Identity Crisis

So, Ive got a dozen or so posts under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good. But, in review of those posts, I am left with a certain taste in my mouth, and I realize, that taste is me, and I don't like it! I taste;

• Bitter
• Angry at GC
• like a hunter
• I play DnD

So, I haven't quite hit the nail on the head, as it were. Ye'see, I'm not a hunter, I'm a Paladin! (Sadly, that seems to mean I must be Spanish.) I also minor in Death Knight, and I love GC, I even made a post, once, on MainTankadin about having his babies, see? (In my defense, at that time, before Blizzcon '08, we thought he was a she... Oh the fantasies.)

I am not bitter, but, it is simply going to take time for people to truly appreciate my... Particular, brand of humor, which is often very... Okay, I'm an asshole sometimes.

So, I am here, wondering how to correct the flavor on this rather fragile souffle' and still do what I want. I look at my blogroll, at my top three favorites; BRK, Phae, and BBB. At first, I am saddened, because even though there are a few good paladins out there, they aren't my top three. But whatever, this isn't about that, good blogging is cross-class (except, apparently, if your a blogger, you have to have a hunter you play more than your main... I can do it, I swear!)

All three of these bloggers do have one other thing in common, (aside from be sawsome!) Blog Azeroth. I'm going to join. For one thing, it will help me stay on my main topic much more (WoW, dummy.) For another, it will at least get two more people to check me out, cause, you know, Imma attention whore.

But, rather than just posting some bland post over there, I was going to direct them here, where I answer their nefarious questions on my own terms, and join their little 'club,' with a little panache. Here are the questions I must answer, I expect them to be grueling, and painful, I expect blood...

• Blog Name?
• URL?
• Blog Focus?
• Name?
• Character Server?
• Other Information?

Wait, that's it?!? What kind of Inquisition is this!?! Fine, here goes.

• Blog Name: InspiredOgre (Its just my name, I am sure this is against the bylaws, I hope they overlook that infraction, though, its also not cute... Crap, this is harder than expected.)
• URL: Wha-that? Oh, nm, its http://www.inspiredogre.blogspot.com/
• Blog Focus: Open to debate. Err, I mean, Paladins, Death Knights, Tanking, with a smattering of other WoW topics, oh, I play DnD. (I'm safe from being rejected for this, I know for a fact that other bloggers play. (I'm not naming names.))
• Name: I said no names! Oh, me? InspiredOgre. Oh, my characters? Ludux, Luduex, Luduz, and Luduel
• Character Server: Nazgrel, formally of Azgalor
• Other Information: I DM my DnD group, and pretend I am good at it. I also like to pretend I know what I am doing in WoW. I also pretend I have interesting things to say about the future of the MMO market. I am just full of pretend. (Is that the definition of pretentiousness?)

Ha-HA! Your questionnaire did not defeat me! I am undefeated! But, I am not done, either. I have to show you my cred, now, I guess. I'm going to add an ID card to the side of my blog, over to the right. See? Presto! In it, it has my characters, and links to their armory pages. If I could only get a computer, I would add a picture of my character, but, good things come in time.

All done! Now I taste nommy!

Twit! I am SO mad.

There will not be a real post today. I am so mad, my computer delivery is delayed until the 5th. I appreciate that when UPS says '3 day delivery' they mean 3 business days... But the 5th will be seven business days... Hell, the 2nd would have been six! And, like the rest of the world, I do exist during non-business days... It will be 11 days from the day they shipped. GRRR.

