bruceb

I found the impending changes in patch 3.1 just a bit too much. So I posted this over on Shift-T:

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So here we are, on the eve of the first really big patch since Lich King (533 Mb big), and...I'm not up for it, I find. There are so many changes both deep and wide that seem likely to have such large consequences for my play, and I simply don't feel up to keeping track of them all. Some of the changes are good, some just mystify me, more than a few genuinely annoy me—I think Blizzard is making some parts of the game too blandly easy, while others seem to be getting unreasonably hard. How much of that is pure update overload, I couldn't say, really; I know that everyone's got a finite capacity to absorb major changes in existing tasks, and this is mine.

So I'm going on vacation.

For how long, I couldn't say. I've got some preexisting problems with WoW as it is, mostly stemming from having a machine that's way on the low end of their design range and neither being able to nor really wanting to replace it. (I like my MacBook. It is good for me. And I like being happy with my tools. Needless dissatisfaction and unhappiness are luxuries I choose not to indulge in right now.)

I don't want to say anything much yea or nay about planned posts I haven't gotten to yet. I'd like to. We'll see how it goes.

I should say that I am not stomping off in tears and huffs. WoW has been really really good for me through these four years. It's brought me friends and acquaintances, and given me a ton of wonderful adventure, drama, tragedy, comedy, the whole deal. I feel like someone stepping away from a great meal, just plain full up and not needing seconds or dessert right now. I'll see what comes next after this all digests some. :)

I've been frustrated some with WoW lately. I have a non-pro MacBook, and the quality of play is just not what I'd like. I'd like to ramble about my problems and stuff done so far, and see what advice y'all may have.

( Read more... )

What I'm playing at the moment, what I'm thinking about, over at Shift-T.

It struck me - not for the first time, but I'd forgotten about this - that I find the Horde more discouraging/less entertaining to play at times like this when I'm putting a lot of effort into physical cleaning and ordering. Returning from adventure to bases that are all either ruins or semi-squalid barbarism feels like a setback to my real-world work, even though of course it isn't.

This is one of those posts that's hard to write because it's mostly about nuisances. None of what follows adds up to "I want to move my main character to another guild", but I'm still definitely dissatisfied with the state of things.

( Release the hounds! )

A special tip of the enchanted, jeweled hat to bryant for info. He tipped me off to a whole new-to-me world of very lightweight, well-behaved addons, which I've blogged about over at Shift-T. Check it out for links, screenshots, and like that.

Somewhere along life's road, I picked up the sarcastic phrase "As much fun as you can legally have!" and use it in referring to dull moments. Well, this has been an evening with as much fun as I can neurochemically have. :)

I had been expecting to spend my WoW evening taking part in a guild run against Archavon the Stone Watcher - we'd scheduled it and everything. I knew from reading up that it's a short raid, too, one of those "four guardians and the boss" deals like Onyxia. So I fixed up some supper and logged on an hour beforehand, figuring to do a little leatherworking or something, and promptly got recruited for someone else's run at him. This was with folks guildmates and I knew from hither and yon, so I accepted, and off we went.

We didn't get him down. We gave it a good try, though, and by the time we were done I felt I had a good grasp on the mechanics of it and could help out my guildmates who'd be new to it that evening.

Except...

To get at Archavon, your faction has to control the stronghold in Wintergrasp. We did, when we started gathering. Five minutes later, when the whole raid was there, we didn't. Pfeah. We discussed it, and decided, what the heck, let's go take a poke at Naxxramas. We'd scheduled our first guild run for it next week, maybe we could learn a few things.

What we learned is that we could clear the spider wing without any real fuss. :) Three bosses down, good loots recieved, a great time had.

But I must say: now my brain feels drained and dry again. That was a lot of learning and concentration I hadn't expected and wasn't prepared for again. I did not collapse in one of my zonks or seizure-like episodes. But it's way too close for comfort. Now to go off and recuperate so that in the end this will have been an evening of fun sans penalty.

Y'know, back in the day there were lil' dps meters that only kept track of the damage your character and pet did. They seem to have all gone away.

I'm interested in such a thing because I'm playing on a system that really is at the low end of okay for Lich King, and I have the suspicion that cutting out the extra monitoring effort that anything like Recount makes would help my performance in crowded situations. Anyone got advice on that? Note that I am not looking for ways of hiding stats on others' performance. I'm interested in ways of not collecting that info in the first place, while continuing to monitor my own performance.

Sez WoW Insider, we're getting a free pet if we log on tomorrow (Sunday) - a baby blizzard bear in honor of WoW's 4th anniversary. Check it out. :)

On many servers, the name Cleitus is available for death knights. Not on Shadow Council Horde, anymore, since I made mine, but in general.

To the rest of you: I'll explain the joke later.

Is there a way to make the Recount addon retain in its list people who've dropped out of a group?

Thanks to Ralmiel, who signed his mail "Maestro de Juego" to my quiet delight, Sagarmatha is no longer poisoned. It turns out that getting him killed and then rezzing him fixed it.

A friend and I were doing the magnataur-hunting chain near Warsong Hold an hour or so ago. Sagarmath got targeted for poison by mistake. He's still weakened, tiny, and with boiling blood, despite all our efforts. Anyone know what to do about that?

Over at Shift-T, I've got up three posts' worth of screenshots and commentary on things I saw poking around the new territories for WoW on the first and second days of play. As usual for me, this is Horde-oriented, and does not include the death knights, because I owe them extra exposition.

• Part 1: The Borean Tundra and Points West


• Part 2: East By Turtle


• Part 3: Mostly Fjord

I asked this at Shift-T, my WoW hunter-focused blog, but will repeat it here.

I've been in five Alterac Valley matches today settled on the basis of reinforcements, all with less than 100 reinforcements' difference between victors and losers. Four of the five had a spread of less than 20. This boggles me. Is there some new strategy of the day, or something like that, or was it just clustering of the sort that happens when there are enough semi-independent semi-random operations going on?

The big patch this week brought in new scenery. I am really, really impressed by the new Stormwind Harbor. It very much raises the bar for city excellence. I have a 20-shot photo tour for y'all to see.

The in-game background: Stormwind City is the capital of the last survivor of the seven human kingdoms; the other six are casualties of war, demonic invasion, undead armies, and other trouble. The harbor was destroyed early in the history of human-orc warfare, and the first attempt at rebuilding went awry when the city authorities tried to stiff the masons' guild. (And the angry masons went on to organize as bandits under master mason VanCleef, their lair being the first dungeon for Alliance adventurers.) But now things are under better management, and the harbor's ready for new challenges.

And it truly is a gorgeous wonder.

Looks like much of what I'm interested in using got updated smoothly enough for the patch, but not quite anything.

I see that the Cosmos UI project is shutting down. I only used one of their addons, but I came to count on it a lot. Action Button Colors did the best job I've seen of vigorously highlighting what buttons aren't ready for use for lack of mana or rage/energy/etc, and which aren't because of being out of range. Anyone want to recommend a replacement or update for that?

Also, have I missed news of updates for Doublewide, Talented, and Lightheaded? And Cartographer?

Shift-T, my third try at WoW blogging, is up and running.

As usual, I forget how to set up LJ syndication. :)

Tivara made it to 70, promptly got new gear,and jumped in to help fill out a Magtheridon raid today. Hunter does in fact work more easily and satisfactorily for me in raiding as well as in questing and instancing, I find. Screen shot below the cut.

( Screen shot below me. )

The pros and cons thereof.