MMO Archives - Page 417 of 430 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Gloam the Conqueror

December 28, 2013 by Belghast

Handbag of Fury

As mentioned yesterday we headed up to Joplin to go shopping and took my mother in law with us, since she wouldn’t tell us anything she actually wanted for Christmas. The goal was to take her shopping and hopefully find something along the way. This process involved me getting drug to a bunch of stores I would never actually visit on my own. I brought my 3DS with me, but oddly enough I never actually used it. I mostly piddled around on Twitter, Tumblr, and occasionally guild chat via the WoW Armory application. I did pretty well for the first three or so stores, but after that I started hanging out in the car while they were shopping inside.

I am sure by doing this I missed numerous things that were photo worthy, but the highlight of the day was the above handbag. It quite literally has a set of brass knuckles built into the clasp. I am not sure if this was really intended for self defense, but it certainly would hurt like hell to get hit by that. I tried to convince my wife that she needed it but she was un-swayed. I am not sure how we ended up together, because if it were my choice there would be skulls on everything. Hell I play a Deathknight… that class is all about beating down things while wearing skulls. My wife on the otherhand wants none of that nonsense.

I keep finding these awesome scarves with cute little skulls, and she is completely uninterested in them. She is not exactly a girly girl… but I guess bedazzled skulls is a bit too far in the other direction for her. Both her and her mother found several things during our trip, which is good. I found a few interesting clearance Legos, but decided not to pick them up because really I would have just been picking them up for a few interesting parts… and had no interest at all in the thing they were intended to build. These were originally 90 dollar sets that were selling for 40, but that still seemed a bit pricy to purchase just for a handful of nifty thingamajigs.

Gloam the Conqueror

When I finally got home from the whirlwind trip of shopping madness I built myself a fuzzy little cocoon on my comfy sofa and settled in for some World of Warcraft. I did my normal crafting cooldowns crawl, making sure everyone had created their trademarked rare daily craftable, before settling in on Exeter my Paladin Blacksmith. The first goal of the night was to farm up the rest of the Motes of Harmony needed to craft two Ghost-Forged blades for my rogue. While I was trying to get a hold of Fists of Fate, I was unable to do so and gave up on that mission settling for the two crafted blades instead. I still think it is almost criminal at this point that Motes are not bind on account, since I seem to have way too many on some characters and never enough on others… but I have settled on a decent way to farm them.

I badly photoshopped a map of The Dread Wastes to indicate where I go to farm motes. There are supposedly better drop rates elsewhere in the world, but I find this to be my favorite spot. Firstly no one is ever out here… granted by me saying this there will automagically be tons of people out there next time I need motes. Secondly and quite possibly the most important reason… all this stuff is level 90, easy to kill and gives Black Prince reputation. Most of my characters need this badly to be able to progress their way through the cloak quest chain. Especially now that I have the repair mount, this is an awesome place to go mindlessly kill things and make tons of money doing it. Additionally the mobs die pretty fast once you are in timeless isle gear and you can make a big loop of the island and by the time you reach the other side everything is completely full spawn again.

Finally I got my 40 motes and crafted the blades, enchanted them with windsong and was up and running on Gloam. I have to say having the crafters to built a starter set of gear for Pandaria eases the transition. You hit the ground running and are able to slaughter pretty much everything, even on the super squishy classes like the rogue. I made my way through the first few sections of Pandaria before sleep claimed me. My goal for the day is to make it through all of Jade Forest. Not really sure if this will happen or not as today is supposed to be the last “nice” day for awhile, and I have a feeling I will get drug from my cocoon and out into the world. If that happens no promises on how far I will make it on my goals.

Redragon Perdition

At this point pretty much every MMO gamer is familiar with the Razer Naga and most are also familiar with the Logitech g600. They each provide a different take on the concept of the large number of button MMO mouse. Each has its strong points and its weaknesses. The Razer for example, I have had three of them die in exactly the same way after about two years. Similarly I recently had a g600 kick the bucket after about the same two year threshold, granted the g600 did not die so spectacularly. The Nagas started “jumping” in that the cursor would mysteriously accelerate at high speeds in one direction or another. The g600 on the other hand started missing mouse clicks. One of the actions you do more than any in an MMO is holding down both the left and right mouse buttons to move forward. The g600 would stop registering that my right mouse button was clicked and as a result I would stop forward movement.