DnD and the unreliable narrator

There are a lot of literary devices that could be utilized in DnD, as I have discussed before when I spoke about Chekhov's Gun. Perhaps one of the easiest to understand would be the unreliable narrator. It is as simple as it sounds, the narrator of the story cannot be trusted, either he or she does it malevolently, or simply due to a lack of knowledge, either way, the result is much the same. In DnD terms, the closest analogue to a narrator is the DM. The DM fills out the scene, and it relied on completely to do so. Most DMs never even consider the power they have to shape a perception that differs from the in-game reality. As I mentioned above, there are two major types of unreliable narrators, both have an interesting place in the toolbox of the DM. The first type is the unreliable narrator that does not provide false information knowingly. In a literary work, this is a statement about the character that is the narrator. But in DnD, the DM, in and of himself, is not a character, and thus, this type of unreliable narrator, at first, seems out of the hands of the DM. But on further meditation, we realize that this method is not only often used by DMs, it is essential to the function of the game. The DM is the voice behind the eyes of the characters, his descriptions need meet only one criteria, that they are true to what the characters can observe. There is a classic DnD monster, the Mimic, which looks exactly like a treasure chest (usually.) The DM's responsibility when describing this chest is to be unreliable. If the DM tells his or her players that "there is a Mimic in the center of the room," he or she ruins that particular encounter. The DM in this case it required to be unreliable. But that is usually as far as DMs go, when using this method. Very rarely would DMs introduce incidental information that is also false, but this could be a powerful tool. Say, for example, that the players are searching for someone in a city. Most DMs would provide them with two types of information. False information, whereby they say something like, "No one is able to tell you anything." And true information, "You find someone who tells you he likes to drink at the Broken Door Tavern." However, depending on the situation, the DM should feel free to tell the characters knowingly false information. This could be informants who will say anything to provide information of any kind; perhaps because the players are paying, or this could be informants who provide false information to trap or ensnare the players. In a true investigation, the characters would not trust all the information they receive, the players should be therefore required to sift through the information they receive. DMs who hand their players the information they require on a silver platter should consider this. There is also the malevolent narrator. This, in DnD terms, cannot be, exactly, the DM. Again, the DM is not truly a character. But, lets take an example; the characters are going to hunt down a pack of worgs in the woods. Local lore and tradition is that worgs are evil spirits that are sent to punish the wicked. In a typical campaign, this would be false, nothing more than silly superstition, and the MM doesn't support this, either; in it, worgs are presented as nothing more than natural (albeit dangerous) beasts. However, as an unreliable narrator, you would like to mix it up even more. Allow whatever preconceived notions the players bring flourish. They either take the villagers at face value; these worgs are different, or they rely on their out of game experience. Whatever they believe, change it to be the opposite. If the characters start trying to root out wickedness in the village, the worgs are nothing more than beasts, if the characters seek to destroy the worgs, then they face true spirits, seeking to hoist some villages by their own petard. How you achieve that is part of the art of DMing. Perhaps the spirit worgs are actually perverting the local wolf population, possessing a new wolf each time they are destroyed. The characters, assuming these worgs are simply beasts, would eventually be worn down, as each night, the worgs seem to renew themselves, until they are given their prey, or exorcised somehow. As a DM, you should not be trusted entirely, when one thinks about DnD, the game relies on this tension, to a greater, or lesser degree. Good DMs use this tension to set up new and unique adventures.

Broken Promises, computers, and stuff.

Middle first, this time! My computer is broken, YAAAY! I told my friends that I saw the magic smoke come out and everything... I lied. I didn't see it, I am a bastage. Sorry, friends! (Since I am unable to log on any 'meaningful' or 'important' computer services, they cant beat me up.) Also, I am sorry, folks, all of you came to my website for the mailto:!@#$%^&*, and I promised you a lolcat. But there WAS no lolcat, I have addressed this in a very Chinese fisherman way. Here, is, lolcats! You may now see them on a daily basis, they even have an RSS feed! Here is the one I was going to give you. I am sorry. And, now for the stuff part of the post. Winterveil gifts were lame. Here is my problem, we knew about the Crashin' Thrashin' Racer since beta, when we first saw the winter veil achievements. Part of gifts are the surprise! Aside from the racer, there were 5 other gifts you could get. They were;

• Carefully Wrapped Present, gave Winter Veil Cookies.
• Gently Shaken Gift, gave either food or drink.
• Festive Gift, gave Wand of Holiday Cheer to annoy everyone, thankfully, it only lasts 10 days.
• Gaily Wrapped Present, gave one of these; Green Helper Box, Red Helper Box, Snowman Kit, or Jingling Bell. (I got the bell.)
• Ticking Present : mainly gives a Mechanical Greench, but some people got Preserved Holly. In previous years, this gift had a small chance to give a recipe for something festive, although sometimes that was a stretch. I cannot confirm it was the same this year (I got the Greench.)

