Mecha Belgrave

Mecha Belgrave

WoW-64 2013-12-27 08-24-56-75

One of my big goals over the last few days was to get both Tallow and Belgrave through all four parts of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR.  Both of them could use gear out of there, and instead of piece-meal like before, I wanted to clear all of the bosses during this reset.  The other day I talked about how much success I had with Tallow in that he got both a mainhand and offhand weapon and two pieces of tier 16.  Yesterday I may have just blown that completely out of the water.  Previously on Belgrave I had gotten a shoulder drop, but was not using them as I had slightly better shoulders from flex.  Christmas day when I got home that evening, I popped into LFR and it inspired yesterdays topic on a social justice system.

However even though it had some frustration I managed to get Garrosh to drop two of the tokens that could be turned into any set piece.  I used those to give myself the tier 16 chest and legs, and then yesterday Nazgrim graced me with dropping the gloves token.  Just like that over the course of two days my Deathknight is wearing nearly a full set of tier 16.  I already had a helmet with the same graphic so for all intents and purposes I have a complete visual set.  I am really not sure what I think about the set, because honestly it feels a little out of place for being a Deathknight set.  Where are all the skulls?

Instead of being straight out of a deathmetal video…  I guess I am fresh from some manga?  I need to find a similarly mecha inspired two hander to go with it.  Thinking about maybe one of the ones from Ulduar… like Abaddon from Yogg Saron.  I am sure if I try hard enough I can find something suiting the look and feel of it.  Maybe it is just that it looks goofy on a worgen.  I remember seeing this in most of Qelric’s videos, and on her character it does not look half bad at all.  I feel that is the problem with most bestial races… the armor either looks really amazing or really awful.

Graduating the Cataclysm

WoW-64 2013-12-27 08-24-50-09

After finishing my tour of Siege of Orgrimmar for the week, I hopped over on Gloam and started working on him again.  I guess in a way for the good of the various raids I have been participating in… I felt like I needed to try and gear both Belgrave and Tallow.  In both cases I did very much so, and I figured I could take a break from LFR to work on my little rogue.  I managed to push him last night from 83 to 85 and finish off his Cataclysm era Alchemy.  I figure at some point soon I will farm up mass amounts of Pandaria materials and push him up in level to 600, but for now I am working on the leveling portion.  I would really like to find a pair of Fists of Fate to level him to 90 with, however there have been absolutely none of the auction house of late.  These carried my enhancement shaman all the way to 90, and I was still using them when I got my first epic weapon drop.

Instead in the mean time I guess I will make a pair of Ghost-Forged blades, which are not nearly as nice but should give me a decent boost through the Pandaria content.  The only problem is each takes 2 Spirits of Harmony, which are bind on pickup.  This means I will be out farming something that gives Black Prince reputation trying to collect four of them on my Paladin.  For whatever reason the characters that need them, cannot get them to drop… whereas the characters that have literally NO use for them like my Inscriptionist has 200.  This gives me a good excuse to get him to honored with the Black Prince, which is a normally tedious task.  I did however make a complete set of leather gear on my leatherworker so as soon as the blades are acquired I can begin my push to 90.

Onwards to Joplin

Needing to wrap up quickly this morning as we have a bunch of running around to do.  We are going to be running up to Joplin for a bit to check things out there.  I didn’t figure I would get time to do a blog post, but after showering and getting ready I decided to try and rush one through.  I had no clue what time we would be getting home, and after a day of running around the last thing I want to be is creative.  Hopefully you all had a great Christmas, and hopefully the loot gods have been smiling on you as well.

Social Justice

Happy Holidays?

Yesterday was a mixed bag, I am not going to get into the awkwardness that was Christmas with my family.  I should have taken a picture of the gallon jug of holy water that my grandmother for some reason seems to think she needs, however I did not as it would have been too obvious.  Suffice to say it was fine while it was just my parents and grandmother, but once people started showing up the fight or flight instinct kicked in and I had to get out of there.  We stayed long enough to be socially acceptable, or at least long enough to see everyone and then got back on the road.  I really don’t deal with large groups of people in confined spaces very well.