When I was looking on amazon for a replacement, I noticed the Redragon Perdition, that literally looks like a combination of the best features of the Naga and the g600. At the time it was a little over $20 cheaper than either of the other mice so I figured I would give it a chance. The reviews were really favorable and it featured a naga like shape but with g600 style buttons. The mouse itself was a little late getting to me, as it was shipping during our recent ice storms. However when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the built quality. This is after all in theory a chinese knockoff of a Naga and g600, but it is a very good one. One of the problems I have with both the Naga and the g600 is that they don’t feel nearly as good as the old Logitech mx500 gaming mice. These had a really great slightly rubberized pebbled texture to them, that just felt nice in the hand.

Much to my surprise the Perdition has almost this same texture. Additionally like the mx500 it has counterweights that can be removed from the base of the mouse to give it a solid feel in your hand. I find weight mice easier for me to use since I have extremely large hands. The perdition also sports a truly insane 16400 dpi resolution… which I immediately had to scale back as it was insanely twitchy. If you have ever wanted to play a game by barely moving your hand at all… then that might be the resolution for you. Additionally the software that it comes with lets you customize pretty much everything about it, including creating damned near any possible color of LED light, and controlling the “throb” motion.

So far I am a fan, I have gamed normally with it for roughly two weeks and it still feels great. My only complaint so far is that middle clicking the mouse wheel requires more effort than any other mouse I have had. Luckily I don’t really middle click anything but in my browser window to open new tabs. However if this is a hotkey you regularly use in your keybindings, just be warned for my sausage like fingers… it takes quite a bit of pressure to get it to register a click. I like the shoulder button quite a bit because it is comfortable to hit with the side of your finger, but not as prone to accidentally hitting as the third mouse button was on the g600. If you are in the market for a new mouse and not opposed to taking a gamble on a chinese knockoff… I highly suggest you check it out. I really am enjoying it so far.

Social Justice

December 26, 2013 by Belghast

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

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

December 25, 2013 by Belghast

The Sidewalks Roll Up

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

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!

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.

I Hate People

December 23, 2013 by Belghast

Plans are a Crutch

I had these plans yesterday of running the last part of Siege of Orgrimmar, but didn’t actually do that at all. I queued for it at one point, but after seeing it would take an hour I bailed and gave up. After being iced in for several days, we were out of a few things… not the least of which was toilet paper and paper towels. The above picture is to show the extent of the icing… for years I have gotten in the habit of raising my wiper blades so they don’t get frozen to the window. As you can see it is like everything had been sealed in plastic to preserve it for eternity. If nothing else I knew I had to clear the vehicles so we could leave if we absolutely needed to.

It actually did not take as long as I expected. I went outside in my pajamas and started my jeep, then went back inside to take a shower and get ready for the morning. When I got back out the heater inside and engine had managed to warm the ice up enough to where I could start breaking it off rather easily. Roughly 20 minutes later I had cleared my Jeep and was headed back inside to let my wife’s vehicle warm up. I could barely feel my fingers… but it was at least clear. When I cleared my wife’s vehicle I had the foresight to actually wear gloves.

We made it out of the house pretty easily, and I have to say this is the weirdest ice storm I have ever experienced. Everything is absolutely coated in a layer of ice… the trees, the vehicles, the grass, anything elevated even slightly off the ground. However the roads are almost completely dry. It is like the perfect ice storm… all of the pretty with none of the consequences. Granted some parts of the city are out of power as the ice snapped powerlines… so they would definitely question my assessment of no consequences. All in all however it could be been and likely should have been much worse.

I Hate People

I mean this in the nicest possible way… but I hate people. When you put me in a room with more than a half a dozen people a severe fight or flight instinct triggers. Now imagine how that instinct multiplies when you put me in a busy store during the holidays filled with hundreds of people. I am generally pretty good at swallowing down that feeling, but the more stores you expose me to… the more of an asshole I become. I am thankful that my wife realizes this because by the time we reached the last two stores of the day I am sure I was an absolute bear to be around. We had several things still to pick up on our list, so while we were out and about… and since we were both going a little stir crazy we decided to try and knock as many things off the list as possible.

