The MBTA; Going Home; PTR Changes

I really don’t visit my father enough. This isn’t an intentional thing; he’s a rad dude and he’s funny as hell. Shit, he’s even got a pool table in his finished basement. Timing can just be a bitch sometimes, as can be the fact that, well, his cat can seriously mess me up (I have a potentially fatal allergy – no, really, I’ve been hospitalized from cats before).

Anyhoo, Allison and I decided it’d be a good time to go visit, so we did. In case you were wondering, yes, the MBTA still sucks, even after all these years.

I had all these fantastic intentions of taking tons of photos and all that jazz, but yeah, once we got off the boring train and into the custody of my old man, I pretty much completely forgot about the camera. Sorry about that. It happens. I do have a handy-dandy link to the photoset of the train ride down, but yeah, no clever down-the-green shots of the pooltable, no close-up of the hole I put in the wall from the dart (yeah, I’m smooth), no yawning cat, no shot of the like nine wild turkeys in the backyard (no, really). Sorry, I’ve let you all down.

Let’s just say we ate a delicious roast, got schooled in 8-ball, and had a really good time. I even managed to escape the cat with minor sinus after-effects. I call this a win.

Oh – and down the street from my house is, quite possibly, the best billboard I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Check this shit out –

I’m almost astounded at the existence of such a billboard. Now, don’t get me wrong – I think it’s awesome and frankly, I agree with it. I’m just astounded at how in-your-face ballsy it is; I didn’t really expect to see something so un-PC in Cambridge, MA. Color me impressed.

Speaking of impressed, I’ve recently fallen in love with this song – Trifonic – Parks on Fire. The rest of the album is decent (a few too many vocal tracks for my liking, but I think they’re going for that “band” thing), but this track is just sublime. Some of the cooler electronic music I’ve heard in a while. I purchased the digital download off their site for like $9, and it’s totally worth it, if you’re into that sort of thing.

So some new PTR notes are up. Let’s check out some stuff on it.

Right off the bat, I noticed a few different changes in regards to early toons, from no more dazing of level 1-5 toons, to more standardization/simplification of starting weapons, to increased regeneration rates for very low level toons. Sure, it’s not like leveling your fifth alt was difficult in the first place, but hey, thanks for thinking of us. Now if only they’d make levels 41-54 less painful. No, really this time.

Awesome General Changes:

• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.

I like increased pet survivability – one less thing to worry about.

Awesome Class Changes:

• Death Knights: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
• Druids: Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Hunters: Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
• Shamans: Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes.
• Warlocks: Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

With the general raid gameplan heading more and more into fast encounters (or at least less trash), I see all of these changes as streamlining the raid wipe/recovery process more and more, and I for one support them all. Faster recovery/less cooldown waiting means more time actually spent making valid attempts against bosses, rather than going “well, we don’t have any battle rezzes/heroism/soulstones this time, so let’s just halfheartedly throw ourselves at it and hope we learn something” and more of an “every attempt is 100%” approach. These changes certainly make sense with the way raids appear to be going, but that doesn’t mean that I’m any less surprised when Blizzard makes a good call.

Bad Class Changes:

• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
• Death Knights: Unholy: Unholy Blight: This talent now deals only 10% of Death Coil damage as a damage-over-time effect on the target.
• Death Knight Tier-9 4-Piece Bonus: This set bonus no longer grants Frost Fever a chance to be a critical strike. It still grants that possibility to Blood Plague.

I may be premature in calling the AoE change bad, as I haven’t even done napkin math on it yet, let alone real math, but yeah, it feels like a nerf, so I’m gonna run with it. BAD!

The DK changes are nerfs across the board. We all knew that a tier nerf was coming, though I still expected them to remove Ebon from it rather than Frost Fever. I guess the reasoning was to bring one-disease dual-wield frost dps back into line, ’cause their damage is out of control, but still – the plague strike nerf really hurts, especially in pvp, where it no longer has a cut through armor from being magic. Ouch.

I’m sure there are other class nerfs, but I’ll let someone more knowledgeable in those classes talk about them elsewhere.

Awesome User Interface Changes:

• The range at which players can see unit nameplates has been increased by 40 yards.
• Any party member may mark targets (this does not apply to raid groups)
• Users will be warned when their talents are reset due to a new patch.
• Instant quest text is on by default.
• Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
• Interface element added next to the mini-map to show what dungeon you are in (ex: 10- and 25-player Heroic dungeons marked with a skull).
• Experience earned for a quest will display in the Quest Rewards section.
• You can now query for a list of completed quests with “QueryQuestsCompleted()” then wait for the “QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE” event, and call “etQuestsCompleted()”.

A whole slew of no-brainer changes that for some unknown reason took months to years to add. Glad to see Bliz getting around to them.

Also, QueryQuestsCompleted()? AWESOME. Hello, easy-to-use Loremaster AddOn!