So, the only thing that you could have gotten that will last, other than a Racer, is one of 4 pets, which are the same pets as before. Outside the racer, there was no change from last year at all!

Am I just a scrooge?

Merry !@#$%^&*

Yup, !@#$%^&*, the best holiday of the year. Too bad we are all required to make a stand, one way or another about the season. I mean, the religious people saying they are the firstest to ever celebrate, and the other religions saying "lol, don't forget us," and then there are the people to are making 'war' against a holiday, (?) and then there is me. I say fuck'em all... Imma celebrate !@#$%^&*, but I am going to pronounce it "Christmas," so that no one realizes I am a heathen. So, Merry !@#$%^&* to one, Merry !@#$%^&* to all! My gift to you all (all 4 of you,) aside from the lolcat, is this true conversation I really just had...

• Me: -phone ring rings- "Front desk."
• Hotel nub: "Hey, this is room 204," (I know, I can see that, noob.) "Can I get a wake up call for 6 to 6:30?"
• Me: -boggle- "Lolwut? You want the phone to ring from 6 until 6:30? or, twice, once at 6, once at 6:30? or did you just want me to guess you noob?!?" Okay, okay, so I really just said, "Okay."

Edit: So, Blogger decided that my holiday, !@#$%^&*, is an email!

Chekhov's Gun, and a follower?

Last things first... I have a follower? Lolwut? Turns out a Friend of mine has been blogging for longer than I have. The funny part is that we came up with this idea independently. Really, I'm not following you, X, I promise. Or, since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am following you! Yay, mutually exclusive, but somehow true statements, FTW! I love your blog, did you read my self-contract post where I give myself achievements for good posting? You should take up the same system, then we can laugh at each other failing even our own expectations, ain't it grand?

Okay. So, I am more than a WoW head. I also play DnD. (That's, Dungeons and Dragons, you know, original role-playing? (Although, fun trivia, the late great Gygax originally envisioned more of a 'skirmish' version of a fantasy war-game. The role-playing thing was kinda a happy accident.))

Anyway, I follow several DnD blogs, you can check them out to the left with all the other blogs I follow. Two different DnD Blogs made reference to a literary technique; Chekhov's Gun. Go read about it on Wikipedia for a better-than-this explanation:

Basically, you cant describe or reference a gun without having that gun go off.

In DnD, acceptance of this adage has profound implications. It can also allow you to better understand your role as a DM. But first, an example of what NOT to do, and for this, I pick on an old friend of mine (who also has a blog! Maybe I should tell him about mine? (btw, beware visiting his blog, he has some auto-loading music thingy.))

My friend was DMing, and we were mid-adventure, and though I cannot for the life of me remember the adventure, I do remember we were traveling in the middle of the winter. We happened on a hole in the ground. As I recall, it sorta drew our attention due to the fact that is was a break in the pristine white landscape, oh, and the horrible monster sounds that were coming from it. When the adventuring group peered down into the hole, we saw a humanoid skeleton or two. We asked the DM about the noise, was there anyone in trouble, did it sound human? "No." He said, and proceeded to describe that though the sounds were horrible, and seemed to indicate that there was some monster down there, we COULD see a glint of something shiny down the hole.

Our group heard enough, we said, "We move on." And here is where the night devolved into bad. Our DM made some more attempts to lure us down into the hole, and then he sort of shrugged, and said, "well, that was the adventure, good to have ya, see ya next week." And our DnD game ended in record time, with record low gaming. He told us, as we were leaving, that there was a hydra down there, and that we missed a great thing, but we could neither turn back and go for it anyway ("No, no, your characters left, we cant go back now,") and there was no way to ever be able to face a hydra again.

I deeply regret the hydra incident, as it became known, and it haunts me to this day. Dude is a great DM, his adventures are always very gritty and real, and I always enjoyed them. But sometimes his approach doesn't take into account happy accidents.

DnD has a danger of being extremely formulaic, it has the most simply organized plot-lines. Group meets in tavern, group gets told of some ancient evil guarding some super treasure, group defeats great evil, gets super treasure. It is hard for a DM to get out of that, just like any author. But DMs have a wonderful living canvas, and tons of help, from the players.

