In The Name Of Love

Maybe it’s not a popular holiday, but his dream is something the world still has yet to realize.

GearScore Makes Me Ramble

GearScore is here to stay. So you better learn to live with it.

Anyone who wants to argue that it will have it’s day in the sun and disappear like the next fad, well it’s entirely possible, but you’re nuts!

BeImba! popped up during Burning Crusade and I used it on a daily basis. I’ll admit it, I was all about my score on that website. BC raiding was hard. I was new at it and needed every bit of gear I could get to be able to gauge where I fit in the endgame. Eventually I got to a point where I was geared enough and understood enough about my stats that I stopped looking. It didn’t matter as much anymore. One more point wasn’t going to make or break me for the content that was available to me at the time.

Then WoWHeroes poppped up on the scene. It has a much nicer layout and feel to it. At least it’s prettier to look at anyway. And once again I jumped on the bandwagon of constantly checking out my ever improving gear as I ran through OS and Naxx trying to see where the site said I was in relation to those raids. Then one day Naxx went from hard to insanely easy overnight and I quit looking.

Well that’s not entirely true. I still use the site to remind me what enchants to use. Even though my first toon is an enchanter, I can never remember names of enchants. Call it old age, but I call it “leaving room for something more useful”. XD

So regardless of whatever addons or websites are used, gear score is here to stay. If you want to go back further than the websites and addons, then gear score was determined by colors and item levels which still exist.  Getting epic’d out in BC was time consuming. In Wrath it takes all of about 5 minutes upon hitting 80.

Which brings me to my next point. Progression.

I’ve loved this expansion. It’s purty. I liked OS. I liked Naxx. I even liked Eye of Eternity! Ulduar was a blast! And then…

Onyxia was boring and ToC sucked. Both are single room loot pinatas. But unfortunately just like with Ulduar loot progression screwed it all up.

Ulduar was harder than Naxx for small rewards. ToC and Onyxia were insanely easy (disregarding ToGC) for large rewards. So the result was huge swaths of Ulduar remained untouched by the majority of players.

And now ICC, and the Frost Emblems it brings with, have upped the difficulty and grind levels once again bringing with it a whole new slew of progression issues of which competent players seems to be the number one issue. Ding 80 + gear up in 2 hours = facepalm.

But this is supposed to be a ramble and not a rant and I can deal with competent vs. incompetent players. My mindset at this point is I’d rather run with incompetent guildies than competent pugs, but that’s just because of where I’m at personally now in-game.

That isn’t to say that if I ask you to stop dps’ing the boss THREE TIMES and to dps the add that you as the only spell caster dps in the raid can actually hurt, that I wouldn’t be annoyed if you continued to single-mindedly dps the boss. Theoretically speaking of course. It would be our fault for setting up a raid with only one spell caster dps and attempt a boss whose mechanic requires a good mix of dps which of course we would NEVER do. Although I suppose if people weren’t showing up for raids then it’s THEORETICALLY possible that we might do that.

But at least ICC is somewhat enjoyable, but it’s been such an up and down roller coaster of a ride getting here that part of me can’t wait until it’s over. So I find myself wondering about Cataclysm.

Which ironically some guildies were talking in vent the other night and apparently there are those that believe it’ll hit in November for the holidays and others that believe it’ll hit in June/July. I don’t really see the June/July thing happening, but then again it’d be a really long time to go without another raid if this is indeed the last one so maybe. I think it’ll more likely hit whenever the next big MMO does which is probably Star Wars.

And speaking of other MMOs, what about Blizzard’s new one? They’ve been pretty quiet, but speculation on the web is now heading towards a Call of Duty MMO now that Blizzard is owned by Activision.

A FPSMMO would be pretty interesting. I’d definitely look into something like that. Raids would have to be more strategy than WoW offers. Could you imagine shooting a boss with machine guns for 10 minutes? Umm…yeah…don’t think that’d work. But infiltrating an enemy base in order to stop a nuclear warhead from being launched and having to complete it within a set amount of time? That could definitely work!