Awesome Quest/Reputation Changes:

• Weekly raid quests are now available from Archmage Lan’dalock in Dalaran. Every Tuesday at 3 AM the Council of Six will choose a different strategic target that must die from either: The Obsidian Sanctum, Naxxramas, The Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel.
• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
  * Argent Crusade
  * Alliance Vanguard
  * Horde Expedition
  * Kirin Tor
  * Knights of the Ebon Blade
  * Sons of Hodir
  * Wyrmrest Accord
• Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
• Reputation commendations can now be purchased for 1 Emblem of Triumph each.

Ok, now I dunno about you, but I think the raid quests are *awesome*. Not only does it give me a reason to run older raid instances, it gives me a chance to run them on my level 80 alts with my guild instead of a pug. I really can’t wait.

The rep changes are something we all saw coming (or at least hoped was coming, especially with Sons of Hodir). There’s currently a thread going on my guild’s forums discussing whether or not this is just a standard end-of-expansion closing of the gap, giving the slower ones a chance to see the end content while it’s still relevant before the next xpac makes it all pointless, or whether this is instead an admission by Blizzard of doing the whole rep thing incorrectly. Honestly, I can see good points on both sides, but I definitely hope it’s the latter. What do you think?

All told, I think we’re looking at some seriously good changes, even with some of the standardization that people have confused lately with the falling of the sky. A lot of people are quite busy trashing Blizzard for this simplification or that easy mode, but hey – ToC25 hardmode is challenging as shit, and I expect Icecrown to be awesome, not even factoring the crazy lore stuff I’ve heard coming from the test realm. (If I had more time, I’d totally get onto the PTR and get you all some serious undercover work, but yeah, I already don’t have enough time to do the things I want to do – sorry).

Call me a fanboy if you want; I think Blizzard is still doing a great job, and I’m looking forward to the next patch as well as the next expansion. Keep up the good work, Bliz!

Side note: in an effort to be more welcoming, I’ve lifted comment moderation. Abuse it and I’ll ban you and post about how much you suck.

Steaks and Zombieland; Hero Quest and Warcraft.

So this long weekend was full of delightful steak, scotch, questing, zombies, Hero Quest, and raiding.

See that steak? Yeah, it was awesome. There’s not much more to say about that meal, other than trust me – you wish you ate it. The garlic-rosemary potatoes are a recipe I stole from my main tank Aeman. What can I say; the man knows how to cook. Also? Super nerd. How nerdy, you ask? Nerdy enough to go watch Zombieland, come home, make bison tacos (like I said, the man knows how to cook), and then play Hero Quest.

/:/:/scratching record/:/:/

Yes, that’s right – Hero Quest.

If you’re over 25 and reading this blog, chances are you were a super nerd when you were a kid. Ok, I’ll allow that WoW has somewhat changed the nerd/non-nerd dynamic; you could totally be captain of your rugby team (hi, Apop) and still play WoW. But before WoW came along and made everyone ever play video games, if you were the kind of person to read this blog, you were a dork. You had a crush on Rydia from Final Fantasy (hopefully the grown-up version, you sicko), had a collection of 20-sided dice, and the closest you came to playing a sport was kicking your neighbor’s ass at Ice Hockey. Chances are you know what LARPing is (God help you). If any of this is true, you had a copy of Hero Quest, and right now, you’re wishing you still did.

Well it just so happens that Aeman got his hands on a copy. After Zombieland (which, by the way, was about as perfect as I could have hoped), I went to casa de Aeman & Theine and played Hero Quest. This is, quite possibly, the nerdiest thing I’ve done in a long, long time (and that includes starting this blog). It was totally awesome and I want to do it more. Yes, I just said that in public.

Last night, we did a quick clear through most of Ulduar and watched most loot go to either offspec or sharding, proof that yes, we’re pretty much done with that instance. Time to buckle down and focus on ToC hardmodes. Also – check out my dps on XT-002, sans Heroism (we didn’t want to engage hardmode).

I’ve recently realized just how poor my collective wow account is; I mean, I can always afford repairs (though we have a guild bank allocation for raid repairs, I never use it), but if I wanted to, say, purchase some Crusader Orbs to make the ToC bracers, could I afford ’em? Not a chance. This irks me. This irks me something fierce. I’m not generally the type to be satisfied with a situation over which I have little control. A-ha!, though – I have control over it; it all comes down to time allocation.

You see, a while back I made this Druid. She’s not much, I realize (dual spec? yes! competent at either? errrr… not really), but she’s fun and more importantly, she was designed as a farmer. Skinning/Herbalism. Insta-flight form is as cheating as you can get without requiring seppuku to absolve yourself of the shame, and it’s perfect for a farming toon. In addition to this, while leveling her, I did as many Outlands/sidequests as I could bear, in order to hasten the place in Northrend at which I’d hit 80. In this case, I got there around mid-Zul’Drak. I’ve now finished Zul’Drak and done about half of the Sholazar quests, and have made about 2.5k in doing so. This is nuts. Druids are a cash cow. When I’m done with this one, I’m considering making another to level just for the gold (I’d make another DK for said purpose if I could; those guys are the definition of solo-leveling OP).