How do we apply Chekhov's Gun? Well, you cant have a pit in the middle of a pristine white field (a wonderful symbol, a spot on an otherwise pristine plain? Like I said, it haunts me,) without using it. Dude could have easily had us move on and find a town, or even a lone traveler, limping back from the pit, or any number of other things to re-route the story back to the pit. Maybe the group comes on a group of townsfolk, pulling a sled with some buxom maiden tied to it, they were intent on sacrificing her to the beast in the pit.

Point is, as a DM, one has to focus both on the gun, and how to make sure that gun goes off in the best manner possible. But Chekhov's Gun can be dangerous, too, I think its a wonderful image, a gun. You see, your the DM, and your group opens a door in a dungeon, you describe the room, and one of two things happens, depending on your style. One, you describe sufficient detail as to hide the important bits in the noise. "You see a small chamber, sparsely furnished, perhaps for a monk or ascetic, before this holy place was sacked by the undead horde. The cot has no blanket or padding, there is a small writing desk, and at the foot of the cot is a small footlocker." To a player, it is hard to pick out the gun from the furniture. Indeed, when faced with many such rooms, it can be easy for the player to realize, there is no gun.

But if your a less descriptive DM, you might say, "You open the door to a monk's room. There is a cot, a writing desk, and a footlocker." Immediately, the players will seize on the footlocker (and woe be onto you if you call it a 'chest.') As a DM, this was always just an empty room, its a monastery, its going to have many such rooms! But because the players are looking for the gun, and the descriptions of the room are so small, well, you got trouble.

Last thing I want to mention. Sometimes, the gun is more figurative. For example, your group, which has fought its way through the undead horde, and descended into the catacombs, were the Lady of Pain attempts to awaken her long lost lover from his forced coma. The group faces the Lady, and is defeating her soundly. Whatever the reason may be, perhaps they rolled well, perhaps she is rolling poorly, or perhaps she is simply not powerful enough.

However, the Lady of Pain fight is the last in the adventure, if this gun goes off with a weak little 'pop,' then what was the point, really? As a DM, your just as concerned with the gun going off well as you are with the gun going off at all. Here are some solutions:

• Add minions! She raised a horde of undead, and is in a catacomb, surely she can raise a few more?
• Make her stronger! Perhaps you need to explain this (she rests her hands on her lover's sleeping form, whispering a sweet goodbye, and drains all of his power,) or perhaps not (add another 100 HP.)
• She gets away! Sometimes, the best recurring villains are ones you didn't intend to last, if the gun in this situation is going to be a dud, wait until you can reload!

There is a lot we can learn from good ol' Chekhov. And before you ask, yes, I know the picture is the wrong Chekhov, but even if I found a picture of the real Chekhov, no one would know who he is.

Update: Wow, just, wow.

This is an update to the post I made last week about the lightning bolt glyph. The post can be found here. GC made another post;

This is why I am often reluctant to post actual numbers. I think they end up launching more questions than actually providing answers. The 10 to 12% number I quoted was the additional amount we wanted to add with the changes post-Shamanism. If you recall, we did two rounds of buffs on Elemental. The first juggled the talent tree a little bit (and introduced Shamanism). The second changed a couple of additional talents (Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and the change to the Lightning Bolt glyph). For an Elemental in Naxx 25 gear, *each* of these rounds should have increased dps by about 10% between patch 3.0.3 and patch 3.0.8, for a total of about 20%. If you are in heroic blues and don't have as much spellpower, then you won't see quite such a lift from the first (Shamanism) round of changes. Note that the build on the PTR only contains the first round of changes, IIRC. Sorry for the confusion.

(source) The emphasis in the quote is mine. I see this as confirmation, Glyphs and talents are interchangable, but, apparently, only for some classes. I'm dissapointed.

Out of Body... Copper?

I recently finished up the quests in Grizzly Hills (okay, all but the last one,) but I have to relate this story.

I was on a quest where you have an 'out of body experience,' and see a vision of the past. Its a frightening thing, when a loading screen randomly pops up! Well, the first time, I watched the cut scene avidly (I'm a lore whore,) but just as the duration ended, I saw a blip on my minimap.