And in Call of Duty news, I hit 2nd Prestige this weekend! I seriously need to find a more productive hobby, but gaming is just too much fun!

And speaking of hobbies which leads to blogs which leads to…

Amber’s recruiting quite the following. Tartdarling has joined our ranks!

Happy New Years!

New Years. Well it’s here! Did you stay up for it? Did I?

HELL NO! I’m old, remember?

I don’t drink. I don’t party. I have a family and that’s who I’d rather be with anyway. Aww sentimental, I know.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I just had to lay down for a little while and next thing you know it’s 6am. /shrug

Recapping the Old

So looking back, what did I do last year? Well lots of things.

First, I reflected back on 2008 and all the drama that unfortunately brought with it. Looking back this really started to foreshadow how the beginning of my year was going to be.

Being an officer at the beginning of the year, my blog was a lot about guild leadership. It was constantly on my mind. One of the biggest things we had problems with was how to motivate members which ironically continues to be a really hot topic and my post continues to gets hits on a daily basis. Sadly I probably didn’t give the answer everyone was hoping for, but the answer is still the same.

I also talked about other things like gquitting, started my Newbie Raider Guides of which one ended up being quite popular, and after several rants, burnout, etc. I finally posted a farewell to my guild.

In May I didn’t have much responsibility and so I started finding a lot of free time on my hands. This inevitably led to my experiment which was refined over the next few months.

In June, my shaman started to become my “main”. *grumble…heroism whores…grumble*

Then somewhere along the line I got asked to be an officer again and apparently absence breeds stupidity because shortly thereafter I remembered why I shouldn’t be an officer. I don’t hate it as I enjoy being a part of the process. I’m very opinionated and who doesn’t like to be heard? And now that Amber’s GM I feel it necessary to provide that buffer between her and the rest of them. Seriously! It’s scary! ROFL!

Looking Forward 2010

Holy crap! Is it really 2010?! I remember when 1999 was never going to happen because it was so far off!

Yeah, yeah. Shut your trap! So I’m old! Don’t make me beat you with my cane!

What am I looking forward to?

• Killing Arthas
• Leveling the other 5 classes
• Cataclysm – let’s face it, I’m curious. But here’s advanced warning, Amber. I may quit raiding. We’ll see.

But if there’s one thing I’m looking forward to more than anything else, it’s hanging out with the friends I’ve made in my guild (in no particular order): Amber, Zoja, Mach, Atropus, Evis, Rivs, Cel, Myss, Hunt, Kotakh, Missbubbles, Wolvarine, Oasic, Phase, Pyxy (if she ever comes out of hiding), Welgar, El, and Zuki appears to have returned too.

Now if I can just avoid getting angry enough to quit…

Random Thoughts

1) ToC still sucks. Yes I still have a little fun in there and it was nice being able to take my druid to a raid for the first time ever, but the fact that I had to bring my shaman in because no one was dispelling heals, interrupting, or any of the other necessary things that one does on Faction Champions… Yes, well Amber did dispel quite a bit after I bitched about the Skull target having up to 6 hots at one point.

2) Amber fails at showing up late for a raid she set up.

3) Amber fails for even setting up a ToC raid.

4) Amber fails cuz somehow I got roped into going.

5) Fail pugs should keep their mouth shut. Especially holy priests who can’t outheal scrub resto druids with less gear and experience.

6) It isn’t always the hunters’ fault. But don’t tell them that. They already have giant egos!

7) How pissed should I be that my druid outgears my paladin?

8) Will the new LFG start to fall apart in a few months once everyone’s geared up all of their toons?

9) Wonder if I can fully deck out my druid in Triumph gear this weekend?

10) Wonder how long to get my other four toons the same?

and the number 1 random thought that has plague my mind since the announcement of Cataclysm!!!

11) Will Blizzard increase the number of toons allowed per server? I’d really like to roll a Worgen on my server. And there’s no way in hell I’m deleting one of those toons!