Target was both the worst and the best place we went all afternoon. It was the worst because it was inanely busy and as I rounded the corner near the seasonal area… the instinct kicked in harder than it has in years. There was this huge zombie-like shambling mass of people migrating back and forth between toys and electronics. I gave up on any notion that I was going to go check the Lego isle and got out of there as soon as possible. It became a logistical exercise to even navigate my shopping cart through the narrow passages left by gawking customers. I suddenly realized why a lost child just sits down and cries… because at that point I seriously did feel like surrendering to the hopelessness that was all of those people pressing in on me.

That was the worst part… the best part however is just how efficiently they were managing the checkouts. They had roped off the area in front of the cash registers and while this caused the line to snake all the way down to the pharmacy area, it did make it move faster. They had a worker acting like a traffic cop to funnel people down the little shoots and to the next waiting cashier. Additionally they gave us a 10% discount as an apology for the whole credit card fiasco. Since we were actually hit during that event… I felt like we had more than earned it. Last weekend my discover card was off in Oklahoma City and Norman making purchases without me… and we are assuming since we still have our credit cards… it is tied to the whole Target event.

I probably would have gone postal at some point during yesterday, but we went to eat at Monterry, a Mexican chain restaurant we go to regularly. When I say regularly… I mean it, because the waitresses know our order by heart and often times fight over who is going to wait on us. Yesterday we had Daisy, who is extremely awesome and has the same pen fetish that my wife does. Over the time we have been going there, we have become rather social with them… and eating there act like a reset of my buffer. It was a happy place that helped me cope with the madness that was stores like Old Navy. Still by the time we ended our tour at Big Lots, I was so far past going that I am sure I was acting like an ass.

Relaxing with Friends

Yesterday before the madness began, I noticed that my good friend Vernie had managed to hit 90 on his mage. I did my normal song and dance about how awesome the Timeless Isle was for catching up, but as a very squishy class it seemed that soloing out there was just not something viable. We made tentative plans for me to grab one of my characters and help him get some gear after I got back from the holiday craziness. It was shortly after I got home that he logged back in and we did just that. At first I tried to use Exeter my paladin, but I quickly realized that I already had gotten the weekly chests when I swam him out to get the chest in the pirate cave. I grabbed Belgarou my druid, because I knew I had not really played him in a few weeks.

It turns out that this was a great call as I ran out of leather some time ago and could greatly use a run to replenish it. We faffed about the island for several hours and in the process we managed to get him Helm, Chest, Bracers, Belt, Gloves, Back, Legs, Ring and Trinket. Which in itself was a pretty amazing haul for our first outing. He had not really played since Cataclysm, so there are a ton of systems that simply did not exist back then. The big one is the LFR system, so as we hunted for gear on the island we queued for Mogushan Vaults. The queue was surprisingly short and we managed to make it through the three boss raid in extremely quick time.

I guess the game did not want him to have an unrealistic view of how the LFR system worked, because when we queued up for the second part of the raid… it went horribly. Someone pulled the boss too quickly, the tanks had no clue what they were doing… and we wiped. Moments after the wipe the raid just disintegrated in a matter of seconds. I told him that sadly that was also extremely common. While we waited for that raid to officially die we went out to Dinosaur Island… or more properly Isle of Giants. We had zero luck in both pets and eggs, but we killed quite a few and I got some more leather. I am not sure if it was in the first raid or the second… but at some point Vernie managed to pick up shoulders.

During the course of our faffing about he managed to go from 450 something to 474 and if we can get him a few more upgrades he should be able to start doing Throne of Thunder…. which I think is one of the more enjoyable instances of the expansion. After we finished the second raid, that went surprisingly successfully. Elegon managed to eat a half dozen people to the “floor boss”, but all in all we pulled out a win. Will of the Emperor was a wipe at first, namely because the tanks didn’t really know what they were doing. However someone luckily explained to them and we managed to pull that victory out as well. All in all it was a really fun night, and I was happy that we got Vernie a ton of upgrades in the process. Once again Faffing about pays off.