I didn't hand in the quest, and checked my backpack. The hallucinogen was still there! I drank it again, and this time, turned and went towards the blip. It was a copper node! Then I finally realized where I was, Silverpine! All of a sudden, the loading screen, and the lore itself, made a lot more sense.

And, somehow, I brought the copper back with me. I was mining my visions, literally.

WoW is funny sometimes.

Wow, just, wow.

I don't like doom and gloom, but I saw two things on the forums today that make me very worried.

****

First, lets start with a Ghostcrawler moment.

-Quote about Glyph of Lighting Bolt, and how Blizzard has said they dont want to have glyphs just be static increases to spells, but instead significantly change the spell.- This has already been asked multiple times. It puzzles me why someone intersted in Elemental shaman concerns wouldn't have already known about it or would have been unable to find it. Usually I conclude the poster is just trying to be argumentative. But in the chance that isn't the case, I will restate that we compared the benefit that various dps specs were getting from glyphs and found that Elemental was getting the short end of the stick. Rather than nerfing everyone's glyphs, we buffed the Lightning one. I'm not sure why you'd be complaining about a buff, but I guess it's a nice change of pace. :)

(Source) Catch-up time! Glyph of Lightning Bolt is getting changed; Pre- 3.0.8: Reduces the cost of your Lightning Bolt ability by 10%. Post 3.0.8: Increases the damage dealt by Lightning Bolt by 4%. There are several problems with his response. First, it completely lacks tact, and though the nice smiley face at the end is supposed to mean 'I'm not bothered, and you shouldn't be either,' it comes off instead as 'I am actually really starting to get upset, but I want to hide it.' In addition, the question was legit, regardless of whether the poster knew about the glyph or not! There are two major former statements that make this glyph seem wonky, one is that, as the poster mentioned, Blizzard doesn't want glyphs to feature a static increase in spell power, they don't want any glyph to be a must-have in terms of min/maxing. The other is that, just before WotLK was shipped, Elemental shamans were lacking in overall dps. Ghostcrawler said that, and I paraphrase, 'Level 70 dps equivalency is not important, because once people get 80 is the important part of the game. At any level that is not-max, the dps differences across classes are lost in the leveling noise.' But the change to the Glyph only came after WotLK, when all shaman glyphs were reviewed and elemental was getting 'the short end of the stick'? Ghostcrawler also said, during that time just before WotLK, that (paraphrased,) 'fire will be a major part of elemental DPS at 80, this will make Lighting Bolt spam a thing of the past.' And while this change does in no way make LB spam the law of the land, it doesn't help reinforce that. My theory is that Ghostcrawler is flat out lying. I think he believes that this issue is something no one could understand. The issue is that glyphs serve two purposes (three, counting cosmetics.) One, is the publicized version, that glyphs significantly change the rules of the spell. At first, it was things like adding knockbacks or, really, adding anything, but increasingly it means removing an annoying aspect of a spell for raiding use (there will soon be glyphs to remove knockbacks from every spell that has knockback, trust me.) The second use for glyphs is pseudo-talents. But this is dangerous, GC knows he cant tell people this, the reason? Only those class specs that have 'full' talent trees need glyphs to serve this function. In other words, if a spec has used all the 'talent budget' getting them to, say, 95% compared to other class/specs in the same role, then that last 5% will have to be gotten from glyphs. Elemental Shamans are in this position. Glyphs are propping up this spec, without them, can they compete compared to their unglyphed counterparts? So, its kinda a good-news bad-news situation. Bad; GC is lying, and Elemental Shamans are required to spend glyphs to break even with other ranged dps. Good; at least they are going to break even... Maybe.