When I finally got home that night I went back to my LFR madness.  I really would have thought that the holidays would have made people better natured, but instead it seemed like only the worst people were running dungeons.  I guess it makes sense, as most of the “good” people probably have families and such that they would rather be spending time with.  The highlight of the evening, as far as horrible goes came when my Downfall group finally got to Garrosh.  We had a few people drop like usual, and one of the warriors  that joined in immediately started moaning that he had waited in queue for an hour and missed the entire dungeon.

Instead of doing the right thing, and just dropping group and taking the deserter debuff…  he proceeded to pull Garrosh while we were still getting prepared screaming “For Mother Russia”.  Obviously his ploy was to get us to kick him which doesn’t cause the debuff to happen.  He was running across the screen just about to aggro him again when the kick happened saving the day.  The problem is…  there needs to be a better way of managing this.  The systems in place don’t give us a way to flag this guy letting other people know that he will likely screw their group over if things don’t go his way.

Social Justice

TribunalCase League of Legends has had in the past the most notoriously toxic community in online gaming.  As a result they knew that this was ultimately hurting their product and keeping players from participating on a deep level with it.  Instead of sitting back and saying “pugs will be pugs” they took matters into their own hands and tried to devise a way of dealing with this.  As a result they created two systems that work hand in hand.  The honor system allows players to provide “endorsements” that are positive, such as Teamwork, Friendly, Knowledgeable, and at the same time provide a venue for reporting bad behavior.  When a player has received enough negative reports they go into another system called the Tribunal.

One of the problems with social reporting is that there is a sea of false positives and downright minor infractions that clog the customer support staff.  As a result the Tribunal system is innovative in that it brings each case before a jury of “peers” aka other players who have signed up to be willing to sit on these peer based juries.  You can view all of the results on the public Tribunal page if you are logged into your league account.  The image on the right side is an example of a tribunal ruling.  Of course warnings for language should apply as it states exactly what the player said during the match to warrant being reported.

Be Proactive Blizzard

These systems really do seem to work out in the wild, in fact with the big 2.1 patch in Final Fantasy XIV Squaresoft introduced a very similar endorsement system with some big rewards that can be gained through this positive behavior.  In the past there were unofficial systems on the servers that permanently labeled disruptive players as pariahs from the social circles.  There was a time where you could look at the guild a player was in and have a fair shot at gauging whether or not the player would be a positive influence on your group.  Additionally just talking to a player for a moment before inviting them to fill a group gave you a good idea of their future behavior.  When Blizzard introduced systems to automate these processes it completely removed the element of social ramifications, and such the “greater internet fuckwad theory” came true.

When it is perceived that there are no consequences for bad actions… players tend to behave worse.  Sure there are awesome people out there that are awesome all the time regardless of who is looking… but that is quite simply not the majority of people.  These systems work to bring a tally of someone’s misdeeds to bear each time they step into a group.  The guy who wiped the LFR because he didn’t want to be there… would bring with him a black mark from each and every player that flagged him for doing what he did.  I feel like blizzard does an excellent job of policing and banning players who are actively exploiting the game. 

However it is quite literally against their best interest to ban players who are paying them a monthly subscription.  Each time they ban one of these players they lose his money, and over time it adds up.  What systems like the tribunal do is introduce a neutral third party, the player.  The tribunal works because no only does it hold players accountable for their actions, but it also holds the players who are making these decisions accountable.  Every decision that is made, and the players who participated in making it is posted publicly for the world to see.  Since this relies on the players justice is usually far more swift than waiting for customer service to sift through their backlog of cases and deal with it.  It is my hopes that with the rollout of Warlords of Draenor, they will investigate a system like this, and hopefully make it applicable to ALL battle.net games..

Santa RNG

The Sidewalks Roll Up

Rolled-Up-Sidewalk

This holiday is considerably different than most.  Always there is a natural flow to the events, but due to my Aunt needing dialysis it has completely changed the order of things.  Traditionally last night I would have been up with my family, as they have always celebrated on Christmas Eve.  Traditionally we would go to “midnight mass” that actually happened about 7 pm, and then retire to my grandmothers house afterwards for awkward conversation and eventually even more awkward gift exchange.  During this my uncles would get into the cherished conversation of “why this random thing I own, is better than this other random thing you own” or “who hates ethnic groups more” or even the more recent “random insane government conspiracy theory”.  One of my uncles spins these grand tales of conspiracy that are delivered in way that they almost sound cogent… until you realize that the keystone of his argument is completely batshit crazy.

