big oops! on my webserver. Namely, deleting almost everything in existance on it! I was doing some "spring cleaning"--in the middle of the night. Never a good thing. Apparently when I went to delete some files in a directory, I also had "Parent Directory" highlighted as well, and that damned near succeeded in deleting everything.
I just now got around to rebuilding MovableType. Part of that was simply laziness. It was also because I had nothing to write about....
Work is work.
Home is home.
Gaming is gaming. ^_^
WoWarcraft continues to dominate our gaming time. We don't even RP anymore, but we're not alone. It seems that the majority of our gaming populace has fluttered off to shinier and prettier. Many to WoW. Others to gaming forums which spring up roughly every 6-9 months and use tactics like, "Rank gain through cyber!" as recruiting slogans. Okay, maybe they didn't go so far as to use that as a slogan, but that is truly what it boils down to.
Mike is slowly losing his mind.
Strike that. Mike quickly lost his mind. His poor PC took a shit, and has been out of commission for along two weeks. Wait, more. >_< Yes. More. Anyway, its back with its creator. I'm fond of the company. They've made us four computers, and the only ones with true problems have been Mike's. I honestly think that is simply him though. So yeah, built us four computers--however their customers relations right now? Suck. They haven't contacted him once to tell him what they've found, and apparently either his PC is seriously fucked, or they're slower than they claim on their site. "Two weeks" is their claim. I think that claim even means you'll get it back within two weeks. Whatever. The tech said, supposedly, that he ought to be done with it, "before the weekend." Friday will be the two week mark.
As for other nonsense? I got rid of my WoW 'blog' as I wasn't writing in it. It's strictly gallery now, which I'm sure Dennis will adore. :D I still need to resize pics, but for now, they're there. And that's all that matters.
My hair is redder, shorter and more feathery than before. Thanks to a dye-job I'm not quite sure about (the red is almost too authentic, and it weirds me out) and a haircut.
We saw 300 this past weekend. I loved it. Mike's a little 'eh' about it. He obviously needs to see it a second time. I also bought the soundtrack, but fuck if I know where it is! I was looking for it this morning, with no success.
Cafe person called out today, and I got stuck in there... shit, for 30mins? No big cause for complaint, I suppose. Except that I had to deal with CompUSA guys. Well, most of them I don't mind, but one of them... he seriously wigs me out. Ever since he's started talking to me, he's weirded me out. I suppose it doesn't help that the first thing he said to me was, "Are you LP?" Eh. Mind you, James had watched some guy hurry out the door once, setting off the security gates, and high-tail it into CompUSA. And a few days later, he said that it looked like this guy who worked over there.
Anyway, CompUSA is going out of business, and this one guy apparently wants to work here. Now, I know that I fuck around a great deal with Mike and James, but I really don't think its that hard to figure out that Mike and I are seeing each other. Plus... hello, I'm wearing a ring!. Point being, I saw the weirdo three times today, an excessive amount, and I think the first time this morning he was going to give me his number or something.
Ick.
So, back to happy thoughts -- WoW. :D I've moved almost solely over to Sharon's designated RP-PVP server. All that remains on Bloodscalp is my rogue, who will be moved over probably with next payday. My hunter, Zindi, is now 70 and has been for awhile. Right before hitting 70, I ran downstairs to grab Mike and bailed out of my group--much to the disappointment of my grouped friend--and went for that last kill. I explained that I bailed from the group so that he didn't accidently level me, while I was grabbing Mike. After leveling, he made me head off to the trainer to grab my 70 spells (two? Ah well, I did respec Marks/Survival and had actually about 30g in new abilities to buy). And then back to Outland... to get my flying mount. It's not the uber flying mount, but it's still very cool!
My poor lil' shaman is over on the RP-PVP also, now. She was transferred over this weekend. I had to change her name also. :( (I had to change my poor priest, who I loved as Sorrowful.) I keep calling my shaman Shinku too, so Mike said that her new name should simply be her surname, so that she's still Shinku. Good plan. He thinks smart!
I've also been trying to get back into writing. I have roughly one-half of a post written for Destiny, but I stopped writing at an uncomfortable spot. It doesn't help that I waited two weeks or so to try working on it more, but it was today at work that I realized where I truly wanted to go with the post. Mini-saga, actually. Three post minimum, one of which is private and will only be mailed to one. And that's simply to give an interesting base, though it'll probably be wrapped up in a fourth post. /shrug
Hmm, for a test post... I sure did ramble.
/salute
Posted by Coyote at 8:18 PM