****

Remember, I mentioned 2 things. Here is the other. Yep. Ads on the forums. But, I am going to do some PR cleaning for them, because Blizzard seems completely unwilling to communicate. This change has nothing to do with WoW. I believe this change is a precursor to the unified Battle.net or Blizzard accounts, whatever they end up calling it. There are ads in WarCraft 3 and Diablo 2, when you log on to Battle.net, its how they offer Battle.net for free. (And, be honest, Battle.net is a fantastic service, no other gaming company has such a good match-making and community service that is free of charge. Soon, we will have Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2, these games will use the new unified blizzard accounts, and although WoW is under a different model (pay-to-play) they are going to start piggy-backing the community services onto this new unified account system. Ads will pay the way. Besides, if all else fails, you can do what I do. Completely ignore your fellow gamers, and spy on Blues with this service. So, I'm not worried about why the added the ads. But, their handling of it is crappy. Plus, its the player reaction that's the problem. I'm beginning to think that much more forum non-sense, and Ghostcrawler will crawl back under his rock in the middle of the bay. I like to eat crabs, I'm afraid if he is out there, Imma catch him and eat him.

Future MMO: Super-Persistance

Someday, WoW will die. It's not really relevant how, at least to me. What is interesting to me is, what will take it's place. I believe that it is going to take a lot more than just a slick new engine with next generation graphics, or a new or re-imagined setting. It is going to have to combine elements of all the latest successful MMOs. This is going to be a recurring article, I'll cover a new idea each installment. **** For this installment, I'm going to cover something I call super-persistence, and though its simple in thought, it requires a huge burden on the servers that the game is based on. The idea is that an MMO is a virtual world, that's obviously the holy grail of the industry. But though the game manuals say that WoW and EVE and Warhammer and Age of Conan are "Persistent worlds," the truth is that they are not, any time a person in the world just disappears when a player logs of, that is ruining persistence. Every character has to remain 'in-play' even after the player logs off. What this character does while they are not being controlled is obviously just as important as it is for them to just be there. You cant have the character just stand in place, or sleep, because that's really no better than having them just disappear. They have to act, and react.

EVE Online actually already has the model down, your character's growth and power is based on real world time, (it would be like a WoW character gaining real experience when logged off,) so the logical conclusion is that the character is training. In addition, crafting in EVE takes time, on the scale of days, and time spent logged off counts towards this task. I am not entirely convinced this model is good, but some element of time effecting the character needs to be in place (more on this in a future article.)

So, there has so be some mechanism for you to set before logging off that informs the server what your character should be doing while you are away. Here are a couple of examples of how this time can be spent in this future MMO;

• Repair: You would set your away time to be spent on repair and rearming, so instead of a gold cost for upkeep (WoW model,) it is instead a time cost. If you select this option, you would repair your gear by a certain percent each hour, and your character would be animated as sharpening swords, hammering dents out of shields, sewing rips in leather, mending mail, and so on.
• Tradeskill: Much like repair, except you are crafting, rather than repairing.
• Selling: Your character would set up shop, but be careful, your character may get hauled off to jail if they don't have a permit!
• Travel: To facilitate this, the future MMO would need to adopt a macro-world model (a topic I will cover later,) where travel from some places to others takes too much time to be played, you would instead spend your time away from the computer doing it.

Basically, time spent logged off could be spent on things that you wouldn't want to do while playing, either because they require no input, or take too long. However, in all my excitement for super-persistence, I forgot to mention a big reason it is important. It reinforces the concept of rest, and community. If your character remains in play while you are away, you cant just leave him in the middle of a battle-field, this is both dangerous and not restful. You have to go back to your home, which can obviously be a number of things, from an inn to a true residence. Either way, your character is there, in the world, helping to fill and populate it, even while away. The server could even regulate NPC activity based on character activity, the more characters in the city, logged on or not, the less NPCs needed to help make the city feel real.

The idea, as always, is to create a virtual world that is both immersive and fun. Super-persistence has to be a part of this process, because it is the most obvious sign of a fake world, people don't disappear, and even with a magic world, where they can teleport around, they are always somewhere.

Twit! I rofl'd, hard.

I rofl'd at this very hard. Eon-old lizard tit-flesh must be hard, to have all that resilience.

Prot Pally 11-pointer?

I'm going to touch on a concern I have had since beta. Protection Paladins are the only class not to have an "11-pointer." Which is defined as a talent with a single point investment, that is usually a "clicky," or activated power (but not always.) We used to have one, Blessing of Kings. But that talent got a new treatment to make it more readily available.