Now however the game has changed, as we did not spend last night with them… but are instead supposed to go up today.  Which pushes aside my wife’s family gathering… but that is a tale for another day.  This left us at home, by ourselves for the first time in years on a Christmas Eve.  We did not exactly plan well for this occurrence and as about 7:30 rolled around we decided we were hungry, and that nothing at all in the house sounded good.   Which is slightly insane, since we keep silly amounts of food on hand that could be prepared with minimal effort.  I got bundled up and went out into the cold night in search of sustenance. 

We have a saying here that the “sidewalks roll up” as a way of saying that the town is completely quiet and no business is being transacted.  Last night it quite literally felt as though the sidewalks had rolled up.  The only businesses open were Walgreens and Taco Bueno… and the line there extended quite a long ways across the now empty Reasors grocery store parking lot.  Seems like there were other people trying to find food on Christmas Eve.  Slightly forlorn I returned home and cobbled together something to eat out of the banquet of things we have laying around the house.  This morning when I went out to forage I was feeling no more positive that it would not occur again, however I successfully scrounged two sausage rolls and a jump start of caffeine to get us both going.

Santa RNG

WoW-64 2013-12-25 10-09-53-49

I would have thought that maybe last night players would have felt a wee bit more charitable since it was in fact Christmas Eve.  However if anything it seemed to make the assholes more assholish, and the clueless even more lacking.  I got to listen to more than one variation of the “you all suck” speech, but I dealt with it, because like I have said before playing DPS lets me compartmentalize my world.  I only care about the objective and achieving that objective, and since I am not tanking or healing and by default only responsible for myself… I can just zone in on that job and perform it.  I have lamented over the last few weeks how I have been unable to get weapons for my Enhancement Shaman.  So yesterday I soldiered on in the effort of trying to fill those gaps.

It might have been in the spirit of the season,  or maybe I just finally hit a lucky spot in the random number generator… but for whatever reason Santa RNG paid out big-time.  First I managed to pull the extremely cool looking Softfoot’s Last Resort from the protectors event.  Not very long after that I managed to pull the Seismic Bore mace from the Iron Juggernaut encounter.  So in one night I managed to bump both of my weapons up to decent levels and can now actually chart on the damage meters.  Thing is… Santa RNG was not finished quite yet.  Over the course of the evening I managed to pick up two pieces of the Tier 16 Shaman set the Shoulders and then finally the Chestpiece.  I still have a few slots that have 496 gear in them, but at this point there are not that many.  I have reached the point where Throne of Thunder really has no benefit at all for me, so I can simply focus on doing Siege each week.  I might have to do one last run however to pick up my final sigil of power.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

winterveil

So while I might sound sullen at the moment, I am sure as the day moves on I will enjoy myself.  Right now we are trying to get up and about and out the door so we can be long gone from my grandmothers house by the time my uncles show up.  As a result I need to finish this post up, get showered and ready and gather up the gifts.  I hope you all have a really awesome holiday, and that if you didn’t get what you wanted… you at least got what you needed.  I personally got exactly what I needed…  some time off work and the freedom to mill about the house peacefully.  Other than that anything else I gain from the holiday is gravy.  Hopefully you have a wonderful day surrounded by loved ones and blanketed in goodies.  I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and if you don’t read my blog again before then…  have a very Happy New Year.

AARP: Loved by Children Everywhere

Star Trek Fashions

TNGShirts_Cato

TNGDress I am getting a far later start this morning in blogging.  I warned my twitter followers that my morning post would end up being an afternoon post, but since this gets syndicated on all the platforms… apologies to the rest of you who were expecting a post early.  Why did it get delayed you might ask?  Well we had to get up and around and get some last minute things done.  Thankfully the activities gave me what I refer to as “blog fodder”.  Be warned I am not exactly going on chronological order here, but bear with me.

Firstly… I know that geeks are sexy, or at least that is what the media keeps telling me.  That said… when did it become cool for women to look like Star Trek: The Next Generation?  I realize that the recent movies were blockbusters of serious magnitude.  I did now however expect Star Trek fashion to trickle out into the mainstream.  The above shirts are from Cato, one of the places we stopped this morning looking for various sundry items.  Actually we went there to buy an item they no longer have… but that isn’t really important.  What is important is I cannot get the image of a Star Trek uniform out of my head when looking at these shirts.