Oh, one last thing – I’ve noticed my traffic increasing steadily. Hello, readers! In case you’re wondering, I do not have a cushy “sit in an office and play on the internet all day” job. As a result, I won’t be updating this daily. I will, however, do what I can to update at least 2-3 times a week. I’ll do what I can to keep you office-bound folk in mind and try to post in such a manner as to give you stuff to read while you get paid to sit on your ass, but no promises.

So there ya go – if I don’t post for a day or two, don’t freak out and unsub. Just sit and be patient; the good stuff’s on the way.

10/06 Recap; Sandbox Games.

• (+) Yogg-Saron down!
• (-) Due to the need to cut costs, my hours at work have been cut. It is still manageable, but certainly far more scary now.
• (+) My enjoyment with Prototype continues with little obstruction. I find this interesting enough to discuss briefly, below.
• (-) Despite my awesome new gear, due to my spec still being 2h-Unholy, my dps still kinda sucks.
• (+) Not only did [Justicebringer] finally drop for me, so did [Greaves of the 7th Legion] and [Death’s Verdict]. Three BiS items in one night (four, if you count my new [Thassarian’s Shoulderplates of Triumph]). I am so happy.
• (-) This week’s Rock Band 2 DLC is of no interest to me.
• (+) I just discovered my friend Mandy’s blog – check it out.

I have a general rule about sandbox-style games, a certain manner in which I approach them. First and foremost, while I fully recognize the awesome idea of an open world, I generally find that sandbox games claim to be far more open-ended than they really are. Sure, you might be able to go many places, but we have yet to even develop the hardware, let alone the software, to be truly lifelike, to give true immersion. I’ve certainly read a dozen other blogs talk about current limitations/failings of sandbox games, and that isn’t really the point of all this, so allow me to skip to the point or, at least, the theory, the general observation. Here it is:

General Sandbox Game Rule:

On average, I find that as I play a sandbox-style game, the longer it takes me to commit genocide, the better the game is.

Am I missing something? I mean, most “OMG YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE!!111!” games offer the “kill everyone on a whim” option; most, however, end up penalizing you for it, either immediately (via harder and harder/more and more plentiful opponents, a la Grand Theft Auto) or later (via endgame moral judgments/”bad” endings, a la Fallout 3/Bioshock/Fable). Granted, two out of three of the “later” examples are less “sandbox” games and more “moral judgment” games, and that’s an entirely different rant. The point remains, though – even with games like Overlord, where “omg you’re the bad guy lol”, it’s still really, really rare to find a game that gives you the option to kill everything around you without punishing you in some way for it.

Prototype, though? They dodge it completely.

Granted, I haven’t beaten the game yet, so who knows, maybe there’s like forty seven endings, all based around how many aging English teachers I’ve consumed for a disguise or for a little sustenance while slaughtering zombie and special ops marine alike. Believe me, if there is, I’ll rant about it soon (’cause I seriously can’t put this game down – Batman: Arkham Asylum is still sitting in its case, going “dude, wtf; everyone says I’m awesome, at least TRY me” – and that pretty much means that unless this game gets really lame really fast, I’ll probably beat it soon). But so far? Kill this, kill that, pick this guy up, throw him at that guy, pick up a car, throw it through a crowd of civilians – it’s all good.

I love it. I love it a lot. I love it enough to keep playing even though the movement controls can be such a goddamn pain in the ass, and I don’t mean “oops I moved too close to the edge and fell” pain in the ass (although that happens a lot too), I mean like “holy shitting crap I just spent like twenty minutes trying to catch one damn glowing landmark sphere between two smokestacks because it’s fucking impossible to run up one correctly” pain in the ass. Yeah, really. *bangs head into keyboard*

But seriously – after I got that fucking thing, what did I do? I blew up a military base and killed like 400 people with mutant tentacles, razor-sharp claws, and random acts of dismemberment and carnage. Fucking clutch.

10/02 Recap.

• (+) It’s Friday!
• (-) I am very, very tired.
• (+) I am currently doing what all real men do when they get home on Friday – drinking scotch.
• (-) We wiped on Yogg at 2% this week.
• (+) My GameFly games arrived in NetFlix-time; what an awesome service!
• (=) While I find the controls for Prototype a little tricky to grasp at first, they get easier the more you play/the more skills you acquire, plus the sheer carnage and mayhem make up for control issues.
• (+) I have discovered several new awesome sites this week, including TweetMeme and Translation Party. These make me happier and more entertained than I feel is reasonable, but I’ll take it.
• (+) Alice In Chains Pack 01 was released for Rock Band 2 DLC this week – I purchased it the second I got home on Friday.
• (-) I cannot, for the life of me, get through “Would?” on drums.

More good than bad makes for a good week. This weekend will most likely entail lots of watching TV/NetFlix, lots of playing Prototype, trying out Batman: Arkham Asylum, and much sleeping. I love my life.