We were left with a hole in that spot, a hole that has still not been filled. Occasionally, this concern has resurfaced on the forums, most recently, Ghostcrawler has replied to these concerns with this...

You imply however that these talents are all active abilities you click. This is not the case. There are several exceptions to the basic design where there is a new ability at 11, 21, 31, 41 and 51. We will give Protection and Holy new abilities in those slots if we think you need them or we have some hole to fill. (source)

Respectfully, I disagree.... The problem isn't that he descent address the concern, almost every time people ask for a "11 pointer," they are asking for an "11 point clicky." I am sure plenty of people are assuming it has to be a clicky, but there is a bigger problem with having no 11 pointer... It reduces the power of our spec. Every spec in the game, except ours, has a one point talent on that tier that provides a sizable bonus for its cost. Some of these talents are immensely popular, some are not, popularity does not enter into it. The point is, for a single point, you get a talent that would usually be costed at multiple points.

A clicky is fine, but to say that "Well, we don't see a real fit for a new clicky, therefore, you don't need a 11 pointer," Is to assume that people don't understand the basic structure of talent trees; which, a lot of people don't. In case people are curious, here are all the 11 pointers in the game. Death Knight

Rune Tap - Lichborne - Corpse Explosion

Druid

Nature's Splendor (passive) - Survival Instincts - Omen of Clarity (passive)

Hunter

Aspect Mastery (passive) - Aimed Shot - Scatter Shot

Mage

Focus Magic - Pyroblast - Icy Veins

Paladin

Aura Mastery (passive) - Ohnoez! - Seal of Command

Priest

Inner Focus - Desperate Prayer - Mind Flay

Rogue

Vigor (passive) - Riposte - Ghostly Strike

Shaman

Elemental Focus (passive) - Shamanistic Focus (passive) - Tidal Force

Warlock

Amplify Curse (passive) - Soul Link - Shadowburn

Warrior

Anger Management (passive) - Piercing Howl - Last Stand

That is 29 11-pointers, of those a total of 9 are passive. Every class that has had their former 11-pointer moved or removed were reimbursed with another. Of the classes, it seems to me that the druids changed the most, with only one of their 11-pointers remaining the same, but I could be wrong. Point is, its not only clear that there is a precedence, its also clear that this precedence was upheld almost religiously, except for the prot pally. I am not a believer in just bitching, however, so here are some non-clicky suggestions. Make Improved Righteous Fury a one pointer, with its current 3 point bonus, even without adding something to it, this would be a totally legitimate way to go. Obviously, I would like to see more, like; "When Righteous Fury is active, the Paladin may use Exorcism on any target, and that target is forced to focus attacks on you for 6 sec." Okay, I admit, a little weird, a single pointer that effects two spells? How about an all new one-pointer, "Glory - When struck, the paladin has a XX% chance to gain the "Glory" buff, which reduces the damage taken by the paladin and the party by XX%, lasts 5 seconds." This doesn't fit well with Ardent Defender or Divine Guardian, speaking of... Make Divine Guardian a single pointer. I could come up with more, and I am not an expert, Blizzard has tons of experts, and they cant do anything? If we really as a spec don't need anything new, half of my suggestions are making existing talents into one-pointers. Cmon Blizzard...

Twit! My first epic

I'm going to do occasional really short posts, ala twitter. I call them twits! This one doubles as a test for Wowhead integration. My first epic was a Bow of Searing Arrows. On my Paladin, who, cant use bows. I cheered and cried at the same time.