BobaFettTop To the right is a similar dress that I found earlier in the season at Target.  If you follow me on twitter or G+ I am sure you saw me post it.  If not here it is in all of its TNG glory.  If Data were female she would totally be sporting this dress.  Then again the more I think about it… none of the women on TNG wore dresses at all, but instead got the unisex jumpsuits everyone else wore.  I guess you would have to go back to the classic series or the reboot movies to find dresses at all.  The trend however may not be entirely limited to Star Trek.  I cannot see the t-shirt on the right without thinking Boba Fett.

Granted these could just be hallucinations as I have spent more time of late in clothing stores than I would ever care to.  My wife has been on this mission to look “more put together”, and she has gone through a similar physical transition as I have losing almost 50 lbs.  I completely support whatever goals she happens to have, but I find myself extremely bored most of the time and when I get bored my mind wanders.  As a result I am probably just trying to make these things into something more palatable.  I have been having to draw on my art school background in helping her pick out things that “go together” without strictly matching.  I keep having to remind my wife that the experience is not nearly as exciting for me as it is for her.

AARP:  Loved by Children Everywhere

aarp_logo.134222842

Another jaunt of this morning while we were out and about was to go by and get our hair cut.  For me it had been extremely long and I was looking rather scruffy.  To be truthful I cannot tell you exactly when I last got it cut.  We went to our normal place and signed up on the list, waiting for a friend of ours to get free.  Personally it is worth the wait for Mandy, who is extremely popular… in part because I can simply say “make me look presentable” and that means something to her.  She translates well, and I find the ability invaluable… and since I tend to go extremely late I always feel like I need to leave her an extremely good tip.

While waiting there, I got to watch an entire family getting their hair cut.  The parents didn’t really look old enough to have three kids, but honestly that was the least of my worries.  You would think if one parent was getting their hair cut, the other one would be in the waiting room corralling the kids.  This however was not on their radar at all.  They sat back talking to the beautician and bellowing command rather ineffectually at their offspring that were roaming around the waiting room and generally running amok.

I don’t remember exactly which of the kids began this, but they found their way to the basket of magazines sitting beside my wife and I.  Each of them picked out a magazine carefully, and when it came time for the youngest girl she took extra care.  She rifled through the basket tossing aside several magazines before arriving at her prize.  When she took up she held lovingly clasped in her hands a copy of AARP Magazine.  The look of beaming pride on her face only made the scene all that more hilarious.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing. 

The magazines however didn’t hold their attention long.  It was only a matter of minutes until they were back running around the waiting room in a big circle.  I am not sure what exactly happened but next time I looked up the littlest one was sitting in the floor crying.  I am guessing that she could not keep up with the rough housing and got knocked down.  It was only when there were tears flowing that the absentee parents finally paid enough attention to bark additional orders at their kinder.  I realize I am a non-parent, and I am that way by choice… but I would like to think that if I did have kids I would actually pay some manner of attention to them.

Home At Last

I am finally back home and wrapped back up in my cocoon.  Since the weight loss I have been inordinately colder natured, and as a result I now have a fuzzy blanket wrapped around my backside and another fuzzy blanket laid over top of me.  It makes it a pain in the ass to get up off the couch but man is it nice and toasty warm.  This of course is along with my flanel pants. and thermal henley…  I am maybe overdressed for the fact that we do have heat.  I am not sure what is on the radar today.  I have various sundry betas that I could be playing, or I could just hop into World of Warcraft once the servers come back up.  I am assuming they did maintenance today, however since it is Christmas Eve I am not sure if that would be the case.

Speaking of Christmas… I will be posting tomorrow like normal, but if you are too busy with your own family to read my blog… I want to take the time right now to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  Most of the time I feel like I am talking to myself here, but I am constantly surprised at just how many loyal readers I have.  You all mean the world to me, and while I would probably keep blogging even if I had no audience at all…  you make me feel far less crazy in this endeavor.  I hope you all have a great holiday tomorrow, and that you are blanketed by loved ones.  We will be travelling a bit, but will not be terribly far from home.    Here is hoping the next few days are joyous… or at the very least tolerable.