Gear Planning

First, go read (or, like me, have a seizure as the list of links flies by your screen.) That post is the springboard for my post. I want to apologize to Honor, as he is picked on (he doesn't care, no one reads me,) by this post. But he is wrong. You see, gear planning is bad, not good. A gear plan indicates a 'me' state of mind. If you have a plan, and someone asks you to run instance Y, and you don't need that instance for any gear, what do you do? If your a friend, or a good person, or have to, or what-have-you, you run anyway, right? Good, your not a complete douche. However, you see what happened there? I did, you justified. You came up with an excuse that would let you run the instance with friends. Making excuses to hang out with friends? Tisk tisk. You will never see a gear plan here, mostly because I am not sure enough of myself to rank stuff, but more importantly, I run instances for fun, not for the gear. Let me crawl off my high horse, this will only take a second. Hold on, its really high. No, long legs, really. Okay, now that I am down here with the huddled masses, I can say that, obviously, my method is not perfect, especially since I am a tank, the group relies on me having good gear (and a little skill.) So, sometimes, I need to take the lead, tell people what I need to run, and you know what annoys me most? "Oh, I am sorry, Ogre, I don't need anything from that run, get someone else, but I will go if you really need me." I cant count how many times that used to happen in a former life. I would just say to myself "orly? Well, nm then, waste of time," and lo and behold, no gear for me. I know, bad call on who my friends were, so I transferred servers, but still, the point is. Don't do that! Or, at least, don't be a douche when you do. This has been this months segment in "Ogre tells you what to do." Which is a free public service brought to you by my high horse, who is very tall, and needs much feed.

Blogging Achivements

So, blogging. I would like to do it... I would like to like doing it. But, its hard to make a new habit. Achievements from WoW (yes, I know, achievements in gaming is not new, but WoW is my first real experience with it,) are a great motivator for me. So, I am going to set myself some blogging Achievements! I will make little badges on the side of my blog for each one. But, in order for this to keep working, the achievements have to be renewable. So, I am thinking monthly (calender version, folks, lets not get crazy.) I get a check for each month I make the achievement, and an X each time I don't. Ill figure out how to actually DO that later, but for now, I need to come up with the achievements themselves. Here goes... 1) Post 5 times a week. 2) Post once about WoW, DnD, MtG, other gaming, and one other subject. 3) Post something funny! (has to be verified) 4) Post in a new or substantially improved way 5) Post at least 5 times with a picture or some media 6) Post at least 5 "twits!" (does not count towards a post for the day.) Any other ideas?

The problem with Ghostcrawler

Blizzard really seems to be having some problems with Ghostcrawler. Don't get me wrong, during beta, with a smaller player base (11 million as opposed to what, 11 thousand, TOPS?) Ghostcrawler was the man. But now, he is a liability. He is a developer, not a PR guy, so I can forgive him this, but any PR guy will tell you, don't say the wrong thing. And GC says the wrong thing all the time. I'm not talking about tact, I'm not saying he is a 'loose cannon.' All I am saying is, GC screws up a lot. I am going to post here when I see him mess up. Mostly, because it is cathartic. And today, we have a treat, we are going back to the 12th for a doosey! 12/12 -

Explosive Shot -- damage increased substantially (e.g. from 260 to 520 base at rank 4), and additional scaling added to compensate. No longer deals AE damage to other targets. Arcane Shot -- mana cost lowered to the cost of Steady Shot.

This, in a thread he entitled "Mortal shot and explosive shot buffs." (As an aside... Explosive Shot without AoE damage, might as well call it Pop Shot. -eyeroll-) (Source) You can read a much better post (even though its on WoWInsider -shudder-) about this subject from a much better blogger, BRK of BRK (which translates to Big Red Kitty.) The post is here, his blog is here.

On Riding a Bird

I was recently given a great gift, any sort of text describing its greatness would be sorely lacking... It was a biggie... But, I have some things to say, this isn't me trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but, here goes... First, unlike a good, natural horse, birds are like, shy about the fact that people ride them.

No, really shy...

Also, riding a bird is hard on the ass... First, they have this gait that is just so different, a horse has a steady back, parallel with the terrain. Birds bounce.

This action basically compresses each of your vertebrae into an individual pancake.... And don't even get me started on hills...

Unlike good, natural Azerothean mounts, that have two speeds, on, and off, birds go faster down hills... That, with the bounce, and the fact that they hate being ridden, makes any ride down any incline a decent into madness. Birds like high places... but not because they miss being able to fly eons ago... No, Birds are crazy, when they see something they want below, they jump off high places!

I'm still on that bird! I don't know if I'm riding this thing, or it's riding me.... And look, they are carnivores!

It eviscerated this poor bear in one strike! And unlike good carnivores, its not interested in killing for food, its just seems to like killing...

I'm afraid to dismount! I think this bird is going to kill me as soon as I get off.... HALP!